CFHS Elections and the bylaws that apply

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Posted by bpc on November 06, 2002 at 08:38:07:

Ok here are the bylaws that pertain to what occured last night at the meeting.

Section 6. Elections

A. Nominations shall be made from the floor at the November meeting.
B. Elections shall be by ballot.
C. Ballots shall be counted at the January meeting.
D. Each membership shall have one vote (family = 1 vote)
E. Officers may succeed themselves.

That is pretty easy to understand. We will pass out ballots AT THE JANUARY MEETING. Members will sign in and receive their ballot. Dermont volunteered to monitor the ballots as a nuetral party. He will take all the ballots and count them at the meeting. The winners will be announced at the January meeting. As there seems to be some issue with who actually is and is not a member, I encourage everyone to attend the December meeting and to check on the status of their membership. Unfortunately, Ray left last night before the meeting was over, so I was unable to discuss my membership status with him. I believe I have payed my dues for this year, but I believe I payed them at one of the meetings Ray missed, so it is possible that he had no idea what was going on as far as cash in the money box (more on this later). Reguardless, I will be more than happy to renew my membership in the CFHS (again) so that we can move past this issue, as soon as I can get Ray to take my money.

Now as to why people cannot run for more than one office at a time, we have to refer to section 5

Section 5 Officers
A. There shall be FOUR elected officers.
1. President
2. Vice President
3. Secretary
4. Treasurer

So no one can run for the same office because if they did it would be possible that they could win both possitions. If that were to happen there would not be four elected officers. That would be a clear violation of the bylaws.

Further, Section 7 explains that the BOTH the treasurer AND the president must sign checks. If there was only one person doing that job we would have another violation of the bylaws. Not to mention that if someone were to hold both positions there would be major power imbalance on the board.

I believe that is what this all boils down to. Ray stated there was nothing in the bylaws preventing him from running for both positions. Paul may have jumped the gun a little by not checking with us before he said Ray couldn't run for both, but, in all actuality he was correct in saying so.

Therefor, Ray will run against Paul for the office of President for the year 2003. Jeff will take over as treasurer because he is unopposed, as Ray can not run for both positions. I'm not sure where Ray stands on this, he left before the regular meeting was over, and we could not discuss it with him afterwards. The remaining board members (Paul, Jeff, and myself) looked at the bylaws after the meeting and agreed that this inturpretation of the bylaws seems appropriate. This of course could be brought up for discussion at meeting if needed. In fact, Section 8 of the bylaws states that a "special" meeting can be called by the president with one week notice to all members concerned. Perhaps that might be needed in this case.
That way we could avoid the disaster that occured last night with people running from the room to avoid the conflict.

On a personal note, I wish to apoligize, to all members that this situation has come to this. And, that it came to a head in such an unfortunate manner. But, at least now it's out in the open and we can deal with it. I will address Ray's accusations in another post, that way we can try and keep this mess sorted out.

Brian Conley

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