Having already proven his determination and acumen in dealing with the Yale administration, Joey Yagoda ’14 has plans for major initiatives next year. He has proposed that the University provide meals during Camp Yale and fall break, and he wants to negotiate discounts for Yalies at local restaurants. He’s rightly criticized some of this year’s 10K initiative spending as wasteful. He recognizes that buying squash racquets is not an expense that serves all students, and he has concrete plans about how to maximize every YCC dollar.

Yagoda has done his research, and his ideas, with the overarching goal of strengthening the treasury’s position while maximizing the YCC’s potential to improve student life, have earned him our support.

To be sure, Nathan Kohrman ’15 is an impressive candidate. He has experience on both the Freshman Class Council and the YCC. Like Yagoda, Kohrman wants to allocate the YCC’s money more efficiently by finding policies that make the biggest impact on student life. He has good ideas like expanding the summer storage options and making the YCC budget more readable.

But we have concerns about Kohrman’s proposal for a printing quota system, which ducks the problem of paying for printing. By deliberately not jumping on the bandwagon, Yagoda has shown he knows there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

In his experience on the YCC, Yagoda has already left a mark on Yale. As chair of the Gender Neutral Housing Committee, he wrote a report that led to the extension of gender-neutral housing to juniors, one of the YCC’s greatest achievements this year. As chair of the Sophomore Seminar Committee, he spearheaded the effort that led to the creation of sophomore seminars in political science and history.

We anticipate that Yagoda will take both those accomplishments and his mentality of spending money efficiently with him to the treasurer’s office. He knows that sometimes the treasurer has to turn a deal down so he can say yes to a better idea later. Kohrman has proven his interest in student government, but Yagoda has more promise as a diligent and innovative treasurer.