In a motion to be presented at Wednesday’s regular council meeting, CSU Councillor Wendy Kraus-Heitmann, is asking that the council write a formal letter to former executives, requesting that they refund the council for the expenses of their May 29 end-of-year party at Newtown restaurant.
Kraus-Heitmann named executives Nadine Attallah, Alexis Suzuki, Andrew Roberts, Simon Pierre Lauzon, Hajar El-Jahidi, Keny Toto, and Stefan Faina, as being those responsible for the overages.
In the budget presented June 12, by VP Finance Scott Carr, it was revealed that the former executive had spent $9,000 on their dinner at Newtown.
The former executive is being accused in the motion of spending $750 on a DJ for 50 people and for only inviting select individuals. Kraus-Heitmann asserts that she can provide two CSU employees to back up this claim.Kraus-Heitman also cites that they spent the money on such things as Belvedere vodka bottle service.
“How do we look our members in the eyes and say “last year’s exec blew over $13,000 partying like literal rock stars at Newtown and we’re not going to bother asking for it back” and not have them flip out on us? How can anyone take us seriously after that when we negotiate a health plan and insist we can only afford X amount when for $9,000 we probably could have added something like coverage for prosthetic limbs and eyes? It’s a matter of credibility,” she writes.
Her main motivation for asking that the former executives reimburse the CSU is because she feels the CSU cannot ask the administration to reign in their expenses and the cost of tuition when there is a large outstanding debt on such an extravagant purchase.
“While I might have found many members of last year’s executive to be less than as competent as I would wish, I don’t think any of them were lacking the intelligence to know that this is not how the Student Life budget should be spent. In addition, we’re students. We’re not high flying corporate CEOs. A party at Reggie’s to get rid of the mountains of beer that are undistributable and unsellable? That’s something normal students should expect.”
Kraus-Heitmann further states that she isn’t concerned with how the former executives will pay back the money, “They can have a cage match between Roberts and Toto on the mezz for all I care.”
The motion is on the agenda for the council meeting, Wednesday, Sept. 18 beginning at 6:30 p.m. in room H-763.
