[Sosfbay-discuss] 77% of GA Vote No Confidence - CC Must GO! Voluntary Reboot Called for!

[Gerry Gras]

Question:

Was that a policy decision or a business decision?
If the latter, then the threshold is 2/3 not 4/5.

Gerry


JamBoi wrote:

> Dear Fellow Greens, 
> 
> 77% voted NO CONFIDENCE in the CC!!! 
> 
> Therefore Resolved: The entire CC (minus the members
> elected/appointed this weekend) should voluntarily
> resign immediately in accordance with the clearly
> expressed will of the General Assembly (56 Yes to 16
> No) 77% of the GA voted in favor of the 'Reboot the
> CC' proposal (included below) this weekend in SF.
> 
> If CC members care about the party more than they care
> about retaining their own power they should
> immediately resign.  Let them each demonstrate that
> they have the best interest in the party by resigning.
>  Let real leaders lead the way.  The Co-Cos could set
> the example by leading off.  If these people are
> actually greens and not just run of the mill greedhead
> power hungry politicos let them do the right thing. 
> This is a Lead, follow, or get out of the way moment. 
> Let the leaders lead!
> 
> Some perspective: 51% would be a majority.  In the
> popular press anything over 56% is considered a
> 'landslide'.  60% is a supermajority in most
> organizations, 66% 2/3rds in others.  This was a vote
> of more than 3/4 of the delegates!  Hello!  
> 
> Typically, in a Westminster system parliament votes no
> confidence, government must either:
>    1. resign, or
>    2. seek a parliamentary dissolution and request a
> general election.
> 
> The last successful no confidence motion in the UK was
> in March 1979 when the Opposition motion was passed by
> just one vote - 311 to 310. Parliament was then
> dissolved in April and the general election took place
> in May.  Would that our 'green' crew would be so
> respectful of our General Assembly!
> 
> So by a technicality we did not reach the 80%
> threshold that a policy decision by the GA needs. 
> However this does not stop the CC members from doing
> the right thing voluntarily.  If they care about the
> party more than themselves they will resign.
> 
> If the CC members selfishly refuse there is another
> way we can enforce the will of the GA:  Each County
> Council and region can call for the resignation of
> their RR.  As a County Council Member of the GP of
> Santa Clara County I'll be happy to lead the way.
> 
> Drink Green uniTEA not factional koolaid!
> 
> Drew Johnson
> GP of Santa Clara County Council Member and Delegate
> to the General Assembly
> 
> Below is the text of the 'Reboot Proposal'
> ________________________________
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> Elected CC members may meet on teleconferences but may
> not make any decisions until a quorum of 14 is
> achieved. 
> 
> RESOURCES:  Hiring a Secretary will require the CC
> budgeting funds for this.
> 
> ___________________
> 
> JamBoi: Jammy, The Sacred Cow Slayer
> The Green Parties' #1 Blogger
> http://dailyJam.blogspot.com
> 
> "To the brave belong all things"
> Celt's invading Etrusca reply to nervous Romans around 400BC
> 
> "Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
> 
> 
>  
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