[Sosfbay-discuss] "Reboot the CC!" says Green uniTEA Nonaligned Movement; Proposal for GA from Bylaws Committee

[Gerry Gras]

Comments interspersed below.


JamBoi wrote:

> We need Green uniTEA my sisters and brothers!  
> 
> Just as during the cold war when the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
> selfishly treated the world as if their empires were
> the only thing that matter.  India arose to lead a
> group  of nations to 'Just say no" to the warring
> factions, to assert a Nonaligned Movement.  
> 
> I think its high time for us to assert our
> independence of these two factions and to say to them
> "NO! you won't have my endorsement and you destroy my
> party!"  Join those of us who refuse to be sucked into
> either faction's weak and self-serving justification
> for their destructive actions.  We must save our party
> from the tunnel vision of these two factions.
> 
> This Reboot the CC action will be the first step but
> it can not be considered the complete solution.  We
> must alter our culture and possibly our bylaws in such
> a way whereby we do not allow any group of people to
> hijack the party and we do not allow the *service*
> organization of the CC to be perverted into an
> executive function and become a political football 
> grinding us to a halt again.  Together we must
> consider how we solve these vexing issues.
> 
> We can not stand idly by and allow objectionable
> domination behavior by anyone to control our party. 
> We must change our culture from one of passive
> acceptance of any old crazy behavior from factions or
> individuals to a smoothly running self governance
> style where we uphold our 10 Key Values and turn them
> into the virtues they can be.  As a party if we
> actually contribute and add value to people's lives we
> will have no problem attracting members!
> 
> Reboot the CC first!  Then let's put our heads
> together to make our party functional, effective and
> progressive leaders.


> 
> Drink Green uniTEA, not factional koolaid!
> Drew Johnson
> Santa Clara County delegate to the GA preparing to
> vote for CC Reboot!
> ________________________________
> 
> Subject: "Reboot the CC!" says Green uniTEA Nonaligned
> Movement; Proposal for GA from Bylaws Committee
> 
> Time to drink Green uniTEA: The Team Earth
> Antifaction! ;-)
> 
> I speak for the vast majority of Greens that hate that
> two factions have brought our party to its knees.  A
> pox on both their houses! Yet all of us are to blame
> also for letting this insanity drag on and on.  Now we
> have an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start
> over.  That's right, what do you do when an electronic
> product fails?  Reboot!  Thankfully the Bylaws
> Committee has prepared the following proposal for us
> to start afresh with the CC.
> 
> The CC was always supposed to be a service
> organization, not an executive function.  It has
> ceased to serve ANY function.  Time to reboot!
> 
> Some have said 'why throw out the good apples with the
> bad?'.  I say 'good apples??? Which good apples are
> those?' - although I love these people as individuals,
> as a collective they have utterly failed to serve
> their function.  Time to reboot!


Although I basically agree that the CC has not been
functioning well for a long time, I ask "Why will a
reboot improve matters?"


> 
> As John Morton <jlm108 at yahoo.com> said: "This party
> belongs to not to the CC reps, not to the GA
> delegates, not even to the 150,000 registered Greens
> in CA.  It belongs to the hundreds of thousands, the
> millions, who, if given the chance, would agree with
> the 10 KV and commit to whatever degree to participate
> in their propagation."  Time to reboot!
> 
> Drink Green uniTEA, not factional koolaid!


Isn't TEA a faction?


