By Jessica Wind (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: June 5, 2013
Anyone who follows SUS politics is well aware that they’ve called their lawyers unexpectedly more than once in the last year.
The first came during the break between the fall and winter semesters when the campus pub was issued a cease and desist for the name Aftermath Socialhouse. The issue arose from the word Socialhouse, which was shared with another local liquor establishment. All branding bearing the name was removed, and SUS began the process of legally copywriting the name Aftermath.
The next call to the lawyers came during election season when policies and procedures were called into question at the ratification meeting. It was halted due to an accusation that presidential candidate Chris Doyle was wrongly removed from the ballot. SUS consulted lawyers over the matter when another student threatened to sue SUS for violating the BC Societies Act, which they are legally bound to uphold. SUS was never taken to court, but still paid to have a lawyer confirm policies were upheld and regulations were followed.
SUS president Shane Potter explained legal fees added up over the last year, but no single incident was to blame and the cost of these unexpected situations was not enough to put the SUS budget in jeopardy.
“Essentially it is over budget, but it wasn’t one instance that really put us over budget. It was mostly the building,” Potter explained.
He referred to the costs incurred from drawing up the legal documents between contractors, the university and the bank to break ground on the infamous Student Union Building.
The result has found SUS spending over $40,000 from their 2012/2013 budget, something that wasn’t necessarily accounted for.
“When the budget was made last year, the understanding of how much it actually costs to do up multiple contracts was not exactly clear,” he said. “I think we expected that they’d be a little more spread out than they were, but because of delays here and there with the building, we really fast-tracked everything through.”
Potter confirmed that approximately $34,000 was spent on lawyers to draw up contracts, agreements, motions and other necessary documents to see the building come to life. Other than that, he explained, they were within what they had budgeted for.
“The only thing where we went over budget on, and that was just because essentially this year was the year that we signed all the contracts and dotted all the is, was for the building. That was the major cost,” he said. “But it wasn’t anything we couldn’t absorb.”
Potter assured that although the fees were higher than expected, they were vital to the building being approved and ground being broken this August.
“Any time we enter in an agreement with a bank, with the school, with any sort of party that’s outside our own, any time we do anything where we have to have a long term agreement with any entity that is not ourselves, we need a lawyer,” he explained. “If you’re plopping a $15 million building in the ground, you want to make sure that you have everything legally in order.”
