Nicola Plummer voted in as new vice-president of operations-elect

Former team TNL candidate, Nicola Plummer, was voted in as the incoming vice-president of operations-elect for the 2013-14 academic year.

Plummer, who campaigned as TNL’s vice-president of operations candidate, was ratified for the position in a vote at the special AMS assembly tonight.

Plummer won with 37 votes in favour and 3 against.

“I think this represented a clear recognition by Assembly, and the students they represent, of both Nicola’s qualifications for the position as well as the urgent need to fill the position and begin transitioning,” Eril Berkok, AMS president-elect, told the Journal via e-mail, following Assembly.

After Peter Green, former vice-president of operations-elect for team BGP, resigned from his position on Thursday, Berkok and vice-president of university affairs-elect TK Pritchard nominated Plummer for the position.

At the Assembly, Berkok said Green began showing a lack of professionalism after the election campaign period ended.

“What occurred is that we saw a lack of willingness to learn, a lack of humility, and [his] attitude and approach to the job wasn’t appropriate,” Berkok said.

“On Sunday night we sat down with Peter to have our last conversation about this … and I said I have no interest in hurting [him] or ruining [his] experience at Queen’s,” Pritchard added. “We ended our conversation with a hug.”

There was debate regarding the application of section 2.02.03 of the AMS Constitution, which states “executive members may appoint a replacement, who is a Society member, subject to the approval of two-thirds of the members of the Assembly present and voting at a meeting where notice of a motion of approval has been duly given.”

During Assembly, former Team PDA presidential candidate Alexander Prescott, said the application of the section was a “sacrifice of the basic tenets of what democracy stands for to serve expediency.”

Team PDA’s campaign manager and ASUS representative to the AMS Alexander Rotman, and first-year ASUS representative Tyler Lively echoed Prescott’s statement.

The motion to apply section 2.02.03 was ultimately ruled constitutional and passed at Assembly.

Following her win, members of Assembly congratulated Plummer. Both Berkok and Pritchard hugged her.

“It’s incredibly humbling I think and hopefully I can prove to students that assembly made the right choice here tonight,” she told the Journal. “I know I have a lot to prove.”

She added that she plans to meet with Tristan Lee, current AMS vice-president of operations, on Monday to begin transitioning for her incoming role.

“It’s going to be hard work to prove to students that I am the best person to run their services for them,” she said. “It’s going to take conversation from the three of us, TK, Eril and I as to where we go from here and what aspects of the platform I will take on.”

See Friday’s issue of the Journal for the full story.

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

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