The Carleton University Student’s Association (CUSA) held their first official meeting on May 24 with the new council for the 2016-17 academic year.
The council voted on the contract renewals of the council chair and council clerk positions and elected team members for designated committees.
Councillors made many inquiries on the processes of the council meetings and roles of committees, saying unpreparedness resulted in a five-hour meeting that left them exhausted.
“A lot of this stuff could have been handled in training ahead of time,” said Ruth Lau MacDonald, arts and social sciences councillor.
Frustrations among councillors grew when it was discovered that the executive compensation committee had not been included in the original schedule of the meeting, but needed to be covered regardless.
CUSA vice-president (internal) Lauren Konarowski apologized for the mistake. She motioned to table this vote until the following council meeting because there had been no public notice, saying she felt uncomfortable voting on it under those circumstances.
Engineering and design councillor Julia Dalphy agreed, and said tabling it would allow “a better report,” and “more time and energy [put] by people who want to be on this committee.”
However, CUSA president Fahd Alhattab told council that tabling the motion to vote on the committee would be breaking a bylaw because their first report is due June 15, sooner than the next expected CUSA council meeting.
Other councillors felt putting off the executive compensation election until next meeting would be causing too many delays.
“We’re backlogging it. We’ll get stuck in the same little loop as we are right now, where people don’t know what they’re talking about and we’re having all of these discussions but not getting things done,” Lau MacDonald said.
In a vote of 23 for, zero against, it was decided this action would be tabled until the next meeting.
Council did complete votes to renew the contracts of council chair and council clerk positions during the meeting.
Shawn Humphrey was re-appointed as council chair, after a 40 minute debate on the ethics of his contract renewal. Prior to the vote, there was debate on surrounding whether or not Humphrey’s position as CUSA chair should be subject to a hiring process open to students.
Julia Parsons, public affairs councillor, mentioned that many students were advocating for more job opportunities with CUSA this past school year, and this possible motion would make the hiring process fair.
Alhattab said a full hiring process would use more than $1,000 in resources, while re-instating Humphrey would be a seamless transition.
Many councillors said they felt that Brandon Burrill could improve in his role as CUSA clerk, however, there was much debate on the expectations of Burrill due to an apparently inconsistent understanding among councillors of his role.
Lau MacDonald asked CUSA executives why they were not supplied copies of Humphrey’s and Burrill’s contracts to review before the vote, to better inform council on the official roles.
Burrill’s contract was voted to be extended until August 2016, when council will review the motion to elect the council clerk for the year of 2016-2017.
The CUSA Inc. meeting, which was scheduled to occur after the council meeting, was postponed until future notice because of the delays.
