Category: VP Admin

Tristan Markle 446

Shawn Stewart 306

Stephen McCarthy 280

Mike Kushnir 194

Yian Messoloras 189

Stephanie Ryan 104

J Mac The Keg 44

Aaron Palm 42

Congratulations to Tristan! Looks like the knolligarchy managed to swing it for him. Pretty good voter turnout.

One more note: EA Brendan Piovesan resigned, effective today. Someone else will have to be hired to run the referendum. With this we conclude our elections coverage. Whew.

AND: best quote of the day from a defeated but happy Mike Kushnir: “I can’t get elected, but I can run a fucking beer garden!!”

Candidate analysis, random thoughts, EA deprecation, and who Maayan is voting for all rolled into one glorious post.

Well, voting is now on for the re-vote for the fifth AMS executive position. The VP Administration race was cancelled in mid-campaign two weeks ago. Despite the fact that this cancellation was not allowed by AMS code, and caused confusion and inconvenience, this second round of elections seems to have elicited a better crop of candidates. This race is actually the most competitive, with four strong contenders. I’ve read all the platforms in detail, and I know three of the four serious candidates in varying degrees. Here’s my analysis on each.

Yian Messoloras – Yian ran in the first race, and is the apparent reason it was cancelled (due to bad campaigning), though this was never officially confirmed by EA Brendan Piovesan. Yian doesn’t seem to understand terribly much about the AMS. His answers at Thursday’s debate were a little painful. His main plan is to execute SUB Renew gradually, sutainably, and without increasing student fees at all (of course, that’s what happens in the SUB every year when there’s small-scale renovations). His experience in construction is to help him with this, and he wants student and faculty involvement in the design process itself. He believes consultations to be a waste of money. While Yian has his heart in the right place with his promise not to increase student fees for a new SUB, the extent of unmet need revealed through the SUB renew consultations indicates that pretty large project is what students want. The university, donors, and government are unlikely to give us money if they’re not matching a contribution form students. http://www.blogger.com/www.yianmez.com

Tristan Markle – Tristan has put together a very comprehensive platform – maybe too comprehensive. He’s got plans for just about everything from stopping the underground bus loop (which is already under construction), to sourcing ethical food, to giving clubs anti-oppression training. Tristan is thoughtful and very ambitious about this position. Unfortunately, half of his platform (the half he seems more interested in) isn’t actually the chief concern of the VP Admin portfolio. As an active organizer of Trek Park and last year’s anti-U blvd development petition, Tristan is the most interested in development issues. The internally-focused half of the portfolio isn’t addressed very thoroughly. Though SUB Renew certainly has a link to the plans for U-Square, since the U-Blvd plan revision, Tristan’s assertion that SUB renew makes U-Square irrelevant is pure fantasy. There’s no indication whatsoever that the SUB renew process will cancel other plans for the area. Moreover, it is not remotely within the VP Admin’s power to “stop” the underground bus-loop construction. If you read his platform carefully, you’ll notice repeatedly that Tristan presents things he hopes will be true, or plans to do, as irrevocable fact. This is quite misleading (especially if you don’t know abut this stuff to begin with). The VP Admin this year will have to work fairly closely with Campus and Community Planning, and the UBC administration to make SUB Renew a physical and financial reality. I fear that Tristan’s principled lack of respect for these people will not help him serve students in these interactions. Also, stepping on the VP Academic’s toes constantly about development issues would make the executive team dynamics awkward. Don’t get me wrong, I like alot of Tristan’s ideas (the real-time sustainability counter, rooftop garden, and social justice audit are all great) but I have doubts that he’ll be able to pull of even a fraction of the platform without pissing everyone off. http://www.tristanmarkle.com/

