It might have occurred to you that there must be a rather large loophole somewhere if it's possible to run (or, more accurately, roll) a Fire Hydrant for the Board of Governors. There is. This is its story.

Elections for Board and Senate are run under the Senate Elections Policy. Since September 1, this policy has been under the purview of the Council of Senates, which doesn't yet exist and may not exist until the University Act is fixed to make its composition sensible. The policy is very thin.

BC's University Act requires that genuine students be elected to Board, and the Senate's nomination form enforces this by requiring a student number. However, there is no requirement that the "Name as it should appear on ballot" blank bear any resemblance to anything else. This is where the loophole lies. Interestingly, the Senate Elections Committee was chaired by the Dean of Law, who seemingly found it quite upsetting that such a thing was possible under her policy. It was never fixed, though, so this is my third attempt at Board.

For my form, I used the student number of my translator, Darren Peets (on the left in the photo), a graduate student in Physics. An administrative decision was made that the ballot ought to reflect the identity of the student who would serve, thus part of his name will be on the ballot in parentheses after mine. Bummer.

If I'm elected, Darren will not only push me to every Board and Board committee meeting (including any in Kelowna or downtown), but he'll also continue in his role as translator. I might try to write columns in the Ubyssey or another campus newspaper, in an attempt to make people so informed of Board stuff they become sick of it, and he's willing to translate those too. I would serve on Board, but with his assistance -- you'd almost be getting two reps for the price of one. And you might also want to pause and think about how you'd get an 86.8 kg, hollow, inch-thick piece of cast iron to Kelowna and back. This isn't trivial -- I can't be X-rayed, and would certainly set off the metal detector. We have two backup plans worked out.

This is all particularly ironic given the requirement that Board candidates be Canadian citizens. A Fire Hydrant can appear on the ballot, but Lyle McMahon, former VP Admin of the AMS, can't.

Darren refused to run as himself because he prefers spreading anarchy and/or humour, and has grown to detest shameless self-promotion. He would probably enjoy being on Board, but doesn't mind losing. He does actually have some qualifications of his own:

• GSS rep, South Campus Plan Working Group (2004)
• GSS rep (non-voting), University Town Steering Committee (July 2004-present)
• GSS external affairs committee, July 2004-present
• AMS campus development committee, April 2005-present (was attending it long before being formally seated on it)
• AMS Council, July 2005-present
• GSS Council, July 2005-present
• Received a GSS Service Award, 2004-05

He avoided AMS and GSS Councils for about a year before relenting. He's been involved for several years, since the University Boulevard plan first appeared, and has attended a remarkable fraction of campus development consultation meetings since. As a result, he's become a bit of a campus development encyclopedia. He's also attended a large fraction of the Board and Board committee meetings over the past two years. He's given presentations at Board, Board Property & Planning committee, GSS Council, and the GVRD/UBC Joint Committee. He typically brings his own laser pointer to such meetings -- this sometimes irritates UBC administrators, particularly if they'd earlier had to scour the building for their own.

Darren's been TAing a 3rd-year Engineering Physics lab for several years, where he's known for being a bit of a hard marker.

To be fair, since Darren's the one translating this for me and maintaining my website, you're not likely to find an unbiased view here on whether he's, for instance, clever or a moron, or how well he'd do as my interpreter at Board. I won't really try to go into that sort of thing -- if you want to know what he's like, find someone who knows him (student politicians are a good place to start), or ask questions of us:

You can contact either of us through vote4hydrant@gmail.com, but Darren's away January 22-27, so answers aren't guaranteed that week.

Obscure technicality #1: Why this election is meaningless. (technical, but slightly amusing)