AMS Council met over Zoom on Wednesday night to discuss potential referendum questions for its upcoming elections and the results of its unsuccessful campaign to elect students to the University Neighbourhood Association’s (UNA) board in November.
Here’s what you might have missed.
Councillors weigh in on potential referenda for upcoming election
President Cole Evans asked for councillor feedback on a draft set of referendum questions. Many of the proposed referendum questions regarded fee increases.
One of the proposed fee increases would be for the Sexual Assault Support Centre. The current SASC fee sits at $9.58, but the potential referendum question suggested a raise of the fee to between $18 and $20, or to $15 with subsequent $2 annual increases. Both fee structures would be pegged to inflation.
Student senator Julia Burnham and Board of Governors representative Max Holmes, both past AMS executives, expressed worries about the possibility of such a referendum passing, due to the large fee increase and the limited time to promote this referendum.
“Obviously, I want to increase the SASC fee. But I don't even have enough information as a councillor right now to be able to understand why it's necessary. And I wouldn't expect any random student to understand that either,” Burnham said. Councillors agreed that they were interested in raising SASC’s fee if it’s needed, but would need more details at the next meeting.
Another of the proposed changes would be an option to add virtual healthcare and legal protection to the AMS/GSS student health and dental plan for a separate fee of around $30 to $40. Following discussion, Evans indicated that the society might not move forward with this question, due to councillor interest in the SASC referendum.
In addition, Evans put forward a plan to decrease the capital projects, clubs benefit, childcare bursary and climate action fees while also increasing the AMS membership fee.
None of these referendum questions have been finalized.
The AMS is also intending to pose a referendum on by-law changes to bring its code in line with recent amendments to the BC Societies Act.
Post-mortem of UNA elections campaign
Council called on VP External Saad Shoaib to issue a report on the AMS’s campaign around last fall’s University Neighbourhoods Association board election.
The AMS spent $7,000 on a campaign to elect students to the Board, but none of the student candidates managed to snag a seat. Students currently have no voting representation on the Board — only Shoaib serves as a non-voting AMS representative. The AMS had previously had a voting seat on the board but gave it up in mediation with the UNA in 2020.
Shoaib said that the campaign wasn’t “completely unsuccessful” as the campaign allowed for student concerns on sustainability, housing affordability and the SkyTrain to UBC project to be brought up in debates. Shoaib also highlighted that the AMS raised awareness of the UNA to students, saying “students were interacting with our posts informing them, number one, what the UNA is, how it affects them.”
Holmes expressed concern that this campaign may have increased tensions with the UNA and may not have been the best use of AMS funds.
Shoaib was asked to write a report on the campaign outlining how their budget was spent, the hours different staff members spent on the campaign, lessons learned and “a list detailing which campaign materials were not used in the campaign.”