By Glen Ess (The Cascade) – Email
Election season is almost upon us — the time of the year when UFV students are asked to vote on their next executives, directors, and representatives for the Student Union Society (SUS).
One adjustment this year for SUS’s executives was the mid-semester resignation of VP internal Ricky Coppola.
As this is only the second year since SUS re-organized its executive board to have three elected executives and five hired officers, there is no precedent or established protocol for when one of those three resign from their position. The VP internal handles the society’s finances, in addition to other management responsibilities.
Previously structured around six executives, Davies noticed that the past structure had seen “at least one executive” resign during their term of office, and he noted that the switch to a three-person executive board would be more “conducive to sticking around.”
After Coppola’s resignation, SUS decided not to hold a by-election to fill the position, as required by its elections policy. This decision was made because the by-election would have overlapped with the long process of SUS’s general election — the nomination period opens on January 18. As a result, the VP-internal position will be left vacant until the results from the general election come in.
In the interim, the VP-internal portfolio fell to Davies, who split the workload of the VP-internal position among himself, VP-external Sukhi Brar, and the board of directors (student positions from the different faculties that will also be up for election during SUS’s general election), as well as clubs and associations officer Sunny Kim and finance officer Anan Islam — the two officers whose work fell within the VP-internal portfolio. “The duties officially get transfered to me, but the board [of directors] empower me to delegate them as I see fit,” Davies says.
This interim solution has allowed SUS’s operations to continue without hiring another student staff member to fill the position on a temporary basis, while also removing the need to run a by-election, the results of which would be over-written by the general election. Until the spring, SUS then will operate with two out of three executive positions filled.
The annual SUS general election opens March 7, with voting closing March 10.