Steve McCarthy – Steve is the UBC debate society president, former residence advisor, and scribbler for our esteemed VFM rival/partner in awesome, The Devil’s Advocate. Incumbent VP Academic Sarah Naiman actually convinced Steve to run – make your own conclusions from that. Steve’s platform is focused and pragmatic, covering the three main categories of the VP Admin portfolio: SUB Renew, SAC & Clubs, and Student Life. He’s on the right track for all of them. His idea for modeling a once a month activities night after Waterloo’s “warrior weekend” is pretty cool. He plans to restructure SAC into less, better-paid positions, and aims to use AMS Link as an administrative tool as opposed to marketing it as a sub-par social networking tool. He wants to make groups that can’t qualify as clubs into “affiliate groups”, who would have booking privileges, to foster better connections with the AMS. Steve isn’t afraid to say “I don’t know” – which will help him, since he has alot to learn. Many of the ideas here are fairly mainstream, and they’re all practical. Focusing on one special project (as opposed to Tristan’s bazillion) is wise. Also, he’s a got a great personality for this job, and is really smart. http://votesteve.blogspot.com/

Shawn Stewart – Shawn was a SAC Commissioner this year, so he’s got the most thorough insight into the workings of the VP Admin portfolio. I don’t know Shawn personally, but I’m impressed by much of his platform, despite the silly organization of his website into vague headers like “community” and “efficiency” (and the fact that you have to download word documents to view the full platform. grr). His plans for SAC reorganization, (specifically the creation of a Student Life commissioner) are detailed and make alot of sense. His discussion of SUB consultations and what will happen if this year’s referendum fails was helpful. He’s got generally good ideas about better consultation and engagement with Residence Life and other campus groups, and wants to create an AMS Frosh program for first years. I don’t get how this differs from AMS Firstweeek, but meh. A good emphasis in Shawn’s platform is the “gateway positions” section. Both students and the organization can benefit hugely from having volunteers work on interesting projects in the events and design departments in the AMS. These types of projects are fun; volunteers that enjoy what they’re doing are some of the most committed and valuable members of a society. AMS Connect was supped to promote volunteerism in the AMS – I don’t’ know how successful it’s been. Anyway, Shawn seems pretty good. My main criticisms are that he annoyingly ends every sentence like he’s asking a question, and he’s ruined the future careers of lots of people in his outrageous “Let them Eat Cake” blog. http://www.stewart4vpadmin.com/

Mike Kushnir – Mike has been involved in ACF and AUS for years. He decided to go serious after his first bid for this position as “scary” Mike “the rabbi”. Mike’s platform is the shortest, and not very comprehensive, but most of the ideas that are there are quite concrete. He doesn’t address the issues of Clubs and SAC at all. Go read it yourself, it’s short. I think Mike comes from a good place, but he’s ambivalent about SUB Renew, which will need immediate and detailed attention right off the bat. I feel like I need to see more here. votemike.wordpress.com

The two non-serious candidates, Aaron Palm and Stephanie Ryan have very different schticks. Aaron quotes fitting bible verses, and Steph spouts off her personal desire for slates to be re-instituted. Weird. I’ll probably vote for Steve McCarthy in this election. He’s pretty awesome, incredibly personable, and I know that he’ll work well with the other executives. Shawn would probably be good too. To me, this race is between them.

Something that’s come up in this race is the realization that the SUB Renew timeline is incredibly short. Choosing one of the thre
e floorplans from Cannon Design to be placed on the referendum ballot through widespread consultation, and then promoting the referendum in about a month is pretty nuts. Maybe a post on SUB Renew is in order. Oh, and Mike and Steve’s posters are way awesome.

Also, EA Brendan Piovesan managed to fuck up again (imagine that). One candidate’s name wasn’t on the electronic ballot for the first 12 hours of voting (see below post). It’s fixed now, but wow. Just wow.

EDIT: This wasn’t actually Brendan’s fault at all. There was some communication problem with the university, which runs the WebVote system

This is a wholesale lifting of Alex Lougheed’s facebook note, in which he notices that Stephen McCarthy isn’t on the ballot.

