Tag: Chris Kalafatidis

Categories
Concordia Student Union News

CSU’s General Coordinator possible impeachment

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) held a meeting on March 1 for the potential impeachment of the General Coordinator, Christopher Kalafatidis.

The motion was brought forward by 10 CSU council members: Elizabeth Tasong, Hannah Jamet-Lange, Christiane Sakr, Naomi Barney Purdie, Esther Morand, Jarrad Haas, Maha Siddiqui, Leigh Kusaj, Victoria Pesce, and Lauren Perozek.

They claim that Kalafatidis has failed to address his mandate, by not appointing a Sustainability Coordinator, failing to have student representation on the Standing Committee on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence, and not fulfilling his duties as chair on the Judicial Board, Sexual Violence Accountability Committee and the University Senate.

The members also claimed that Kalafatidis has ignored mandates given to him by council, which has affected the creation of Recovery and Wellness Centre (RAWCC)–a peer support group for people living with addiction.

“I was shocked to hear about this impeachment,” said Kalafatidis, who explained he wished people had given him a warning or asked for corrective behaviour before moving to impeachment. “It’s coming up for things that happened months ago and no one came to talk to me.”

On the issue of the Sustainability Coordinator failing to be appointed, Kalafatidis said that according to the CSU bylaws, it is up to the General Coordinator’s discretion to appoint a vacant position. Kalafatidis also stated that it is then the council’s job to approve of the candidate or not.

“In reality the council has been exercising an abuse of power, it is not in their right to interfere in this process,” said Kalafatidis, who explained as General Coordinator, it was to his discretion how many candidates he picked. “Even worse, they are undermining my rule in the bylaws by saying I should send them three candidates.”

In July 2019, councillors passed a motion asking Kalafatidis to present three candidates for the Sustainability Coordinator position.

Jamet-Lange, an Arts & Science CSU councilor, explained she understood the motion had been revoked by the judicial board, yet still asked Kalafatidis to have three candidates out of good faith.

“He did not bring up another candidate, he never mentioned anything in his December or January reports,” explained Jamet-Lange.“I believe that is going against his job as a General Coordinator.”

Jamet-Lange explained that over the summer, there were issues meeting quorum for appointments committee – which role is to appoint people to other committees – yet Kalafatidis was not communicating when meetings were.

“It really upsets me that I was hard at work in the summer, working with incredible restrictions,” Kalafatidis said, adding that one of the reasons he was unable to fill seats on various councils––such as the Standing Committee on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence––is because there were not enough councillors to meet quorum on the appointments committee over the summer.

“Saying that only appointments committee wasn’t able to meet is skewing the facts a little bit,” said Jamet-Lange, who mentioned that Kalafatidis resigned from the appointments committee because he wasn’t getting the work done.

“He always brings up the argument that we should have come to him first, but that has proven to be difficult,” said Jamet-Lange, who explained that councillors had tried to reach out previously to talk to Kalafatidis about issues and he was not responsive.

Jamet-Lange said that after the CSU meeting when the impeachment email went out, Kalafatidis yelled at her, calling it a personal attack.

“That reaction proved to me that if we had gone to talk to him it would probably not have helped,” said Jamet-Lange.

In regards to the RAWCC, Kalafatidis said the previous executive team had approved a proposal for RAWCC that he deemed not ready to be implemented.

He stated the proposal was for a part-time student to facilitate support group meetings, and the training requirements were very low. Kalafatidis deemed this to be a legal liability, as this part-time student would have to serve over 30,000 Concordia students with little training.

Jamet-Lange stated the main reason they decided to motion for impeachment was because of various complaints about Kalafatidis they had received from students.

“We don’t want to negate at all that he has been doing work,” said Jamet-Lange. “But at the same time, while he did do work, he did not necessarily do the things he is mandated to do by the bylaws and standing regulations.”

Isaiah Joyner, External Affairs and Mobilization Coordinator of the CSU, felt the impeachment issue could have been dealt with in a better way.

“When I look at the impeachment, I see frustration,” said Joyner, who explained this was not the answer the executive team sought. “We had hoped people felt comfortable to seek us out before so we could have dealt with this.”

Joyner explained that he sees CSU members’––council or executive––personal conflict getting in the way of solving issues. He believes council should be a place where issues are solved, instead he sees them creating issues and having to fix them.

“This serves as a motivation for me, as this is not how it should be, this is not the type of issues we should be having, this is not the union that it could be for the students,” said Joyner.

 

Archive photo by Hanna Ewen

Categories
Concordia Student Union News

CSU online fee levy opt-outs reached referendum

Fee-levy groups may lose significant funds after the upcoming referendum. “That would mean [serving fewer] people. People that sometimes really need it,” said Ian Herrera, member of the board of directors of People’s Potato.

Concordia students will go to the polls from Nov. 12 to 15 to vote on six referendum questions the Concordia Student Union (CSU) is putting to the ballot with online fee levy opt-outs, raising many concerns across the university.

Fee levy groups are student-run groups, semi-independent from the CSU and are elected through referendum. They include The Concordian, The Link, the Frigo Vert, Cinema Politica, and many more. They are not part of the union’s student clubs. Instead, they are funded directly by students who have voted in previous CSU referenda to fund them. They give access to multiple services on campus for all students, like food services, student media and environmental advocacy centres.

The motion was proposed by CSU President Chris Kalafatidis. However, he explained he is not binding the CSU to his decision since he proposed the question as a neutral student at large.

While students have always had the option to retract their shares from fee levy groups, Kalafatidis wants to facilitate the process.

