CSU delays vote to fire chief electoral officer

Lack of meeting notice leads councillors to table motion

NewsbriefIndia Das-Brown — Published June 14, 2025 2 minutes

External affairs coordinator Danna Ballantyne presented the initial motion, citing months of unresponsiveness, bylaw violations during recent elections, and failure to notify the deputy electoral officer of a called vote. Multiple councillors reported similar issues, with some saying they never received replies to questions during the nomination period.

However, internal coordinator Leo Litke, among others, suggested that the CEO be given a chance to respond, noting that, due to technical issues, the meeting was not properly publicized. The motion was tabled to a later special council meeting (SCM) with Ballantyne's support. Ballantyne retracted the motion.

The meeting, held over Zoom, was chaired by former CSU chairperson Michelle Lam, appointed after chairperson Angelica Antonakopoulos reported being unwell. Lam was nominated by Ballantyne and approved unanimously.

Agenda delays were attributed to IT miscommunications that left the new chairperson without email access ahead of the submission deadline.

As a result, a request from the fee-levy group Art Matters was not addressed in time and council voted to add Art Matters to the agenda. The fee-levy group’s general coordinator, Bridget McPhee, was able to ask questions about the CSU’s updated fee levy application process.

McPhee raised concerns about conflicting information across the CSU website, bylaws and policy documents. Ballantyne explained that the CSU recently dissolved its fee levy committee and that application procedures are being revised.

Council also approved a motion to move discussion of an office restoration proposal to the operational budget and appointed councillor Lili Daviault-Campbell to the Student Space, Accessible Education, and Legal Contingency Fund Committee, used for large-scale student-focused projects. These include infrastructure like the CSU building on Bishop St. and other initiatives that directly benefit student life, according to CSU finance coordinator Ryan Assaker.

Several councillors raised concerns that CSU meeting minutes had not been uploaded to the website for months. Ballantyne explained that the previous minute keeper stopped attending meetings partway through the last mandate. She added that the new minute keeper is now working to transcribe and finalize the backlog using recorded Zoom meetings.

“A big goal of the incoming executive team is to make sure that we clean up any messes left from the past mandate,” Ballantyne said.

The meeting was adjourned around 8:30 p.m. The date for the SCM on the CEO termination motion will be announced shortly.