When Undergraduate Council member David V. Bonfili '96 saw a fellow member leaving before the main act of the Machinery Hall concert last week, he tried to get his colleague to stay by appealing to council loyalty.

"You're on the U.C. and this is a U.C. event,' I told him," Bonfili says. "'Don't you feel some sort of institutional commitment to stay at the concert and support the the council?'

The delegate said he had come to see one of his friends play in the band, Bonfili says.

"'No,' the council member said, according to Bonfili. "'I'm a senior. I don't feel any commitment to the U.C. I came to hear a friend play. Now I'm leaving.'"

The next day, at the council's weekly meeting, Bonfili criticized council members for not making the Machinery Hall concert "as much a success as it could have been."

"Those of you who don't have a serious commitment to the U.C. should make room for people who do," Bonfili said he told the council.

Bonfili expressed what many other active members say they are thinking these days--that a significant amount of the council's work is done by a minority of the body. Concerts, free shuttle buses and trips are the efforts of a few, committed representatives with little help from the majority of other council members.

"[Dead weight['s a problem because there are a lot of people who don't do anything," says Hassen A. Sayeed '96, chair of the student affairs committee.

Although some members say that a representative's contributions can't be measured by number of resolutions or speeches on the floor, others are proposing measures such as moving the election time and reorganizing the committee system in order to drop the coun- cil's "dead weight" members.

Measuring the Problem

Council President Carey W. Gabay '94 alsodiagnoses the council with a deadweight problemand says that there are "some people who don'tparticipate in it."

The council is "operating at something like 60percent of its full capacity," Gabay says.

Rudd W. Coffey '97, vice chair of the council'scampus life committee, estimates that in hiscommittee, "about 25 percent of the people do 90percent of the work."

"Probably about 20 percent don't do all toomuch," Coffey adds.

There were approximately 80 sponsors for the 40resolutions that have made it to the docket thisyear, according to figures provided by PressSecretary Jonathan P. Feeney '97.

Most resolutions are sponsored by two councilmembers, but only 26 individuals were among these80 co-sponsorships.