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It is great to see an active Web Committee again! Thank you all for taking this on.I would direct your attention to the webpage with the Bylaws, http://coloradogreenparty.org/about/bylaws/. There are several problems on this page:1. Clicking any of the links to prior revisions results in a "Server not Found" error message. This may be intermittent. 2. The link to "Current GPCO Bylaws, revised August 29, 2015", points to the March 31, 2012 revision.3. There is no link to the revision that was extant from August 29, 2015 until March 13, 2017.4. The revision date in the March 13, 2017 revision is wrong. The revision date at the bottom of the Bylaws says, "revised August 29, 2015".
Veronique,I respect your decision not to participate in this vote. As a member of the newest local chapter you don't have personal experience to understand the background and motivation for this proposal.And the proposal itself doesn't give you any background information to explain why the proposal is being presented. Andrea Merida, acting as facilitator for the proposal, censored the background information out of the proposal submitted by the Greater Boulder Green Party (GBGP) because she could not see its relevance. Here is the censored portion of the GBGP proposal:
4. Background:Since the co-chair wars in October 2016 Co-chair Andrea Merida has claimed she is entitled to 24 months in office. Andrea is using her position as council facilitator to block all proposals to have the 2017 annual meeting before she gets her full 24 months in. So now, four months after the 2016 election, GPCO Council is unable to set a date for the meeting because we have not agreed on when our officers' terms expire. All other political parties will have held their annual state meeting by the end of March.
Anyway, the bylaws published Monday (in section 5.7) don't require state party officers to be elected at annual meetings and don't guarantee Green Party affiliates in Colorado a vote for the state party officers. Earlier published bylaws required state officers to be elected at annual meetings, open to all registered Greens in Colorado. This is a clear deficiency in the newly published bylaws.Passing this proposal to amend section 5.7 to read,
5.7 Officers shall be chosen at each odd-year annual meeting to serve two-year terms, ending at the next odd-year annual meeting.
would restore the original meaning of the section. I think it is important.
The Green Party of Colorado benefitted greatly from running Green candidates for statewide office in 2014 and 2016.During my tenure as the Green Party nominee for Governor of Colorado, April to November 2014, Green Party registrations grew 25%. During the same period in 2016, with Arn Menconi as our nominee for U.S. Senate, the Green Party of Colorado grew 50%.My point is that running a statewide candidate is a highly effective way to increase Green registrations.
I agree the state party is not in danger of losing minor party status. In addition to the information provided above by Andrea and the Colorado Election Division, the votes Arn Menconi received for U.S. Senator 2016 guarantee our minor party status and ballot access for eight more years, regardless of the number of registered Greens in Colorado.
Shelia is a great choice. Welcome aboard!How about making a general announcement of our new Political Director on the General Discussion board? There is no need to keep it a secret.ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: Shelia doesn't have Forum access yet so she can't read this topic. I would think her access permissions should be at least as high as a Council member.
But you have no problem making a substantial change to section 5.7 of the bylaws, the very section to be amended by this proposal, on the first day of voting? With today's publication of the bylaws on the website, our bylaws no longer require an annual meeting to elect officers. Passage of this amendment simply restores this important requirement.So my vote is YES, to amend bylaws section 5.7 to read:
5.7 Officers shall be chosen at each odd-year annual meeting to serve two-year terms, ending at the next odd-year annual meeting.
Andrea, Read your own post and my response at http://gpco.fullydefiant.com/forum/index.php?topic=322.msg1720#msg1720 That is our understanding.Reneging on your commitment, less than 6 hours old, to modify the proposal for voting is a highly objectionable action. I don't call what you are doing 'facilitation'. But if your intent is to sabotage this proposal by changing bylaws section 5.7 in the middle of voting, making the text of the proposal obsolete, you are doing an excellent job. Given the new bylaws, published today, the proposal to be voted on is simply to amend section 5.7 to read:
5.7 Officers shall be chosen at each odd-year annual meeting to serve two-year terms, ending at the next odd-year annual meeting.
I'll modify the proposal in voting with your text. I simply took what you originally submitted.EDIT: I've modified the bylaws to reflect the change ratified with 007-15. I will not modify the proposal language, because it contains hyperbole.
To be clear, this is my text:
5.7 Officers shall be chosen at each odd-year annual meeting to serve two-year terms, ending at the next odd-year annual meeting.
OK. I see the newly published bylaws on the website. I agree that the changes from proposal 007-15 are incorporated correctly and that sections 5.1 and 5.7 no longer conflict. So there is no need for changes to section 5.1.But now the words "at each annual state meeting" are missing from section 5.7 and need to be reinserted. This is because proposal 007-15 inadvertently deleted the part about state party officers being chosen at annual meetings. I take full responsibility for the mistake because I submitted the wording for section 5.7 and accidentally deleted too many words.This is the text to be voted on:
5.7 Officers shall be chosen at each odd-year annual meeting to serve two-year terms, ending at the next odd-year annual meeting.
Larry, I would ask you to reconsider your block.Bylaws section 5.7 clearly states
5.7 Co-chairs shall be chosen at each annual state meeting . . . .
This is obviously wrong because Co-chairs serve two-year terms, per section 5.1.If you don't like my wording for fixing section 5.7:
5.7 Officers shall be chosen at each odd-year annual meeting to serve two-year terms, ending at the next odd-year annual meeting.
please propose an alternative sentence that makes it clear that officer elections occur only in odd numbered years.
