With the start of the school year at their feet, Team CYZ say they’re ready to make good on their six major campaign promises made during their campaign last January.
AMS President Michael Ceci was elected along with Vice-President (Operations) Leslie Yun and Vice-President (University Affairs) Adam Zabrodski.
During the election, the team promised to give back a combined $3000 of their salaries for every promise not fulfilled by the end of their term.
One of their first initiatives was the establishment of an online voting system.
The externally developed system should be running in time for the AMS’s Oct. 27-28 referendum, Zabrodski said.
He said the AMS will save money with online voting by not having to print ballots or pay as many Student Constables to sit at the voting booths.
The budget for the fall and winter referenda is usually $20,000 to $30,000, Ceci said, but this year will see a 50 per cent decrease.
The first of the six promises was to work with the principal on environmental sustainability.
Last year, Ceci told the Journal that CYZ had a more ambitious goal for the incoming principal to sign the Council of Ontario Universities (COU)’s document on climate change commitment.
“We cannot say and advocate at this point if the COU document is the best for Queen’s,” Ceci said. “The bottom line is that we hope [new] Principal [Daniel] Woolf will take the initiative to set firm and measurable commitments towards the goal of Queen’s doing its part to mitigate climate change in a meaningful way.”
The executive also committed to more student participation in regards to dealing with Homecoming.
The AMS has been in discussions with Kingston Police and University istration, Ceci said.
The AMS won’t provide volunteers as it has previously on Aberdeen St. during the unsanctioned party on the Saturday night of Homecoming weekend, Ceci said.
“Although there have been rumblings of some sort of event in the fall, there is no Homecoming,” he said, adding that an unsanctioned party could be dangerous.
Instead, the AMS is launching a campaign to promote safety and awareness. The campaign will be run through email and the media in order to eliminate costs.
“We are trying to ensure student safety by sharing the information we have with them about the dangers of the street party and by reiterating the differences between past years and this year,” he said.
Another campaign promise was to create a housing website.
“We’ve had some IT issues with the AMS website but it’s up now and the housing website should be up for the January housing search,” Zabrodski said.
The website will provide students with information on what to look for in rental properties and how to choose housemates, as well as fire, safety and insurance guidelines.
The executive also promised to introduce a public transit route from campus to Kingston’s train and bus stations.
“We’ve been speaking to [Kingston] Transit and they’ve brought in outside resources to improve the system,” Yun said. “This bus route is in the discussion.”
Yun said they’re currently looking at introducing a Thanksgiving shuttle from campus to the bus and train stations to evaluate student demand for the additional routes. The shuttle would be paid for through the AMS’s Bus-It program, so students wouldn’t need to pay additional costs.
Another campaign promise was to increase halal and kosher food choices on campus.
“We’ve already met with Queen’s Hillel and the Queen’s University Muslim Students’ Association to discuss where they would like more choices and what options they would like available,” Yun said.
She said she’s spoken to Sodexho, which is the University’s food contractor, about introducing more options in its retail outlets.
The sixth commitment was for a new clubs supervisor position to be created. That position has been filled by Christopher Rudnicki, who is creating a club website for students to search through clubs and their chairs.
The database will go up sometime this month, Ceci said.
“We’re very optimistic,” he said. “We chose things that people wanted and were reasonable.”
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