ASFA Council Cancels Former President’s Honorarium and Appoints New Interim Exec

Familiar Faces Chosen to Represent the Association Temporarily

NewsJonathan Caragay-Cook — Published May 28, 2015

Jerajian, who is facing a tribunal from the Quebec Human Rights Commission, received an honorarium of $593 for his work as president before resigning in February. Council awarded him the honorarium after he was dismissed as a “consultant” despite a successful motion at ASFA’s annual general meeting of members that recommended not to allocate him any money.

Ghio wrote the motion based on article 17 and 17.1 in Annex B of ASFA’s regulations that states council can annul or modify honorarium by two-thirds majority vote based on “recurring, unwarranted behaviour deemed hostile and or a threat to the welfare of ASFA Members.”

The motion passed with 10 votes for, one against and two abstentions. Since this was a special council session, all elected councillors weren’t required to attend.

The annulled honorarium returned to ASFA’s general budget. A motion was introduced to transfer the newly liberated $593 to outgoing VP Academic and Loyola Iman Hassanein, but was then tabled indefinitely.

Hassanein received a base honorarium of $500 out of a maximum $750 and a bonus of $200. She previously told the The Link that she “barely made more than someone who allegedly did something bad” in reference to Jerajian.

Ghio said that the annulment reflects what the association’s membership wanted after council passed the motion, which its verbatim wording from petitions that received over 400 signatures.

“You have to buckle up and listen to the people,” she said. “This is an important issue to them. These are my constituents, and I take that pretty seriously.”

“It comes down to trust.”

She adds that she wasn’t planning on signing Jerajian’s check and would have further refused to—and potentially resigned— if her motion did not pass or council mandated her to sign it.

“Given the nature of the incident—granted, [they are] allegations—on a human level, I did not feel right signing the check,” she said.

Ghio’s appointment as interim president arose randomly at council after extensive interviews with and deliberations over two hopeful candidates. In the prior general election, ASFA failed to meet a 2.5 percent quorum of its student body to validate the results of a new executive team and referendum questions.

ASFA’s internal committee proposed a motion to appoint all uncontested candidates until a by-election could be held in the fall, while performing private and public interviews for the contested candidates for presidency and VP Communications.

Corey Hoare and Léonard Leprince, the two candidates who ran for president in the failed election, stayed through proceedings for a few hours on Wednesday night only to be informed of Ghio’s appointment.

The lack of an executive team in place for next year created “extenuating circumstances” that required some sort of definitive action, according to Carlos Fuentes, the ASFA councillor from the Concordia Association for Students in English.

A decision to appoint an interim executive requires two-thirds majority vote. On an initial motion to appoint Hoare or Leprince, council was split five to four. Four others abstained from choosing either individual.

The “lukewarm reaction” from present councillors toward the two contestants demonstrated that someone like Ghio needed to be placed in power, Fuentes added. The motion to appoint Ghio passed with nine votes in favor, one opposed and two abstentions.

Ghio said she will reach out to Leprince and Hoare soon to see if they want to remain involved at ASFA working with her in a potential run for president again in the fall.

“I do want to get them involved,” she said. “I think it would be cool to get them interacting with the students.”

She added that she doesn’t know if she’ll want to remove the interim tag and join the election race.

For the other contested position, council chose Lianne Barnes, the outgoing VP External and Sustainability, over Dori Julian to become the interim VP Communications.

The uncontested individuals appointed to the interim executive and remaining councillor positions on an interim basis until the fall by-election are as follows:

• Courtney Lister as VP External and Sustainability
• Jenna Cocullo as VP Academic & Loyola
• David Ness as VP Finance
• Christina Massaro, Martar Jafari and Vanessa Caucci as independent councilors