Councillors appointed Kai Rogers as the new Speaker of Council at last night’s AMS Council meeting.
Following a private in-camera discussion and vote, councillors appointed Rogers, a second-year law student, to replace former Speaker Max Holmes who resigned from the position in December.
The Speaker runs the meeting and they strictly follow the predetermined agenda.
Rogers will serve as speaker until May 1 of this year.
Rogers previously served at Students’ Union of UBCO as the vice-president finance and operations of the Students’ Union of UBCO (SUO) and chair of SUO Board of Directors meetings — the AMS Council equivalent at UBCO — while studying business management as an undergrad.
In a speech to Council following his in-camera appointment, Rogers said his approach to the speakership will follow three principles: good governance, civility and respect.
On good governance, he said it is necessary for Council, or else UBC will “stop paying us.”
He later added that good governance means moving through meeting agendas efficiently.
“No one's listening after four hours. So we want to keep things tight so that people do listen when you speak, as it's important that they listen,” he said.
Meanwhile, on the last two points, Rogers said both were important to ensure councillors felt comfortable to speak up and share their opinions.
“Everyone's opinions are valid,” he said. “They may be different than yours, but that's what opinions are.”
“You've all been elected here to speak your mind. And I encourage you to speak your mind. it's very important that you do without that, Council might make poor decisions.”
Besides appointing Rogers, councillors made several committee appointments and heard an in-camera report from the Executive Performance and Accountability Committee.