ASFA president removed, then reinstated as council minority scoffs at due process

It took four hours of deliberation for ASFA councillors to pass a motion not recognizing its president as their representative on the Sustainability Action Fund board of governors. But it was all for nothing.
The Oct. 13 meeting appeared to be successful. The motion to replace president Audrey Peek passed with a decisive majority and nominations for her replacement were made and Jonathan Game was elected.
With the important business of the agenda out of the way, many of the councillors went home around midnight, when the association took a break before beginning question period.
When the few councillors who stuck around reconvened, they were joined by CSU VP external Colin Goldfinch. During question period Goldfinch alleged the vote was unlawful, pointing to the fact that ASFA’s executive was asked to leave the room at one point during the meeting.
“He was intimidating and trying to make it sound like we were doing something wrong,” said Gregory Johannson, the ASFA councilor who presented the motion to have Peek removed.
Louise Birdsell Bauer, an ASFA councillor who also sits on the CSU, said this type of reaction from Goldfinch isn’t uncommon. “He always tries to use the rules to manipulate council,” she said.
“One of our councillors was obviously influenced by Goldfinch,” said Birdsell Bauer. “And so he presented a motion to reconsider the initial motion, the motion we’d spent almost four hours deliberating.”
Johannson was discouraged by the way the meeting ended. “I thought it was a dirty trick,” he said, alluding to the fact that the decision was overturned was when more than half the councillors had left. “It’s a shame. It’s very undemocratic. Sure, we still had quorum, but the motion to reconsider isn’t representative of ASFA. The initial vote was.”
But according to Birdsell Bauer and Johannson, the problems with the meeting runs deeper. “Everything Colin was talking about took place in closed session,” Birdsell Bauer said. “Someone broke the rules and told him what happened.”
Even more problematic, according to the two councillors, is that Game, the member who was voted to represent ASFA on the SAF board, wasn’t present when his election was overturned.
“I was pretty shocked when I heard,” said Game. “I think it’s a concern how some of the members changed their minds so quickly.”
There will be a special ASFA meeting this Thursday to discuss the next step.
“Goldfinch wants us to reconsider, because he said it was a hasty decision,” said Birdsell Bauer. “It wasn’t hasty, it was four hours of deliberation and discussion that was all erased.”
Game has said he is still “100 per cent willing” to represent ASFA on the SAF board.
In the mean time, Peek will continue to serve the position.
Peek and Goldfinch did not return calls before press time.