> 
> Drew Johnson
> Santa Clara County delegate to the GA preparing to
> vote for reboot!
> 
> TITLE: RESOLVING THE IMPASSE: 
> RECONSTITUTING THE GPCA COORDINATING COMMITTEE
> 
> PRESENTERS: Mike Wyman (mswyman at comcast.net),
> Marilyn Ditmanson (mditmanson at sbcglobal.net)
> 
> APPROVED BY: Green Party of Marin county council
> 
> BACKGROUND: 
> The GPCA Coordinating Committee (CC) has been
> deadlocked since October 2006. This is a result of an
> ongoing conflict that goes back to 2001. Many hours of
> meetings over the past 6 years have been rendered
> useless due to infighting around "the LA situation,"
> meaning which group from LA gets to vote on the CC.
> Proposals of mediation and compromise have only
> resulted in more infighting. The number of regions
> with contested seats has instead increased to 4. The
> result is that the CC is no longer able to perform its
> main function of planning plenaries.
> 
> This proposal reconstitutes the CC with people who are
> not and have not been involved in the party
> infighting, much as a professional committee in the
> business world will be reconstituted when unable to do
> its work. It is
> reconstituted with representation more proportionate
> to
> membership, as California has promoted in the national
> party.
> 
> Part of the CC deadlock has been caused by the chaos
> around the facilitation procedures for the CC. Using
> supermajority voting thresholds for facilitation
> decisions has resulted in the following situations:
> 
> * meetings being unable to be held at all, and no
> items even discussed in the interest of
> consensus-building, due to lack of 2/3 approval of an
> agenda
> 
> * facilitators taking 45-minute stacks on whether to
> add 5 minutes to an item
> * long stretches of valuable meeting time wasted on
> discussions of whether to add an item to the agenda,
> alter the agenda or choose a new facilitator
> 
> * two different voting thresholds applying based
> solely on whether the vote itself is taken online or
> during a
> teleconference, allowing proposals to be subject to
> manipulations based on voting thresholds.
> 
> This proposal also clarifies basic facilitation
> procedures for GPCA coordinating committee (CC)
> meetings in order to avoid such situations. These
> facilitation procedures are based on two main
> premises:
> 1. The decision-making body has authority over its
> agenda.
> 2. Basic facilitation decisions, such as agenda
> approval, agenda amendment, and addition or
> subtraction of discussion time, are not intended to
> involve whole separate consensus processes and stacks
> of clarifying questions, concerns and affirmations on
> the facilitation decision. (Note that the facilitation
> rules passed out at plenaries do not suggest this,
> either.)
> 
> This proposal is a combination of a variety of ideas
> for solving the CC's problems that have been brought
> forward over recent months. The presenters hope that
> adoption of this proposal will finally end the CC's
> infighting based on historical animosities and give
> the new CC a real opportunity to do its
> bylaws-mandated job.
> 
> PROPOSAL: 
> I.The General Assembly hereby reconstitutes the GPCA
> Coordinating Committee (CC)
> 
> a. All seats on the CC are vacant as of 30 days from
> the passage of this proposal.
> 
> b. Per Paragraph 7-1.2 of the GPCA bylaws, the GA
> shall
> allocate the 16 regional representative seats
> proportionally to the Green Party membership in each
> region. This calculation shall be performed by the
> outgoing Liaison to the Secretary of State (Larry
> Cafiero) according to the Method of Equal Proportions
> described in the appendix to the GPCA bylaws.
> 
> c. All regions shall announce new elections to fill
> the
> regional representative seats as soon as possible.
> Regions must hold open, transparent elections with at
> least 3 weeks notice distributed as widely as possible
> in the region. Notice of upcoming regional
> representative vacancies shall be posted to the county
> contacts list as soon as possible after passage of
> this proposal. Regions without alternate processes may
> adopt temporary alternate processes for the purpose of
> filling the seats in a timely manner.


Hmm, if I combine the above ...

- the CC will have 16 voting members out of 20 leaving
   after 30 days
- new members will only come in after the proportionality
   is recomputed and announcements are made and 3 weeks
   go by after the announcements are made and elections
   are held, practically speaking, there may be a lot
   of vacant seats for awhile


> 
> d. No one who has served on the CC, or who has claimed
> to serve on the CC, as representative or alternate,
> over the course of the past 5 years, is eligible to
> run for or fill any representative or alternate seat
> on the CC for the next 2 years.


I wonder if you can find 16 people who are willing to
be on the CC that meet this condition.  Traditionally
the Regional Rep "elections" have not been very contested.



