Update: Tonight’s Emergency Council Meeting has been moved to Hebb Theater to accommodate the anticipated levels of student interest. The start time is still 5pm.

A letter to Council written by Tim and Blake was released earlier today regarding the special council meeting tonight at 5pm. In the letter, they state they will not be present at their own recall hearing, despite Blake promising this media and the Ubyssey that he will answer all questions then, and that he was looking forward to the debate.

They speculate that any recall vote of the Council would illegal. What Blake is referring to is a discovery made last year about a conflict between the Society Act (a law that governs the AMS), and the AMS Bylaws. In short, the current understanding is that AMS Council cannot remove Blake’s rights as a director of the society, but they can remove his powers as President. After such removal of powers, Blake would have no more powers beyond that of a regular council member until a new executive comes into power, or a referendum removes him as a director.

Further, they write that two other executives, Tom Dvorak and Johannes Rebane deserve to be impeached if they are as well, for signing a contract with Pivot.

Below is their letter.

Open Letter to Council regarding Saturday AMS Council Meeting

We are aware that Council has called a meeting on Saturday to consider whether or not to ask for our resignations. Unfortunately, neither of us will be able to attend this meeting due to prior commitments. This point was made clear to Councillors when they initially decided to call the meeting for Saturday. The two staff members who we directed to work on the complaint will also be unable to attend. We will, however, be able to address Council at our regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday, December 2nd at 6:00 p.m. There have been many allegations flying around and many questions such as: “Why the UN?”; “What effect will such a complaint actually have?”; and “What democratic process did you follow to file the complaint?” We strongly believe that Council should withhold any discussion of disciplinary action before we are able to clarify the facts around this issue and clearly explain the motives behind the complaint.

We believe that students should be extremely concerned that some members of Council have indicated they will attempt to illegally impeach Executive members who are democratically elected by the UBC student body. Given the fractured opinions of students on this issue, we encourage those Councillors who wish to impeach us from our elected positions to initiate the proper formal and legal process by conducting a referendum.

We also find it curious that we have been targeted exclusively on this issue by some Council members. It is important to note that we raised the topic of the UN complaint several times at our Executive Committee meetings and that VP Finance, Tom Dvorak and VP Academic and University Affairs, Johannes Rebane signed the contract with Pivot Legal Society to go forward with the complaint. We believe that if any call is made for our resignations, they must be coupled with a call for the resignations of Tom Dvorak and Johannes Rebane.

We both appreciate the seriousness of the current situation and will be prepared on Wednesday to give a full account of the facts.

Signed,

Blake Frederick
President
Alma Mater Society of UBC Vancouver

and

Tim Chu
VP External
Alma Mater Society of UBC Vancouver

Source: http://www2.ams.ubc.ca/index.php/ams/news/letter_to_council/