By David Dyck
All referendum questions pass, including SUB levy
Last week, voting in the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) general election took place, culminating in the announcement of the winners for board positions, as well as referendum results. Lorenz Yeung, current member services officer, beat out Ashleigh Kolla and Kayode Fatoba for the position of president. As well, all four referendum questions were passed. “I am excited to be the new SFSS president. I know that I won’t let students down,” Lorenz told The Peak early Friday morning. Lorenz began his SFSS career as the science faculty representative in 2010. He then ran for and won the position of member services officer last year.
Tensions rose throughout Thursday night, as hopeful candidates convened in the Highland Pub several hours before midnight, when the voting period officially ended. The pub then emptied down to the SFSS offices, where the chief of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Ali Godson, read out the results to a rowdy group of approximately 50 candidates and spectators.
According to the preliminary results, which have yet to be ratified by the board of directors, there was an 11 per cent voter turnout, an unusually middle-of-the-road participation rate for a general election. The past several years have seen either between five and seven per cent, or in the case of a particularly contentious issue such as a U-Pass referendum, as high as 26 per cent.
The referendum results were announced first, with by far the closest race being the fourth question, regarding the student levy to go towards a proposed student union building. There were 1,193 votes in favour, and 1,003 against, a difference of 190 votes. “It’s the best thing that has ever happened at SFU. It will totally change the student experience,” McCann told The Peak after the announcement. “There’s still so much more to be done in terms of talking to students and consultation, but now we have a mandate and we have the money, so let’s talk about what students want to talk about.”
All current board members who threw their hats into the ring were victorious, with Kevin Zhang, current external relations officer, winning the position of treasurer, and Jeff McCann, current president, winning the university relations officer spot.
Of the Renew SFU slate, only Craig Pavelich won an executive race, taking the internal relations officer position without contest. However, there are questions as to his eligibility to hold the office. According to policy, former SFSS staff members are not allowed to hold a position on board until four months after they’ve left the staff position. For Pavelich, this will be several days after April 1, when the new board will move in.
Most of the faculty representative candidates ran unopposed, and of those only one lost — by one vote. Business faculty representative candidate Norah Xiao lost with 70 ‘yes’ votes and 71 ‘no’ votes. Alastair Lindsay took the contested science representative position, with 117 votes.
