Archive for the 'elections' Category

S.F.U Students! Run for S.F.S.S.!

Published on September 7, 2010 in elections, sfss and sfu.

If you are a stu­dent at Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity tak­ing an under­grad­u­ate course, you may be eli­gi­ble to run as a Simon Fraser Stu­dent Soci­ety Board mem­ber. Elected mem­bers may receive stipends between $585 (fac­ulty rep­re­sen­ta­tives) and $1750 (exec­u­tive representatives).

The posi­tion is ideal for dis­ci­plined, teamwork-oriented, self-directed learn­ers with a strong desire to serve their fel­low stu­dents and the uni­ver­sity community.

The elec­tion will be held on Novem­ber 2nd, 3rd and 4th through an online vote. You will receive the link through your SFU email at least 24 hours prior to the election.

Any­one tak­ing an under­grad­u­ate course at SFU will be eli­gi­ble to run for the exec­u­tive posi­tions (Trea­surer, Uni­ver­sity Rela­tions Offi­cer). In order to run for a fac­ulty posi­tion, you must be tak­ing a course in the fac­ulty, or a declared major, minor, hon­ours in the faculty.

You may run for any of the fol­low­ing posi­tions upon ful­fill­ing the requirements:

  • Trea­surer (1 course required)
    • Anna Belkine was dis­qual­i­fied due to IEC ruling
  • Uni­ver­sity Rela­tions Officer(1 course required)
    • Arry Dhillon was dis­qual­i­fied due to IEC ruling
  • Fac­ulty of Arts and Social Sci­ences Rep
    • Peter Qum­sieh received 436 No votes (50.35%)
  • Fac­ulty of Envi­ron­ment Representative
    • No con­tes­tants in February
  • Fac­ulty of Applied Sci­ences Representative
    • No con­tes­tants in February
  • Fac­ulty of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Art and Tech­nol­ogy Representative
    • No con­tes­tants in February
  • Fac­ulty of Health Sci­ences Representative
    • No con­tes­tants in February

Blind Journalism in Municipal Elections

Published on May 13, 2010 in coquitlam and elections.

On Sat­ur­day, the vot­ers of Coquit­lam will be head­ing towards the polls. One of the can­di­dates, Terry O’Neill, is so des­per­ate about win­ning the elec­tion that he is attack­ing his oppo­nents in every sin­gle way.

Terry O’Neill attacked every sin­gle can­di­date in his recent blog post on Tues­day sim­i­lar to what Car­ole James did to Gor­don Camp­bell in the 2009 elections.

On Neal Nicholson:

Ter­rys Claim: “My lead­ing rival, Neal Nichol­son, appar­ently thinks TheV3H.com is impor­tant enough to adver­tise on it, but not impor­tant enough to give it (and the vot­ers of Coquit­lam) the cour­tesy of answer­ing its questions.”

On Brian Babcock:

Ter­rys Claim: “Brian Bab­cock did not attend a sin­gle all-candidates meet­ing, and didn’t answer ques­tions for V3H. His excuse for miss­ing the meet­ings? He was out of town on a sport-fishing trip.”

On Mas­simo:

Ter­rys Claim: “Mas­simo ‘the mys­tery man’ Man­darino has also been a com­plete no-show, with no expla­na­tion, and has writ­ten nothing.”

Truth: Mas­simo has writ­ten for the Tri-City News.

On Owen Coomer:

Ter­rys Claim: “Owen Coomer, a 20-something bar man­ager, admits he ran for mayor in the last gen­eral elec­tion merely to get his name better-known. He attended two of three meet­ings before say­ing he was too ill to appear at the third. He seems to be seri­ous in his can­di­dacy this time out, yet he didn’t respond to TheV3H’s invitation.”

On Ralph Banni:

Ter­rys Claim: “Ralph Banni attended all three meet­ings, responded to the Geor­gia Straight, but appar­ently ignored TheV3H.com request.”

On Andy Wickey:

Ter­rys Claim: “Andy Wickey … [was] at all three meet­ings but wrote noth­ing for V3H.”

And Finally, On Andy Shen:

Ter­rys Claim: “Andy Shen, the very young SFU stu­dent, appears to be run­ning for the sport of it and to brag about his 2,000-plus Face­book friends. He attended the meet­ings, but didn’t write for V3H.”

Andy Shen on Terry O’Neill:

Terry O’Neill says that I appear to be run­ning for the sport of it and to brag about my 2,000-plus Face­book friends. My mes­sage through­out the cam­paign was clear. We need bet­ter trans­porta­tion in the area. We need to attract Green-Industry jobs in Coquit­lam. We need to decrease green­house gas emis­sions, just like what Port Coquit­lam is doing. I brought up my 2,000-plus Face­book friends at an all-candidates meet­ing to show other can­di­dates and the par­tic­i­pants of the all-candidates meet­ing that I am easy to access.

O’Neill also claimed that I did not write for the V3H. The dead­line for the sub­mis­sion was on Tues­day, and the arti­cles were sub­mit­ted prior to that dead­line. It was posted recently on the web­site. I may not have fin­ished it before Terry, but I got it done. I have been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with theV3H on Twit­ter not just dur­ing the elec­tion, but prior to the elec­tion. There would be no rea­son why I would not write for them.

O’Neill also stated that “being a good city coun­cil mem­ber means being … hon­est and will­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with vot­ers.” By attack­ing me with false infor­ma­tion, he is not hon­est. He is spread­ing lies — just like what the social per­cep­tion of a politi­cian is. He brings up the ques­tion, “what does this say about what sort of coun­cil mem­bers they will be?” after attack­ing all the can­di­dates. Per­haps, he should be the one ask­ing him­self that.