How to vote in the AMS Special Election

The original can be found here.

Props to Alex for: voting at 1am, having eagle eyes, and also wicked MSPaint skills.

I’ve had a busy couple days with Ubyssey, work, school, and photoshoots, so I haven’t had much of a chance to post photos. Anyway, these are from Thursday’s debates.
The elections start tomorrow: be sure to get the word out and encourage your friends to get informed and get their vote on!

Mike Kushnir is now running seriously. Also, his glasses aren’t real. Mike is torn on a new SUB, because it means that an entire cohort of students will have to go without a SUB, but the current one is clearly inadequate.

Tristan Markle and the Technicolor Pants. Tristan’s got bold plans for a Zero-Energy SUB.

Aaron Palm, of the Devil’s Advocate, is running as a joke candidate. His shtick was to answer all questions by quoting the bible. Also, he wore an awesome suit.

Honestly, I was expecting the President of UBC Debate to be a stronger speaker. Steve definitely hemmed his way through a few questions but when he hit his stride was able to detail a fairly club-focused platform.

I’m not entirely sure why Steph Ryan is running; every answer was prefaced with “DON’T VOTE FOR ME.” and it seemed more like a chance for her to use the debates as a soapbox for personal views than anything else.
PS: slates only bring diversity if you consider tokenism to be diversity.

Yian would stop talking, literally in the middle of a word, whenever I pointed a camera at him. The first time, I thought it was funny; the fourth time, I was (and am) firmly of the mind that this man should not be the VP Admin. Also, I fully admit that I pulled the worst photo of the bunch to include in this post.

For some reason, I don’t have a picture of Shawn at the podium. He quoted his SAC experience and also presented several concrete plans to revitalize the portfolio, enhance club relations and generally springboard off his time in SAC.

Mike Duncan caught me taking a photo of Alex and Lois, and decided to make a face in the background… so I made him the foreground.

the crowd, mid-debate. Note Andrew Forshner not dropping the ball.

Blake Frederick, current AVP Badass.

Nate Crompton asking a question of the candidates.

Riveting. Debate. Action.

Just a quick profile shot of the candidates.

Aaron Palm is not pleased

Kasha Chang moderated the debates. It’s a thankless job.

I sense a rivalry brewing.

Alex Lougheed, checking out his potential co-executives with SUS D.Finance Lois Chan.

The race for the fifth AMS executive position, VP Administration, was cancelled in mid-campaign due to “campaigning irregularities.” While this cancellation was probably contrary to AMS code, and details were never confirmed by Elections Administrator Brendan Piovesan, a new race is soon to launch. And according to the rumor-mill, and the volume of nomination papers being passed around, it looks like this is going to be the most competitive race of the election. As you can see below, numerous serious, high profile contenders have stepped up:

Stephen McCarthy – Steve is the president of the UBC debate society, and the illustrious person behind “Serious Steve” on our colleagues’ blog over at the Devil’s Advocate.

Blake Frederick – Blake was VP Academic (and fellow blogger) Brendon Goodmurphy’s assistant this year, so he has experience working on issues in the executive structure of the AMS. He just got elected to Senate.

Tristan Markle – Tristan is a Science councilor and is also heavily involved in the AMS resource groups. He’s also an editor of the left-wing campus rag, The Knoll.

Mike Kushnir – Mike, who ran as a joke in the first iteration of this race as “Scary ” Mike “the rabbi”, is apparetnly running again as a serious candidate.

Shawn Stewart – Another VFM contestant. The mind behind the persona of “le grand gateau” over at Let Them Eat Cake. Shawn is also a SAC commisioner, so he’s got experience with some aspects of the Admin portfolio.

Patrick Meehan – Arts councilor, and politico.

Yian Messoloras – The apparent reason why the first VP Administration case was cancelled, and has to be run again, Yian wants to build a new SUB without increasing student fees by a penny.

