Please note this blog entry has been updated on 3-23-2022 since being published on 3-21-2022. Please see the final section under Update.
Unraveling a disaster
Where does one start to unravel the disaster of that Reconsidered motion? First of all, Director McAdam was correct that the motion to Reconsider was out of order because it was required to be reconsidered at the meeting in which it was presented (see RONR 37:10). Second, the monthly meetings are just that. Each one is a meeting and each one is considered a session because the entire order of business was completed in that one meeting (see RONR 8:4).
Defining a session
When Director Lehrer stated that “Historically, the sessions of the boards meetings run from January thru December…” she was correct on one point, and that point is the term “sessions” except that she interpreted it incorrectly. Each meeting that is completed in a single day (unless it’s an adjourned meeting) is a session, so when she reads “the sessions of the board” that is actually referring to each individual, separate meeting and not a year-long series of meetings that carries unfinished business over from one meeting to another! And to be clear, Robert’s Rules doesn’t address motions that require more than one reading or vote, so that doesn’t have any bearing on what Robert’s Rules define as a session. If a session is to be determined as a year-long series of meetings then the bylaws must state that (see RONR 8:4).
If you were at the meeting or watched it on the RCSC YouTube channel you would have also heard Director Lehrer try to validate her interpretation of a session was because all unfinished business dies at end of the year. To be clear, unfinished business dies at the end of the year due to the term limits for at least 3 of the Directors and has nothing to do with being a session.
Hunting for answers in the state of Washington
Lastly and most importantly, why did the board have to go to a third party website out of the state of Washington to find the answers they were looking for when they could have gone to the Robert’s Rules of Order website and received the actual interpretation of the actual rule from the guys who actually wrote them? I do it all the time and receive responses within the hour from at least 3 parliamentarians!
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts!
Update to who did what, when
I have no problem admitting I may have been wrong!
So...I received an email from Rusty Bradshaw this morning regarding the article I sent into the Independent. He asked me if I thought that it was the board's decision to go looking for a third-party justification to allow the motion to be reconsidered or if it was my belief it was simply part of Rusty's research?
I told him it was my understanding that it was the board who went looking for justification.
So he tells me it was him, and he did go to Robert's Rules first but they were too difficult to navigate so he went looking elsewhere and he found that Washington State agencies allowed a motion on the next day was because they wrote their own special procedures. Hmm.
So...bottom line; I guess I was wrong to accuse the Board of looking for third-party justification. My mea culpa!
Tom Marone, Advisory Panel, Sun City Advocates
4 comments:
Exceptional diagnosis of the board meeting from 3-21 Tom. I always cringe when i see the debate regarding Robert's Rules of Order, most of the time it is way above my pay grade. Even the "experts" will disagree form time to time.
Unfortunately what has become crystal clear are two things: The board will blame the membership for having to follow Robert's Rules of Order even though that was what their by-laws called for for years. What's especially odd is, while moaning about having to use them, they often times don't. They just claim they are.
The entire point in running meetings is to be consistent and stay focuse3d on the business at hand. Having a parliamentarian on the stage is a good thing. No one expects the president to be an expert at RR. We do however expect the expert to be more than a rubber stamp for some of the foolishness we are too often exposed to.
There seems to be some surreal goings on regarding this Roberts Rule of Order at the last board meeting. I am a proponent of Roberts although not as versed as Tom. Anyway, there seemed to be a sandbox fight over the Reconsider motion which I found from a logical standpoint absurd. So as I understand this kerfuffle the Motion was in regard to having another board vote on the member exchanges which passed this time. Then there was vote to have the exchanges which, surprise, surprise passed. So the rhetorical question is why did Karen McAdam decide to have a food fight over something she knew was going to pass other than to try an show how smart she is? Two things come to mind concerning this, why argue over minute details when apparently you have achieved your goal or as they say in the insurance industry, majoring in the minors. I once argued a case for a friend in Small Claims court wanting to be the next Perry Mason or Atticus Finch. The judge stopped me half through and advised me that once you won your case it best if you shut up. That’s the point here, you won why prolong it.
Before I leave I want to give a shout out to Kristi who posted a very nice response to a thread yesterday. Thank you and I believe we can have reasonable discussions in the future.
Hi Christine! The original motion to create the Member/Board exchanges failed on it's third reading. It was dead. Just to be clear, 99.9% of people that I heard or talked to wanted the Exchanges, but didn't want all the restrictive baggage that came with the original motion. What Dir. Fimmel did was resurrect it. Karen argued that's not allowed. Karen wanted to introduce and move on an Exchange motion that didn't have the baggage. Pres Leher simply shot down Karen's objection, at which point the sandbox fight ended, and the original motion went on to pass third reading. I thought it rather ironic that Pres Lehers recent letter in the Independent talked about accepting "the train has left the station" immediately after bringing this motion back from the dead. Oh well - NOW we can move on (eye roll)
Hey Christine enjoyed your comments and understand your frustrations, arguing for the sake of arguing is pointless. What people don't realize is, the reason this motion was reintroduced was because the board president threatened if not passed she would not allow member comments other than on motions at board meetings. Some of the directors changed their vote simply because they feared the threat of members having no voice.
Intimidation and threats are hardly the way to achieve the outcomes you want. The good news is we can all move forward with the MEMBER/board exchanges. Apparently, according to President Lehrer, it's our meeting, meaning the memberships. The other option is for board members who believe the membership should have a voice at board meetings is they (the board) can submit motions giving us the freedom to speak to the motion.
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