Letter to the DPS 1993-94
Management Committee
from Karen Leonard |
What's going on with the election process? On a DPS
trip March 26-27, I was surprised to hear that next year's Management Committee
had already been selected and had parceled out the offices among its members
(although one person had already resigned and been replaced)! Apparently this
took place at the March meeting, although I had just received my ballot in the
March SAGE during the week of March 21-25. What is the point of this ballot,
and why are the bylaws being ignored?
According to the DPS bylaws, a
three person nomination committee was to be announced at the January meeting
and at least five candidates were be submitted to the membership at the regular
February meeting. At the March meeting additional nominations should have been
possible from the floor, and then ballots were to go out and be counted at the
April meeting by at least two members of the Nominating Committee. Elections
are valid only when at least 25% of the membership votes. The January issue of
the SAGE has the Management Committee meeting minutes for November and
December. but the March issue contains no such minutes. Was a Nominating
Committee appointed in January. and who were its members? If some of the bylaw
provisions above were overlooked by mistake, then why was there no line on the
ballot for write-in candidates? If errors of omission had occurred by the time
of the March meeting, why compound them by hurriedly proclaiming the existing
five candidates already elected, breaching the bylaws further and rendering the
ballots in the SAGE quite useless? And will these after-the-fact ballots be
counted, to see if 25% of the membership voted?
Perhaps an explanation
from the outgoing Management Committee of what appear to be highly irregular
procedures could be printed in the next SAGE. since I am sending this letter to
the SAGE editor and the Chair in plenty of time. I am not challenging the
outcome, just curious about the way the section is being run. After all,
democracy begins at home, and it is important that the DPS try to recruit new
leadership through the systematic canvassing performed by the Nominating
Committee every year. The membership should have a choice and its exercise of
its vote should be meaningful. -- March 28. 1994
Reply from the
Editor: The bylaws appear to allow for having five candidates run for the five
offices, but fail to |
address the question of whether
this is really an "election". I should have done a better job of creating the
ballot, making a place for write ins, etc., and would have been smart to leave
off the comment about the election being uncontested. The 25% rule for an
election to be valid should perhaps be addressed by a change to the by laws
next year, as should whether five candidates make for a valid committee. I find
the minutes boring and chose not to publish them. This was perhaps a mistake,
and if the management committee request it I'll be happy to publish them.
Meanwhile Bill T. Russell keeps a set of the minutes.
As for the
outcome of all of this, there seems to be a very competent management committee
in place for the next season. All's well that ends well!
Wisdom From The Hot Springs
by Karen Leonard |
The scene was typical of DPS trips, tawny naked
bodies mingling in the hot springs as beer and other substances were imbibed
and eternal truths hotly debated into the small hours of the night. This was,
of course, the March 26-27 List Finish trip for Larry Tidball and Judy Ware,
which ended up at the Saline Valley hot springs Saturday night, and, for many
of us, Sunday morning as well. During this great weekend, not only did we see
each other, fellow DPSers with whose wisdom and world views we are all quite
familiar (yawn), we met lots of the "regulars" at the upper hot springs. Topics
included recent Saline Valley events--the earthquake slowed the flow into the
lower hot springs, and there was an exciting "citizens arrest" and consequent
conflict among the "regulars" (having to do with dog turds being flung into a
pool to assert control over the cleaning schedule). And then conversation
turned to life in general, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao according to Pooh, and
other common interests. Especially striking was the analogy one fellow made
between world religions and mountain climbing, one worth passing on to those
not in the pool at the time.... He said, when you reach the highest spiritual
truth, you can look down and see the many paths people can take to arrive at
it, just like when you reach the summit and see the many ways the peak could
have been climbed. But on the way to the top/realization of truth, there are
guides who think only they are on the right path, and they are so eager to help
others, to show them the way, that they proclaim they have the only correct
route. Luckily most climbing leaders are more laidback about routes than some
of the religious zealots out there. |