All of the AUS – apparently a raft of AUSers want to run more jokes in this race than the rest of the elections put together. I sincerely hope they don’t. This elections doesn’t have much remaining credibility to lose, but any more jokes and screw-up could just scour whatever’s left away.

As soon as these are official, we’ll have some candidate questionnaires and analysis so that y’alls can make an informed decision.

Why do you want to be the VP Admin of the AMS?
i’m really the only qualified candidate for the job, seeing as howneither of my opponents seem to be either scandal-free or capable ofhandling the intense pressure of the job. the way i see it, the VP-adminposition is more or less like being a First Lady; you have to be thereto welcome foreign dignitaries into your house, and generally be the”face” of the organization. the goal should be to make your constituentsfeel GOOD about being your constituents. i’ll be there to do it – in asea-foam green taffeta dress. (i challenge my opponents to do better).·

What personal skills and experiences could you bring to theportfolio?
i have a direct mandate from god. plus i mix a mean sour apple martini.in addition, having been in a brutal european thought-policedictatorship (france) for the last year, i have a unique view of studentgovernance: namely, more is more. i think that the electorate wouldagree with me that more bureaucracy, indeed, means that life runs smoother.·

If there was one thing you could change about the AMS whatwould it be?
i want to see a more convivial atmosphere in the AMS – one that hasEVERYBODY coming to events, not just student politicians. therefore, ipropose an AMS gulag; if you don’t hit up one beer garden a month, bam!to the gulag! (there will probably be a brewery at the gulag, allowingfor cheap beer at said beer gardens.) basically, the new motto of theAMS will be “have a good time! or else!” certainly, i would change thename of the organization – the AMS should stand for “the Awesome Motherf***ing Society”. long story short, the AMS needs to better defendthe rights of students; make sure that we have what we have struggledfor: a strong voice on campus, the right to responsible drinking andplenty of good times at UBC. (seriously, kids. the fun at this school isgoing down the toilets. pretty soon, we’re gonna be SFU.)·

If you could change the way SAC functions, how would you do it?
seeing as my victory is guaranteed, i’d probably hire sarah naiman as my vice-chair; that way, she does all the dirty work, and i take politicalcredit for what is quickly becoming her personal legacy project: the newSUB! (don’t worry, sarah – i promise to name it the Sarah Naiman SUB!)as for the rest of SAC, i’ll probably fire them all and get yian to dothe rest of the work.·

What’s your vision for a new SUB? How will you get it passed inreferendum?
it’s well-outlined in my platform that a 24-hour disco with aroller-derby is in the works for the SUB. this plan reeks of so much AWESOME that it’s impossible that it would fail. in any case, unlike oneof my opponents, who may or may not have been inspired by the partiquébécois policy of demanding failing referenda ad-nauseum, i’llprobably hire some goon to stuff the ballot boxes so that i get a 99.5%”YES” vote. like in cuba. (honestly, though: i’m all for renovating theSUB and making gradual additions to it, but do we really NEED abrand-new SUB? at the going rate of about $60 per head, i’m going to say”no”. with the exception of queues during peak periods, which areinevitable anywhere, i think that the damn thing works pretty well as-is.)·

There’s an AMS sustainability strategy currently in the works. What’s your vision for sustainability at the AMS?
i propose banning all disposable cups and/or food containers, to getstudents to bring their own. for those who feel that raping theenvironment is just too tempting, however, i propose an alternative:either buying a crapload of those fantastic re-usable plastic beer mugsand branded plastic containers and selling them for $1 each, or servingstudents in edible waffle cups in one of three tempting flavours:vanilla, chocolate and pumpernickel. not only does this provide nowaste, but it also lets you say “…and then i ate the cup!”

What personal skills and experiences could you bring to the portfolio?

