The UNA all candidate's forum was thursday, Nov. 18. I watched the event and live tweeted it. What follows is the compilation of the tweets, loosely edited. The format was very clipped and at times it was hard to distinguish particular differences. Of note, the student candidates who had previously suggested they were in favour of increased policing, clarified to say they were't calling for more police on the streets. Holmes and McCutcheon constantly spoke about the importance of keeping experience on the board.I was impressed by the sincerity and reflections by Watson, Glassheim, Gallo and Liu.
Getting ready for the #UNA_Election forum, starts at 7pm tonight. They have it set up as a webinar, so my guess is it won't be very interactive. Also there's more than a dozen candidates and only 1.5 hours - so it will also be fairly constrained. Just waiting (at 7pm) for the @UNAcommunity to open the webinar for the election forum- but nothing yet. Pretty certain that they are only taking questions that were presubmitted - hope that's not the case, but I think it is. They've shut down chat, no way to see how many people are present .
The moderator preselected 9 questions, distributed them, and each candidate is only allowed to answer up to 3 questions. So very restrictive. Really weird that there is no mention (@UNAcommunity ) of how many people are there. Now 30 second intros starting with Gan telling us her name, that she is a candidate
Feil liu starts with a nice intro of her family, kids, what she does and what she hopes to achieve. She is cut cut off, but the moderator let Gan ramble on. Cheng is coming to us from a gym somewhere on campus. Kang now with a palm tree blowing in her background. Kang cut off by moderator. Mitchel starts with identifying his local area, what he does and what he wants (sort of speed reading. McCutcheon says how long he's lived here, and his opposition to stadium dev and a plug for experience. Watson says more than 70 residents watching, thanks the candidates, says he's a long term resident
Gallo says lives in wesbrook and a prof and engaged, active listener and honest. Co tells us her name and her undergrad major saying she's a student leader. Ngieng, the undergrads keep repeating their names ... ... boosts safety. Glassheim is a parent and reps the basketball court and how the board dropped it before it was approved. Moderator skipped Bill Holmes. Says he's been here for 20 yrs and is boosting himself as the oldest candidate. (overtime)
Apparently they will take question via the Q/A box. Holmes is saying have to reelect current board or things will be set backwards in time
Note: Ali Mojdhei not present
Co is calling for a safety program among other things. Cheng is answering this question. He is talking about performance indicators. Student candidate Gan says important improvement is community stakeholder relations and says as a student she didn't engage and the UNA failed becuase of it. Mitchel wants to bake in community engagement (don't we all). Fei liu says EDI should be core aspect of strategic plans. Watson now up - says strategic planning wasn't able to be done, in covid crisis, but in all tings most important to get going to reestablish plan, adding community connectedness & sustainability. McCutsheon says we have actually done a lot over the past two years and he is pushing Holmes's claim that they need experienced board members to be elected.
What neighbourhood do you live, why, what fav area. This is the most important question but only two people are raising their hands. Kang and Watson. Kang gives a shoutout to Doughgirls and says more outdoor facilities need to be developed. So sad that none of the students spoke to that question.
Now a safety question. Cheng raises property theft and road issues as big safety issues. Gallo, big issues of safety is that problems with over policing and there needs to be a balance, focuses now on road safety that needs to be addressed. Glasheim - biggest concern is safety of roads and walkways - to deal with improvements on road safety. A really well thought out comment. Kang - highlights traffic and working closely with rcmp. Ngieng - highlights marine drive roads but need to focus on sexual violence, crime prevention and comprehensive crime prevention policy.
Now a question on increasing diversity of perspectives
Proust says UNA has communication deficit and not effectively engaging with entire community membership. Kang is talking about concrete things to do like making friends across boundaries. Gallo - starting point would be diversity on the board, mentions her immigrant background and the importance of representation on the board.
Question on civic life. Almost all of them raise their hands for this. Glassheim starts off with a reference to what the UNA has done already but says more needs to be done. Fei says needs connections across cultural barriers (editor note: this is the issue and has been a goal of the UNA for many years). McCutcheon says civic life means accepting responsibility to get involved, not just a top down from the UNA. Proust says need to work with residents on what belonging means and then focusses on 'grievance politics' by saying people don't feel they belong - good politics, but not factually grounded. Watson says finding ways to meet and gather - a personal responsibility that starts with each of us
I figured out how to comment and share thoughts - use the Q&A to put your comments into the public view!
