By Jordan Heath-Rawlings
RyeSAC’s vice-president of student life and events is mulling over her own political future, as well as standing behind the organization’s embattled vice-president finance and services, despite an attempt by members of RyeSAC to force them both out of office last week.
Crystal Adair said that when fellow executives attempted to accept a resignation she never gave at a RyeSAC executive meeting chaired by president Darren Cooney last week, she did something that’s very unlike her.
“I sat down and thought about it very calmly,” she said. “I knew that if they had gone through with [the impeachment] I would have appealed it because I care too much about my students to give up that easily.
“There’s a difference between saying you’re thinking about resigning and actually sitting down and writing a letter and doing it.”
Cooney, who submitted the original impeachment motion, said Adair was included because he thought she had been involved in vice-president finance and services Sajjad Wasti’s letter attacking RyeSAC.
“Crystal was included in the original motion, because I was under the impression that she had a hand in writing this letter,” said Cooney. “She said she wasn’t involved in writing it, and didn’t have any previous knowledge of it, so she sort of clarified her position.”
Cooney said that Adair and Wasti had also been targeted for impeachment because of their repeated threats to resign.
“They had both publicly stated they were interested in resigning, and the executive committee felt it was appropriate to ask them to formalize that at that point,” he said. “What kind of team do you have when half of it is threatening to resign?”
Although Adair is no longer facing impeachment, she said she had not made a decision whether or not to resign as Cooney pushed ahead with a move to kick out Wasti.
“Obviously, if Sajjad leaves, it makes things kind of awkward for me to say the least,” she said. “I don’t know if I’d stay if [he was gone].”
Adair’s open support of the scathing letter sent by Wasti to the Ryerson community last week has split the four executives into two groups — her and Wasti on one side and Cooney and vice-president education Ken Marciniec on the other.
Adair said her position is made even harder because of her friendship with Cooney, who she campaigned alongside last spring during the executive elections.
“Darren and I have a history,” she said. “That makes it harder for him.”
“It’s never easy to tell somebody you have a history with that you’ve done something so bad that we’re going to kick you out,” she said. “He was pretty emotional [at the meeting].”
Adair said there are days when she feels like leaving, and others when she’s never been happier with her position. But she said she can’t ignore the tension in the office all the time.
“I’ve had moments when I’ve hated being here so much that I had to throw up my hands and walk out, but then there are days when I’m as happy as anyone in the world.”
“Right now, I’m only here for right now, and I’m just doing the day-to-day things. Regardless of whether I decide to leave or decide to stay, the events this organization runs will have a food foundation.”
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