UPEISU Council Recap: Storm Closures, Impeachments, And The Newly-Elect
By Alex Johnston
( Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars Sunday night, whose wide array of facial expressions matched the various moods at the Council meeting that same evening. ) Sunday night's meeting of the UPEI Student Union Council warmed up with the fate of laptop/cellphone usage. A blackout test period was in place, intent on weeding out distractions among those present; however, some councillors believe these means of communication to be a necessary evil in keeping council meetings well-oiled. The decision reached was to return electronic devices to Council, though it is “strongly recommended” that they be used only as absolutely needed. The next item on the docket was storm closures – still a sore topic for some. Not deaf to the arguments and strongly-worded letters provided by students dissatisfied with the handling of closure announcements, President Kate VanGerven assured that new procedures are in motion. In future, delays are much more likely to be announced following the draft of more “specific” guidelines. Grumblings have arisen on campus after the release of a rather barren summer course schedule. The courses offered are dependent on both professors present and money available, and students are reminded that certain courses may not be online yet. On an international note, Board of Governors Rep. Nicole Lane reported that, following his recent trip to Egypt with Premier Robert Ghiz, UPEI President Alaa Abd-El-Aziz has thrown the idea out there to build a school in the country and have it staffed with graduates of UPEI’s Education program. Moving onto to the recent UPEISU Elections, the unofficial results from earlier this month were formally approved. In the same vein, forces are in motion to change the election by-laws with regards to fees. As it reads now, if an election candidate accumulates more than $250 by the Chief Returning Officer, they’re out of the race. Council would like to fine only up to an amount of $100, but the CRO would keep track of the numbers and hand out disqualifications should the former threshold of$250 be reached. The 2012-2013 Council has been plump with impeachments, and a third was voted on at Sunday's meeting, with Residence Rep. Logan MacKinnon narrowly avoiding a motion by four votes. MacKinnon had been put up for impeachment at the Council's previous meeting by Rep. Shelby Russell, who cited a lack of communication with RA’s and RLA’s MacKinnon also has a history of non-attendance. In his defence, the Residence Representative offered financial and family-related issues, as well as conflict between meeting times and employment for which he applied before his election as a councillor. MacKinnon further stated that he was “too busy” to file reports to Council. The result of the secret ballot vote was 8 – impeach, 12 – not impeached, and 5 – abstain. The majority of Sunday's four hour long meeting concerned debate over the summer hours of Rep. Travis Gordon, Executive Vice President-elect. A full-time summer working period had been previously purposed, aimed at devoting sufficient time to the preparation of a lobby document to Provincial and Federal governments. The decisions outlined above all factor into how much work goes into the project and how much money SU will input – especially in the case of hiring a consultant, which could cost upwards of $10,000. Council voted to hire Gordon full-time for the summer months on the condition that student fees do not increase. The animal of the week, presented by AVC Rep. Donald Buchanan, was the little brown bat. Also heard in Council: “No more dick jokes.”