The Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) executive team had a long list of campaign promises during last year’s elections. With one semester down and one to go, the Charlatan updates you on their progress.
PROMISE: RRRA executives said they would get rid of the free tuition/housing they receive and put that money back into the student association.
YES: Kaisha Thompson, RRRA president and Chief Financial Officer, initially promised to cut $13,000 to put towards the student association. Instead, they managed to cut approximately $28 500, according to Thompson.
“We didn’t factor in the fact that there was an international student, so we ended up actually cutting close to $30,000,” Thompson said.
PROMISE: Thompson wanted to make an opt-out option for telephone lines in dorm rooms by discussing the issue with housing services.
NO: Thompson said the RRRA executives spoke to housing services back in May 2011 about the phone lines.
Housing isn’t “willing” to cut phone lines because of pre-existing contracts with the phone company, according to Thompson. Housing also receives an income from these telephone services to continue providing services, she said.
“It doesn’t look like housing is going to cave on it, which is disappointing,” Thompson said. “But our goal and our election promise was to advocate for [the opt-out option], and I feel we have fulfilled our goal in advocating as hard as we can for that possibility.”
Omar Bainto, vice-president (administration), and Dorothy Anuseh, vice-president (programming), started an online petition in November 2011 to raise awareness about the issue.
“[RRRA] anticipated that it would be a difficult task to achieve the goal of an opt-out option . . . as soon as we took office back in May,” Bainto said. “We worked all summer and into the academic year to push the administration in hopes that they would budge.”
PROMISE: The RRRA executives initially promised to try and make the residence convenience store, Abstentions, available to students 24 hours a day.
NO: RRRA did look into keeping Abstentions open 24 hours but finally decided that it wasn’t going to be “cost beneficial,” Thompson said.
Instead of making Abstentions open 24 hours, RRRA is now making sure the store is more “prompt.”
“When we say that we’re opening at seven and closing at three, you can count on us, and that was something that last year you couldn’t do,” Thompson said.
“Although it’s not open 24 hours, it has fulfilled our promise for Abstentions to be dependable.”
PROMISE: Thompson planned on passing RRRA’s budget earlier than previous financial executives.
YES: The budget will be passed during their first meeting of the midterm. That’s the traditional time to pass it before making final projections, Thompson said.
She will be passing RRRA’s budget two months earlier than last year’s executive did, she said.
