( The new RRRA executive. From left to right: Chris Infantry, Garima Talwar and
Jonathan Dawe )
 
 
The members of Rez United won the Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) election by a landslide, beating out their competitors by a margin of over 500 votes.
 
Garima Talwar, vice president-elect (administration), said she was surprised the margin wasn’t closer, as all teams ran well-organized campaigns.
 
President-elect Chris Infantry said he was “really happy almost 1,200 students came out and voted.”
 
Rez United won almost 70 per cent of the votes, with the highest voter turnout in RRRA history.
 
Chief electoral officer Kimalee Phillip said this year’s election was pretty fair and clean. There was no slandering of opposing candidates, she said.
 
Although there were minor hiccups at the polling station, Phillip said, such as the misspelling of RRRAVOLUTION, such problems were fixed immediately. 
 
Vice president-elect (programming), Jon Dawe, described the election experience as a rollercoaster ride.
“I was nervous, but confident in our team,” he said.
 
Talwar said the new executive team is not going to strive to implement just one goal, but strive to implement them all.
“Everything we outlined [in our campaign], we know we can do,” she said.
 
The team’s plans include expanding the bike share program and shortening line-ups at Oasis by making the grill a meal-plan option.
 
Increasing the amount of money for bursaries available to residence students is another main objective of Rez United.
 
RRRA currently has $2,200 for the 2,800 students who live in residence.
 
“It’s not a lot of money for the amount of students, so we want to increase that by at least 50 per cent,” Infantry said.
 
Rez United also plans to implement a mentorship program in which students could shadow the everyday duties of RRRA or Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) executives.
 
Dawe said this would give students the chance to work alongside leaders in order to create “the future leaders of Carleton and the community.”
 
The new executive team said they want to have many of their campaign promises implemented and ready when new students arrive in September.
 
Taking on the lead role of event planner, Dawe said he is excited to organize events such as Rez Stock and the Mystery Bus.
 
Rez Stock would involve local bands and artists from both the Ottawa and Carleton community playing in Fenn Lounge over a weekend in the fall semester.
 
Mystery Bus entails taking the Greyhound down to a club in Montreal for a night out with fellow residence students, he said.
 
Dawe said he can “hardly wait to get started and work for students to give them what they deserve.”