“It’s always been a part of the deal that ‘we’re all going to pay for this collectively, but we do have the right to opt-out,’” Kalafatidis said. “All we’re doing is embracing technology to make the process easier for everyone.”

The controversial question faced a lot of opposition from CSU councillors and fee levy groups themselves. In fact, none of the 23 groups have expressed support, rather the opposite.

“The way the process works now in person is a positive thing where people can be informed face to face to understand what services we provide,” said Emily Carson-Apstein, a Concordia student employed at Sustainable Concordia. “From there, it’s their decision to opt-out and we’re not critical about that. Moving the system online makes it impartial. It makes people make hasty decisions that they don’t understand the consequences of and it shuts down the conversation before it even starts.”

McGill University switched to online opt-outs in 2007. Students’ Society of McGill University’s President, Bryan Buraga, said that this caused many fee levy groups to struggle with financing.

“This led to a decrease in the quality of services provided by these groups until the opt-out rate stabilized, after several years, to approximately 10 per cent rate of what it is today,” Buraga wrote in an email to The Concordian.

Full-time Concordia students with a four-class course load pay $58.44 per semester for fee levy groups at the moment.

Carson-Apstein explained that students can easily see a return on these fees by occasionally attending offered services, like movie or documentary screenings and eating at the People’s Potato – even just once every two weeks.

The People’s Potato serves free vegan food for students. On average, it serves around 400 to 500 people a day.

“[Online opt-out] would drastically reduce the income that we get and by consequence the number of people that we serve every day,” said Ian Herrera, member of the board of directors of the People’s Potato. “We would have to reduce the serving time. That would mean [serving fewer] people. People that sometimes really need it.”

But Kalafatidis said that if the question were to pass, the CSU would still have to sit down with all the fee levy groups to discuss the new opt-out process. Kalafatidis has yet to consult any of them. An option, Kalafatidis proposed, would be a checkbox system. Students will be required to read a description of the group prior to checking the opt-out option.

The question on fee levy opt-outs was brought up last year by the CSU slate Cut the Crap, which Kalafatidis was part of. On top of opt-outs, the slate also proposed election reform and cleaner bathrooms.

“[Fee levies] are the backbone of Concordia’s culture,” Herrera said. “Concordia’s culture isn’t dirty toilets, it’s this.”

The CSU will also be asking if students:

  1. agree with the Concordia Student Union endorsing a Fall Reading Week proposal and pursuing its implementation at Concordia University;
  2. agree with the Concordia Student Union endorsing a university-wide food waste reduction proposal and pursuing its implementation at Concordia University;
  3. support giving all faculties equal representation on the Council of Representatives by changing the structure to three Arts seats, three Science seats, three Gina Cody seats, three JMSB seats, three Fine Arts seats and one Independent Student seat. At the moment, 14 seats are allocated to arts and science, six to Gina Cody, four to JMSB and three to fine arts;
  4. agree to a non-opt-out fee increase of $2.08 that would result in a 50 per cent reduction of le Gym and PERFORM centre fees and free Stingers game;
  5. approve the Sports Shooting Club to be officially recognized as a CSU club.

 

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

Categories
Concordia Student Union News

CSU fighting for student building

Hopes went down for the Concordia Student Union (CSU) when learning a few weeks back that the last potential building to accommodate student housing was being replaced by a condo project.

The building, located on the corner of Mackay St., was once home to Mizan Gourmet, a Mediterranean supermarket, and Copy Concordia, among other shops and restaurants. It will be demolished any day now.

“We got an email that the building was bought, that it’s going to be torn down and that it’s going to be turned into a condo building,” said CSU President Chris Kalafatidis. “The reason why we’re so offended by this building is that once it goes up it’s over. It can never be undone.”

The building is said to be 20-storey high.

“To put things in context, JMSB is less than 20 storeys,” said Kalafatidis. “This is going to be the tallest object and it’s going to be in the middle of our campus.”

Kalafatidis is also concerned by the lack of infrastructure Concordia offers its students as well as its professors. According to Kalafatidis, students should have more welcoming infrastructures to hang out in and feel attached to their university.

However, Concordia replied in an email to The Concordian that in the past years, the university has invested in the construction and renovation of infrastructure such as the PERFORM center in 2011, EV building in 2005, and JMSB in 2009.

The building cornering Maisonneuve and Mackay St. was of interest to the CSU to achieve a long living goal: a student building. Not only would it serve to house all Concordia clubs, but would also feature things such as places to hang out, restaurants run by students, and maybe even a movie theatre, according to Kalafatidis.

He says such a project would be feasible.

We have the money [to pay for the building] because back in early 2000 we established a fund called the SSAELC fund,” said Kalafatidis. SSAELC stands for Student Space, Accessible Education, and Legal Contingency. “The purpose of this fund is to buy a club building and now it’s acquired enough wealth where we can actually do that.”

Following Concordia’s historical expansion, such a building would also serve as a way to build a campus proper to the university. Unlike many others, Concordia’s Sir-George-Williams campus is not a traditional distinct campus. Located in the middle of Montreal’s downtown, the university shares its location with dozens of shops and restaurants. Concordia’s ‘natural expansion,’ as defined by Kalafatidis, was foreshadowing a potential campus of its own; yet, hopes of achieving it went down.

“Ideally, Concordia will buy more in the area and slowly build what McGill already has: a campus of our own,” said Kalafatidis. “And now instead of getting more campus, or maybe green space where students can hang out, we’re getting a giant building.”

In an interview with CTV, Kalafatidis said the CSU is willing to take action and escalate the situation to the municipal government level. They are also hoping Concordia will join forces in the cause.

 

Photo by Kayla-Marie Turriciano

Exit mobile version