Voting on this proposal is premature. The proposal needs to be amended because bylaws changes passed in proposal 007-15 never got put into the bylaws correctly. Section 5.7 currently reads
5.7 Co-chairs shall be chosen at each annual state meeting . . . .
This is obviously incorrect.Refer to http://gpco.fullydefiant.com/forum/index.php?topic=321.msg1708#msg1708 for the amendment to fix section 5.7.Andrea, please lock or remove this topic from the Proposal Voting board.
Andrea,There is definitely confusion, on a couple levels.1. The content of bylaws section 5.7 is unclear. According to proposal 007-15 the text should be
5.7 Officers shall be chosen in odd numbered years to serve two-year terms in office.
But the copy of the bylaws on the GPCO website reads
5.7 Co-chairs shall be chosen at each annual state meeting and other officers in odd number years to serve two year terms in office.
2. The proposal you posted here is different from the proposal on the Proposal Drafting board that GBGP agreed to sponsor. You summarily censored the background section that explained the reason for the proposal. I'm confused that you think you have the authority to censor other people's proposals.For these reasons, I propose an amendment to this proposal to replace the entire Text of the proposal with the following:
5.7 Officers shall be chosen at each odd-year annual meeting to serve two-year terms, ending at the next odd-year annual meeting.
This change to 5.7 will resolve the confusion about the wording of 5.7 in the current bylaws and clearly establish that officers terms run from odd year annual meeting to odd-year annual meeting.
Please return to your local with your proposal, pass it democratically, so I can post it.
GBGP held its monthly chapter meeting on March 11 and agreed unanimously to this resolution to sponsor and submit two proposals to GPCO Council for agreement seeking.
Be it resolved,The Greater Boulder Green Party (GBGP), a chapter of the Green Party of Colorado (GPCO), hereby endorses, sponsors, and submits two proposals to GPCO Council for agreement seeking.Proposal #1: Amend GPCO Bylaws to Clarify Two Year Term of OfficeThis proposal would amend GPCO Bylaws to define 'two year term' as follows: “Officers shall be chosen at each annual state meeting held in odd number years to two year terms. The term of office begins immediately upon election and ends with the election of officers at the next odd year annual meeting.”The complete proposal is on the GPCO Forum's Proposal Drafting board at http://gpco.fullydefiant.com/forum/index.php?topic=317.0 Harry Hempy (Boulder), Judy Harrington (Fort Collins), and Scott Lupo (Jefferson County) cooperatively drafted the proposal, beginning on Feb. 18, 2017.Proposal #2: Set Date and Location of 2017 GPCO Annual MeetingThis proposal would set the date and location of the 2017 GPCO Annual Meeting as follows:“As a result of discussion of the History of GPCO Annual Meeting Dates and Locations at http://gpco.fullydefiant.com/forum/index.php?topic=308.0 Council hereby sets the date of 2017 GPCO Annual meeting to be May 6, 2017 and the location to be Grand Junction, Colorado.” May 13 or May 20 are offered as alternative dates. ORDER OF CONSIDERATION:Proposal #2 is dependent on agreement to Proposal #1, so Proposal #1, to establish state party officers' term of office, needs to be acted on before Proposal #2, to set the date and location of the annual meeting, can be considered.SPECIAL FACILITATOR:Acting GPCO Council Facilitator Andrea Merida has taken strong positions against both of these proposals. To avoid the possibility of unfair or biased facilitation of these proposals, GBGP requests a special facilitator for these proposals who does not have a personal stake in the outcome.
Documentation that this was a democratic process is in the attachment Greater Boulder Greens Proposal to Clarify Two Year Term of Office in the GPCO Bylaws. The attachment Greater Boulder Greens Proposal to Set the Date and Location provides similar documentation for Proposal #2. On behalf of the Greater Boulder Greens, I ask that this proposal to amend the bylaws be moved to the Proposal Agreement Seeking board at this time and request an impartial facilitator for the proposal.As noted above, Co-chair Andrea Merida is openly opposed to the proposal. Co-chair Dave Bell's post in this this topic last night shows he would not be an impartial facilitator, either.I would encourage Sean Friend, Bill Bartlett or any GPCO Council member not from GBGP, who will commit to facilitate impartially and refrain from taking a position for or against the proposal, to step forward.
I have cited rules to you over and over.
I have reread every word you have written in this topic and you have not cited any rules, from either the bylaws or the rules and procedures. I cited procedures section 3.5.3, the process for 3 Council members from the same chapter to submit proposals directly to Council. You have cited nothing from either document; not even once.Try getting your facts straight. It is not good enough for you to make up the rules as you go along. Please take your responsibility to conform with the bylaws and the rules and procedures seriously.
Wrong, Andrea,You cannot quote any section of the bylaws or the procedures and guidelines that requires, or even allows, a local chapter to make a proposal to Council.If I'm wrong, show me the relevant section.I understand you are adamantly opposed to this proposal because it might result in you serving less than 24 calendar months as the party dictator. In my view, if you continue to block this proposal you are doing so for your personal benefit, without regard for the needs of the party.I like your idea of comparing the bylaws of the local chapters. There is quite a variety. I expect I would sign on as a co-sponsor if you draft a proposal on the Proposal Drafting board.
