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Once Dave Bell gets back from vacation, he and I will discuss this further. It could very well be that we both assume the duties until officer elections happen in August or so.
When does Dave Bell get back from vacation?
That's bullshit, Andrea. Your term is from the 2015 Annual Meeting until the 2017 Annual Meeting.Your interpretation of "two-year term" as meaning 24-months can't be right. Have you considered the implications?When you argue that the 2017 Annual meeting must be in August or later, because the 2015 Annual Meeting was held in August, the implication is that all subsequent odd-year annual meetings must be held in August or later. After a few election cycles we would be meeting on New Year's Eve.The annual meeting in 2015 (and 2013) wasn't late by design; the party just didn't get around to it. This has worked against the interests of the party.Its time to get our annual meetings back in sync with the election cycle. Odd-year annual meetings, to organize the party around goals and a strategic plan for the new election cycle, should be held as early as feasible. For the record: You announced the 2017 GPCO Annual Meeting will be held around late August on the official party website on Nov. 18, 2016. You did this without Council's agreement (and without even notifying Council of your intention). Under state party bylaws, you do not have authority to decide the timing of annual meetings. That authority is reserved to Council.
Judy, See my answer at http://gpco.fullydefiant.com/forum/index.php?topic=308.0
Sean and All, I nominate myself for the position of state party treasurer. I am a member in good standing, accept the Ten Key Values and will abide by the state party bylaws.Sincerely,Harry Hempy
I received no complaints about my behavior as a Green from GPCO Council, so on Nov. 30, I submitted a proposal to Council for drafting and discussion (hidden from general party members) to prevent Andrea Merida from abusing her position as website administrator in the future.The text:
WHEREAS,The Green Party of Colorado has revoked Harry Hempy's access to ColoradoGreenParty.org, the official public website of the Green Party of Colorado,THEREFORE, GPCO Council takes the following actions:
- GPCO Co-chair, Secretary, and Treasurer positions are declared vacated, effective immediately and will remain vacant until party elections are held at the 2017 Annual Meeting.
- GPCO Council will form a select committee, charged with planning and conducting the 2017 GPCO Annual Meeting, within 15 days of adoption of this proposal. The annual meeting will occur between February 1 and March 26, 2017.
- Accusations that Harry Hempy has misused GPCO social media, described in
4. Background of this proposal, are dismissed. Harry's access to ColoradoGreenParty.org and all GPCO social media shall be restored, effective immediately.
Andrea UNblocked me from the state party website immediately after I posted this proposal. That is the good news.Unfortunately, Council did not address the due process issues and bylaws violations issues raised in the proposal. I remain concerned that Council was silent regarding Andrea's dominant position over the Green Party of Colorado, which enables her to secretly block anybody's access to party assets with no justification and no accountability to Council.
Andrea UNblocked me from the state party website immediately after I posted this proposal. That is the good news.Unfortunately, Council did not address the due process and bylaws issues raised in the proposal during the week it has been open for drafting and discussion.I am concerned that Council is silent regarding Andrea's dominant position over the Green Party of Colorado, which enables her to secretly block anybody's access to party assets with no justification and no accountability to Council. At any rate, I am dropping this proposal and will not carry it forward for agreement seeking.
In a non-partisan election there is, by definition, no concept of accepting nominations from political parties. Candidates in a non-partisan election do not go through a party nomination process. Thus, bylaws section 4.4 Nominations and the parts of section 4.5 Candidate Criteria that deal with nominations are not applicable to non-partisan elections.So there would be no reason to submit names for state party approval, especially since the district in question, Fort Collins, is totally contained in the Poudre Valley chapter's area.
My access was revoked by the Administrator of the GPCO Website ColoradoGreenParty.org. According to the GPCO Forum member list and Whois.com the administrator of record is Andrea Merida. If it was not Andrea, that site has been hacked.
WOW! The GPCO Website Administrator restored my website access within 5 minutes of the creation of this topic.
I accept that Dave Bell won the vote. But reporting 2 rounds of counting may confuse people about how IRV works.Bell actually won on the first round by virtue of receiving a clear majority of the first place votes. The instant run-off (round 2) was not needed.
As co chair, Andrea has now taken the place of acting facilitator since the resignation of Brittany Hoover.
Sean, thank you for making Andrea's appointment of Andrea as Council Facilitator known to the party. It is not surprising that Co-chair Andrea thinks she is the only Green in Colorado capable of facilitating this forum and did not see a need to notify Council that she had appointed herself. Andrea may not understand the conflict of interest created by sponsoring and facilitating the same proposal. There is no way, now, for a Council member to BLOCK this proposal, because the Facilitator Andrea being the Sponsor too, will simply declare the BLOCK out of order. But, for the record, my position on this proposal to appoint a co-chair is BLOCK. At midnight Facilitator Andrea will declare the election closed with Dave Bell winning, having received a majority of first-place votes. Sponsor Andrea will thank Council for supporting the proposal. Co-chair Andrea will congratulate Co-chair Dave with high hopes the party officers will be unified and the Steering Committee will be able to function again. Council is witnessing a coup, to be consummated at midnight. Andrea Merida, aided and abetted by Sean Friend and Dave Bell, has obtained monopoly power over the Green Party of Colorado's decision making process and total control of party assets. Council members can no longer submit proposals without Facilitator Andrea's determination that the proposal is in order. The perfect coup, like the perfect murder, goes unnoticed. In this case, Andrea relied on identity politics to draw attention away from the real issues, reminiscent of the 2016 Presidential election.Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump used identity politics and intersectionality as the basis for their campaign strategies. Intersectionality is a powerful tool. Hillary appealed to female voters. Donald appealed to oppressed workers; people fed up with business as usual in government, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party; and (deplorably) a small, passionate population of nationalist, white supremacists. In my view, Hillary's strategy lost because many women identified more deeply as oppressed workers and marginalized voters than as females. Rulers throughout history have used "Divide and conquer" to rule. This is a critical time in our country. We must be a vigilant people; indivisible.I would appeal to Council to unify the party around a true leadership team. Here is what we could do:Form a leadership team of 5 to 7 people or so to plan a 2017 Annual Meeting that will unify the party and adopt a strong, staffed program for the 2018 election cycle. The team must include people of different genders, skin color, etc. In particular, including newbies and oldies, alike, in planning the 2017 annual meeting is critical to unifying the party and getting strong grassroots commitment to participate in the 2018 election cycle.I will submit a separate proposal to this effect. Hopefully, Facilitator Andrea will allow Council to discuss it.Thank you for reading this, Harry HempyCouncil Member, Greater Boulder Green Chapter
Andrea, is your request that I either vote or step aside made from your role as the acting Facilitator for this proposal or are you asking as the sponsor?
Because the bylaws specifically calls for two co-chair positions, the council does not need to approve of the election. It is mandated by the bylaws.
Andrea, There is no mandate for Council to fill a vacant co-chair position.From the bylaws, section 5.8, “If a Green Party of Colorado officer’s position is vacated . . . Council . . . may make a temporary appointment". This gives Council the authority to appoint a person to fill the vacant position, but certainly does not mandate it.I agree that http://gpco.fullydefiant.com/forum/index.php?topic=234.0 is a relevant precedent. This was proposal 004-15, submitted by the chair to appoint Laura Clark as co-chair and Chris Allen as treasurer. Council agreed to the proposal using our standard agreement seeking process. I suggest Council follow the precedent set in 004-15 and use our standard agreement seeking process on this proposal, 008-16.Doing so will put Council in compliance with party bylaw 5.8.Voting should be halted until Council agrees to fill the vacant co-chair position.
