The Silhouette Coverage of the SRA Closed Session

CARLI WHITWELL
NEWS EDITOR

At Sunday’s Student Representative Assembly meeting, after the first executive session, Moonsammy’s motion was divided into two.
The first motion that the SRA recognize the McMaster Student Union Board of Directors’ decision to terminate the editor as a violation of operating policy 1/K was voted upon in open session. The second part of the motion that the SRA reinstate Jaic as Executive Editor of the Silhouette, was moved into closed session.

Though the decision regarding Jaic’s fate with the MSU remained unknown to the public after Sunday’s meeting, an SRA member, who requested to remain anonymous, came forward to the Silhouette to inform students what happened during the second executive session.
The source said that the motive for moving into executive session was the same as Drew Mitchell and John McGowan stated previously, so discussion could centre on Jaic’s employment issues.

The SRA member said that during the executive session there was no new information provided to the SRA by the Board of Directors.
The informant said that the SRA voted on the issue of directing the BOD to reinstate Jaic to his former position of Executive Editor of The Silhouette. The motion passed to direct the BOD to rehire Jaic.

Immediately following this, a motion to reconsider was brought forward with the intent to bring undisclosed information to the attention of the SRA.
However, Robert’s Rules of Order states, “the purpose of reconsidering a vote is to permit the correction of hasty, ill-advised, or erroneous action, or to take into account added information or a changed situation that has developed since the taking of the vote.”

Additionally, a motion to reconsider “can be made only by a member who voted with the prevailing side.” Robert’s Rules of Order further specifies. The informant added that with the exception of the following question, no new information was brought forward: Mr. Jaic was asked if he would accept being terminated if he were to be fired “with cause.” Jaic advised that due to the vague nature of the question he could not respond.

Then, the informant said, in place of any new information, the BOD pleaded with the SRA to trust their judgment of the matter and to ignore the wishes of their respective constituents.
In addition to this, instead of introducing new information, the informant states that John Popham, Drew Mitchell, Ryan Moran, and other members of the SRA such as Paul Jones and Kyle Park insisted on reiterating information already covered.

According to the informant, these members also insisted that the SRA should trust in the BOD’s decisions.
According to the informant, Park said, “SRA members are supposed to be informed representatives, and as such should vote on their personal feelings, regardless of the wishes of their constituency.”

The informant also paraphrased Drew Mitchell as saying, “if you are a parent and your child wants to eat only ice cream, you as an adult will know that this is not good for their health and as such would not allow it. In the same way SRA members must make decisions for their constituency, when they know it is in their best interest.”
Finally, the circular nature of the discussion took its toll on the SRA and the decision to direct the BOD to rehire Jaic was reversed.

Source: The Silhouette | Closed Session

If there is one picture that sums up the attitude of the Exec, this is it:

Source: The Silhouette | MSU Crisis

I am not surprised that Kyle Park stated this.  As I point out in an earlier post yesterday, he is completely out of line and unaccountable.