New question about longterm planning. Holmes talks about problems with densification. Co on campus vision - the students are really running on an AMS campaign program - housing affordability.
Note the above is my gloss on what Co said (she just argued for a plan to devalue property values. I wonder if people realize that.
McCutcheon critiquing densification. Calling for medium density.
Going to slack off on tweeting this out as it's getting hard to see the differences between what people are saying especially given a lot of the comments revel a lack of knowledge about reality of history and current practices here.
So far candidates who seem to be the most knowledgeable about past, are being the most honest in their accounts of successes/failures are: Gallo, Glassheim, Watson, and McCutcheon.
Many of the criticisms of the UNA raised by Proust, gan, Co, and Ngieng are not founded in factual details. Holmes presents as very defensive of past actions of the UNA. It is important to note he has done a lot, but this forum doesn't let him shine as well as he could.
No one offered to answer the affordability question. Strange given that so many candidates made this a core to their campaigns.
Last question - climate crisis. Holmes only one left with the 'right' to answer this last question [others all used up their 'three' questions]. Holmes speaks about what the UNA has been doing to address the climate crisis.
Now questions being taken from the floor. Question about over policing. Watson picks it up - says we do need more community policing, need to be cautious, need to build community is the solution. UNA can play a part in that. The more we know each other the better safety is. Proust, despite his campaign letter, says he doesn't support increased policing. Ngieng also contradicts her campaign literature now saying she doesn't support increased policing, says we need other things. She's on the right track, but is changing her tune. Fei Liu says still needs more police on the streets, but also good community friends.
Now addressing a question that I posted;
McCutcheon talks about being out and active and engaged in our community. Jane Kang talks about being on the multi cultural committee and doing things that way. Eagle Glassheim says he live in an activist corner - they noticed bird strikes on glass fences and got together to see what they could do. eagle also mentions community efforts on road safety. [Sad more of the candidates didn't answer this question.
Question on appropriate density - Watson - density is tricky - appropriate is kind of like community of Hawthorn. Holmes talks about community feeling - pointing to Musqueam development as being appropriate. Ngieng says tricking question and says remember that as UBC grows need to balance housing with green spaces. And says affordable housing . McCutcheon says we need to get to an idea of reasonable density. Need to advocate for livability. Fei Liu says it is a professional question, most important part how we can match the facilities. In all these discussion on development everyone assumes growth is necessary. But it's not - we shouldn't be supersizing, shouldn't be growing continuously.
Next question: How would you engage the Musqeuam Nation. Only two hands up. Proust and Liu. Watson now raises his hand as well. Now Ngieng raises her hand. Answers so far on this question are sincere, but not as informed as they could be. Erin Co says we need to educate residents, 2nd we need to establish a clear relation [She doesn't appreciate that Musqueam might not want to. They have an MOU with UBC that makes engagement with UNA irrelevant]. I wonder if Co and Ngieng have listened to Musqueam? when they say reconciliation can happen, do they know what that means? Watson says education is important, get to know the Musqueam people, but be respectful. Cultivate respect first. Appreciate Watson's statement but I think, after listening to these answers, I need to do some educating of these neighbours. There are a lot of freshman assumptions here that need to be addressed. Kang mentions the reconciliation pole.
A pot question and nobody wants to answer.
A fiscal experience question: Gan and Holmes put up their hands. Gan says she is an AMS exec. Holmes says chair of the finance committee and a tax lawyer and all the hands go up. I am pretty certain each of he candidates are now going to tell us they have lots of fiscal experience so I am not going to summarize all of them. Confirmed - they all attest to their personal competency and experience.
The @UbysseyNews tosses in a question about communications in multiple languages. Again a host of hands - I predict one group says we are doing it, and then those that say the UNA has failed. I would suggest the UNA is doing what is needed, but I expect some tomatoes will be tossed. Like the experience questions, the answers to the communications question are in fact type cast and don't really add anything.
And the forum is over. I had hoped to have a longer meeting, but am glad it was only 1.5 hours.
