The University of Guelph’s Central Student Association (CSA) held their first official board meeting of the winter semester, on Jan. 13, 2016. With the arrival of a new semester came the notable absence of certain student groups and their representatives from the board of directors. However, those directors who were present engaged in a productive and ultimately fruitful meeting.
Before external chair Joshua Ofori-Darko officially called the meeting to order, members of the CSA executive committee briefly discussed the CSA’s Annual General Meeting, scheduled for Jan. 20, 2016. Once AGM details were discussed and finalized, Ofori-Darko called the meeting to order.
While discussing adopting the evening’s agenda, communications and corporate affairs commissioner Sonia Chwalek suggested amending the agenda to account for the need to go in-camera to accept the in-camera minutes from previous meetings. As per the official agenda of the evening, the board would have voted to approve the out-of-camera minutes from the previous meeting, before later going in-camera. The board approved the amendment.
At-large College of Arts representative Zoey Ross proposed amending the agenda to include item “Executive Decision Committee Report” under new business. Though there was some concern regarding the addition’s urgency, Ross successfully motivated the board to include the item under new business.
The board then approved the evening’s agenda, officially beginning the meeting. Brief words from Ofori-Darko welcoming the board back from the New Year set the meeting in motion. As per Chwalek’s amendment to the agenda, the board briefly moved in-camera to vote on accepting the in-camera minutes from previous meetings.
While the board discussed approving the minutes from previous executive committee meetings, College of Arts representative Ross raised a question regarding the executive discretionary line.
“The executive discretionary fund, from my understanding, historically, is decided from previous years,” explained Chwalek. “The incoming executive don’t really have any say on the budget. The fund is to give the new [executives] some money to play with in case they come in with any ideas that the budget cannot accommodate.”
Executive commissioner reports soon followed, in addition to a brief report from policy and transition (PTM) manager Sarah Cooper. In addition to human resources and operations commissioner Matthew Campbell, external affairs commissioner Asia Barclay was also absent from the meeting. Therefore, both commissioners did not deliver reports.
During local affairs commissioner Scarlett Racyzcki’s report, certain board members were drawn to Racyzcki’s work on wording the referendum question on the Guelph Transit bus pass contract. Student Senate Caucus Senator Graeme Laberge raised a question regarding Guelph Transit’s service to certain parts of the city. Racyzcki explained that she was working on negotiating terms that would be agreeable for all students of the university.
“We’ve entered a new negotiation and need to go to referendum to see bus pass increases,” explained Racyzcki.
As Racyzcki explained—and would also later explain while the board discussed accepting the bus pass referendum question—the price of the student bus pass is set to increase by approximately $50 over the course of five years. The referendum question is concerned with asking whether students of the University of Guelph accept this incremental price increase.
“[The student bus pass] is actually way, way, way, below the affordable bus pass,” explained Racyzcki. “We’ll see if students approve of the fee schedule.”
College of Arts at-large representative Sonali Menezes suggested that directors passionate about Guelph Transit could visit with Racyzcki during office hours to further discuss the issue.
As the board concluded discussing executive reports, College of Arts representative Ross suggested that commissioners include a line in their next reports highlighting the work they have appropriated during human resource and operations commissioner Matthew Campbell’s absence.
During the policy bylaw and review committee’s (PBRC) report, PTM Cooper explained that the committee had begun discussing the motions deferred to the group on Oct. 6, 2015. These motions regarded the temporary absence of human resource commissioner Campbell.
Following discussion regarding the PBRC committee report, Chwalek briefly summarized the ad-hoc complaint resolution and Grievance Committee’s first report.
“I think that people are excited to come to the table and talk about this longstanding issue,” explained Chwalek, in reference to the committee’s mandate to examine the CSA’s existing grievance policies. “It was raised that there are larger issue at play. We’re anticipating the fact that there will be topics that come up related to this committee.”
Important to note were two action items that required a two-thirds majority vote for approval. The first was an item pertaining to amending the CSA’s by-election policy to reflect the audition process that was introduced during the Sept. 23, 2015 board meeting. The second was an action item pertaining to a PBRC policy change, suggesting that CSA members could be ratified into the committee so long as they attended a minimum of two meetings. Both action items passed with a two-thirds majority.
Additionally, the CSA approved the Guelph Transit referendum question.
Though two in-camera items were present under new business, the first official meeting of the winter 2016 semester ended abruptly, due to the departure of a board member while in-camera.