By Nick Ubels (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: October 17, 2012
Former VP east Shane Potter has been appointed interim SUS president, besting two opponents to secure the position left vacant by Carlos Vidal.
Potter will be taking over the position immediately.
The SUS board of directors made the decision through a series of secret ballots at last Friday’s regular, biweekly meeting.
VP social Chris Doyle and representative-at-large Ryan Petersen also accepted nominations.
The first vote by secret ballot resulted in a tie between Doyle and Potter, with one abstention. As meeting chair, outgoing president Carlos Vidal declined to cast the deciding vote.
“I’m not in a position where I can make this decision myself,” Vidal said.
Aboriginal students representative Ahmed Hussein asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.
“So what do we do, guys?” he said.
The board debated tabling the decision for one week, which would have given the position to VP internal Greg Stickland until a decision could be reached. Stickland had earlier declined a nomination by Petersen.
AfterMath manager Brad Ross suggested that waiting one week could result in a dividing campaign between the two front-runners.
“You talk about how you want to keep this board working together,” said Ross. “You’ve just had a tie and you’re now going to give these guys seven days to openly campaign and separate this board, potentially?”
The board ultimately decided to hold a runoff vote with only Doyle and Potter on the ballot. After the second round of voting, Potter was declared the winner.
Potter humbly accepted the position.
“If it was Chris, Ryan or myself, we would have all done a great job,” said Potter. “I have a lot of respect for Chris and it was really down the middle.”
Vidal congratulated Potter and expressed his admiration for all the candidates before giving an emotional goodbye speech and moving to ratify the results.
“I respect all of you,” he said. “I know we don’t always agree on everything, but I respect all of your opinions and I’m thankful for the things we’ve been able to accomplish together.”
VP finance Sam Broadfoot suggested keeping Vidal on as chair for the remainder of the meeting, an idea that was warmly accepted by the board.
Now that Vidal’s shoes have been filled, the search turns to finding a new VP east – the position Potter will leave vacant.
The SUS board of directors may take up to one month to decide on a suitable replacement for the position of VP east at one of their regular meetings.
Except for the office of president, interim executive positions can only be filled by non-executive SUS representatives, significantly narrowing the pool of replacement candidates.
SUS by-election results will be ratified at the October 26 meeting, which means that the newly-elected representatives will also have the opportunity to be appointed to the vacant position.
Updated October 17.
Carlos Vidal’s complete farewell speech
“I just want to say thanks. I’ve had a great time working with all of you. It’s difficult. I didn’t realize how connected I was to this position and this school until I broke down at the board of governors meeting as well, presenting to the executives there.
I respect all of you. I know we don’t always agree on everything, but I respect all of your opinions and I’m thankful for the things we’ve been able to accomplish together.
I respect Shane. I know that Shane will do a great job, continuing to lead the SUS as your interim president. And I fully support him and I want to express that and the decision has been made. And I am grateful to those other candidates who have stepped up, I respect you as well.
Continue to work with UFV. See them as a partner. We may not always agree as well with everything that UFV’s doing, but if we continue to work with them as a partner, SUS and UFV will continue to make great things happen.
Thank you, guys. I appreciate everything you’ve done. I love this school and I’ll always remember my experience here. With that we move on to vote on this motion.”