I have done the position before! With a new General Manager and the upcoming SUB Renewal Referendum, it is essential to have at least one of the VPs return to provide the continuity. For the SUB referendum to be a success and the consultation process to continue in this transparent manner, we need a VP Administration who is aware of the history and the present situation.

Over my past year as VP Admin, I have learned a lot and I have accomplished a lot. In my first month as an Exec, I ran the YouBC Video Contest. After that, I started the annual All Presidents’ Dinner which was a first of its kind event that brought together student executives from all areas of the university, not just the AMS. I also sat on the Aquatic Center Management Committee (ACMC) to present and advocate for the student petition against closing the free gym then, recently, I used that committee to get AMS clubs who consistently use the Aquatic Center a discount equal to the Athletic Teams which saved those clubs thousands of dollars a year. Beside that, with the help of Brittany Tyson, I renovated the Pit and brought in AMS Link, the first step to streamlining the bureaucratic processes for clubs. Furthermore, in conjunction with the Debating Society, one of our clubs, I ran the Dean’s Debate which brought together the dean of Commerce, Arts and Pharmacy to debate the strength of their respective programs.

All in all, I feel that I have done a lot this past year and still have a lot more to do. My primary goal for next year is to continue with SUB Renewal and ensure a successful referendum where students receive a building that meets their needs for the next 40 years. As well, I will continue with University negotiations to ensure that both the University and the province contribute to this building project.

If you could change the way SAC functions, how would you do it?
I think that SAC needs to have less people who work more hours. Right now, each individual Commissioner has their own, very specialized job on SAC so if, for example, there is a question by a Club Exec about bookings, that Club Exec will be referred to the Bookings Commissioner. In my opinion, this is not good customer service. If we reduce the amount of Commissioners and pay our employees better, we can expect more from them. Until we do that, SAC is essentially a group of volunteers that we ask way too much from. I have been lucky to have a great group of Commissioners and a very strong Vice-Chair. If I didn’t have strong individuals, SAC would not be able to work the way it does. By increasing the pay and hours and reducing the people, SAC can function more productively and effectively to meet the many needs of our clubs. As well, as AMSLink continues to develop, that will continue to help reduce some of the administrative strain put on the commissioners so they can focus on more rewarding tasks such as a second Clubs Days.

Yian is a VP Admin Candidate.

Why do you want to be the VP Admin of the AMS?
My experience is the driving force behind my decision to run for this position because I feel confident that I possess all the skills and knowledge necessary to manage and supervise the renovations and possible additions that will be made to the SUB in order to GET IT DONE and STOP WASTING MONEY.

What personal skills and experiences could you bring to the portfolio?
Thanks to my background in construction and my experience with project management and design garnered through complete home restorations and many summers working in and later directing construction, I possess the essential elements required to lead the SUB Renew project in the most efficient and responsible manner.

If there was one thing you could change about the AMS what would it be?
GET IT DONE and STOP WASTING MONEY.

If you could change the way SAC functions, how would you do it?
The Chair and executive should be more acountable. [SAC doesn’t have an executive, the VP admin chairs SAC -Ed]

What’s your vision for a new SUB? How will you get it passed in referendum?
Sustainability and efficient growth without over-stretching the budget or increasing student fees is one of my foremost concerns. We realize how important the environment is and this is finally an opportunity to make a substantial difference – I think most other students see things the same way, they just need to have someone in office that they can finally trust. People often make promises to get elected, but their only interest is in themselves. I actually give a $@!# about what happens and how things are done which I think will help me to see eye to eye with other students and present something that everyone will be ready to agree upon.

There’s an AMS sustainability strategy currently in the works. What’s your vision for sustainability at the AMS?
My primary objective is that the eventual product of SUB Renew will be a model of sustainability for the rest of the campus while simultaneously remaining an economically efficient hub of student life. More and better varieties of food and service providers as well as a substantially simpler, more accessible, and comprehensive waste and recycling management program will serve as an initial stepping stone to a better and more sustainable SUB.