> 
> e.Transitional term lengths shall be varied in order
> to stagger the ending dates. This depends on the new
> apportionment by the Liaison, but end dates of the
> transitional terms would be expected to fall as
> follows:
> 
> Even-Numbered Years
> 1 Emerald	January 2008
> 2 At-large 	spring GA 2008
> 1 San Francisco	May 2008
> 1 Silicon	June 2008
> 1 East Bay	July 2008
> 3 Los Angeles	November 2008
> 1 San Diego/Imperial	August 2008
> 1 ORSB	November 2008
> 
> Odd-Numbered Years
> 2 At-large	spring GA 2009
> 2 Central	May 2009
> 1 North Bay	May 2009
> 1 East Bay	July 2009
> 1 Monterey Bay	August 2009
> 1 Central Coast	August 2009
> 1 ORSB	November 2009


I wonder how this scedule has been determined.
And I suspect that some will question the motives
for this schedule.

I may have missed something, but it seems that this
proposal will kick the At-large Reps off and not
replace them.  Why?


> 
> II.CC Facilitation Guidelines GPCA CC meeting
> facilitation shall proceed according to the following
> guidelines:
> 
> a.Proposals for CC meetings must be posted to the CC
> listserv at least one week in advance of a scheduled
> meeting.


It's about time.


> 
> b. CC meeting agendas shall be approved by the CC
> prior to or at the beginning of a meeting, with a
> simple majority threshold for approval. 
> 
> c. Changes in announced facilitation require a simple
> majority threshold for approval.
> 
> d. Adding time to an agenda item or altering the
> approved agenda requires a simple majority approval of
> the CC. 
> 
> e. Adding a last minute item that was not submitted to
> the CC list one week prior to the meeting requires a
> 2/3 threshold.
> 
> f. The CC prefers to discuss decision items on
> teleconferences and at in-person meetings. If an item
> is discussed at a meeting and scheduled for an online
> vote, the threshold for that vote is the same as if
> the vote had occurred during the meeting (2/3 for
> regular meetings, 80% for a special meeting not
> scheduled at a prior meeting at least a week in
> advance). If an item goes to an online vote without
> being discussed at a meeting, it has an 80% threshold.
> 
> g. Decisions may not be made after the regularly
> scheduled adjournment time of the meeting unless a
> majority (over half) decides to extend the call for a
> specific amount of time. Decisions must then be made
> within the time of the approved extension.
> 
> h. Simple majority approval votes on basic
> facilitation decisions can be done by asking quickly
> for "ayes" and "nays," and only going to a roll call
> if approval is unclear.
> 
> i. The new CC is requested to hire a Secretary to take
> thorough minutes of meetings, post them to the CC
> list, amend them according to posted corrections, and
> post the final version to both the CC listserv and the
> archive of minutes. The new CC shall draft a job
> description and hiring criteria for this position.


FYI, that job has been open for a long time with some
advertising and no takers.


> 
> j. The new CC shall form a schedule of its basic tasks
> that follow from the GPCA bylaws and integrate this
> schedule with the 2-year GPCA work plan, when it is
> adopted.
> 
> TIMELINE: 
> Vacancies effective upon passage. Elections may take
> place starting 2 weeks after passage of this proposal.


How can you have elections starting 2 weeks after?
If this means voting in 2 weeks, then that violates
the 3 week notification above.  If it means that
notifications happen after 2 weeks, then this would
seem to mean that voting would not happen for 5 weeks
which would mean at least 12 days with no regional reps.


> Elected CC members may meet on teleconferences but may
> not make any decisions until a quorum of 14 is
> achieved. 


In the past, the quorum was set at 2/3 of the filled
seats, so this would set the threshold higher if there
are empty seats.


> 
> RESOURCES:  Hiring a Secretary will require the CC
> budgeting funds for this.
> 



- Off hand the facilitation changes seem a good idea.

- One thing that has often been talked about, but noone
   (that I know of) has ever followed through on, is
   an orientation process / booklet for new CC members.

Gerry