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Last week’s Executive meeting took place on Thursday night as Critic was going to print. Dramas, clusterfucks, and resignation threats ensued.
At the meeting, Administrative Vice President Brad Russell and Education Officer Katie Reid moved a motion to send amended constitutional changes to the May 23 referendum. The constitutional amendments moved by Russell and Reid had been discussed at PolCom, OUSA’s Policy Committee, earlier on the day of the meeting. The motion was passed, but an alternative amended constitution was also produced by Colleges and Communications Representative Francisco Hernandez, which he and others wanted to send to the referendum in addition to the other one, providing a choice for students between the two. The alternative amendments were written by former OUSA Finance and Services Officer James Meager and failed to reach quorum by seven votes when taken to referendum in 2010.
 

Critic understands that the fundamental difference between the two documents are that Meager’s version sends issues to a Student General Meeting before a referendum, whereas the other amendments would mean that all issues would go via the Executive, who would then decide what would go to a referendum and what would not. This includes matters such as taking a vote of no confidence on an Executive member, amendments to the constitution, and appointing OUSA’s honorary solicitor.
 

The Executive voted on whether to send the alternative amendments to the referendum, which resulted in a tied vote. The vote ended up being taken twice, due to issues arising over objectivity from the chair. The result was the same on both occasions, and the motion to send Meager’s constitutional amendments to referendum failed.

 
Hernandez had been getting increasingly worked up over the course of these events, which culminated in a threat to resign, as he “can’t serve on this Executive any more.” Hernandez told President Harriet Geoghegan that “you can’t fucking do this,” and seemed close to tears. Critic was under the impression that the only time tears were associated with the constitution was when those reading it were bored to tears, making this passionate outburst an historic event.

 
Hernandez abruptly left the room before the second vote was taken (seemingly to shake hands with an old friend), but it transpired that he was using his phone to communicate with Finance and Services Officer Dan Stride, who was unable to attend the Executive meeting due to work commitments. Returning to the room, Hernandez asked the meeting if votes on motions could be phoned in from absent Executive members, and was swiftly told no. Had Stride been present at the meeting, the motion would have passed and both versions of the constitution would have been available for students to vote on at the referendum.
 

Geoghegan told Hernandez that there was “no breach of process” involved in the vote, and as the motion had failed, the meeting had to move on. Hernandez launched a tirade in response, saying that there had been a “moral breach of process,” and that the vote represented a “shocking betrayal of trust.” After the meeting, Geoghegan commented that Hernandez’s actions were “a bit disappointing”, noting that he would have had to have been “sitting in meeting with his eyes closed and fingers in his ear for a month” to not know what the proposed amendments entailed. “It was totally open for him to say what he thought about the amendments the whole time”.
 

Although Hernandez admitted that, if given the choice he would vote for the original amendments rather than the alternative one, he advocated putting both to referendum on the principle that “students should be able to have their say”. OUSA Finance and Services Officer Dan Stride was not present at the meeting, however he too was irate over the decision, arguing that the alternative constitution was far superior. “The new constitution took power away from students and gave it to the exec”, he noted solemnly.
 

Stride was further concerned that the amendments left the quorum for passing a budget at 5% of the student population, noting that reaching quorum to pass last year’s budget had been a frantic exercise. Geoghegan disagreed, stating that the budget should have the same threshold as other motions. “It’s really easy to get over 1000 voting online”.

 
As Critic went to print, there remained a possibility that Meager’s version could still be voted on by students at the referendum. If a total of 208 signatures (1% of the student population of the University of Otago) are gained on a petition supporting taking the amendments to a referendum, Stride and Hernandez intend to call an emergency Executive meeting to pass this through. A motion moved by Hernandez at the end of the meeting to move the referendum dates forward a week in order to gain extra time to get the required amount of signatures on the petition was denied.
 

Stay tuned on the Critic Facebook page for updates on how they got on.