During BCIT’s student council latest meeting at the Burnaby campus on October 5th, the winner of the by-elections was announced to council.
Jessica Graham has been elected as the new VP of Finance and Administration with a total of 275 of 500 votes. The process of the by-election was officially ratified during council.
“It was a clean process” VP of Student Affairs Heyden Vargas stated, “there were no complaints to the election committee in this campaign.”
Graham ran against four other students in the election.
Councillors Forum
It was asked by council if there would be an online service to indicate if computer labs providing necessary software have already been booked for lectures or labs. This would save time rather than physically having to go to the location to verify availability. BCITSA President Dylan Smith agreed with the idea and said the issue will be looked into.
Polls for the 2015 federal election at Burnaby campus were considered to be “underwhelming” due to the low attendance of voters according to Community Relations Officer Matt May of Elections Canada.
The polls on Burnaby campus are part of a pilot project conducted by Elections Canada to increase voter turnout. Students are permissible to vote for their home riding if they provide proper identification and proof of residence. The polls will be open at BCIT until Thursday from 9:00am to 9:00pm.
The issue of not being able to opt out of U-Passes was also brought into question.
“There is no opt out, that’s just the way the contract is for schools across BC. There’s only a select few [who want to opt out], a lot of people in trades, they have cars and have to drive for their work, so, you know the U-Pass might not work for them, but for a lot of other students it does work,” said VP of External Shubhi Singh.
Singh explained the U-Pass is wanted by the majority of students and may eventually be incorporated into part-time student fees.
“It’s one of those things where it’s not easy to make a change because there has to be a renegotiation of the contract,” President Smith added.
In January there will be a referendum held on the U-Pass as TransLink plans to raise the fees by $1.50 in the next year, and another $1.50 in 2016 amounting to a $3 dollar increase.
Announcements
The main announcement in the progress report was the confirmation of the BCIT LAN Party. The event will be held on October 20th at 5:30pm at building SE 12 on Burnaby campus.
The next meeting will be on October 19th at 5:30pm. The location of the meeting is yet to be determined.