By now you may have received an unsigned and un-dated proposal for a
radical change to the SBARC Bylaws, Board, and officers.
Please note that while the proposal contains the SBARC logo and return
address, these changes have NOT been voted on or approved by the SBARC
Board of Directors. In fact, many members of the Board as well as active
members of the Club oppose these changes.
Please attend the meeting and vote NO, or return your proxy with the name
of a trusted SBARC member who will attend the meeting as your proxy voter.
This proposal is OPPOSED for the following reasons:
The proposed bylaw changes are hastily and poorly written.
Article IV section 1 holds the Board responsible for protection of assets.
However, the Treasurer isn't a member of the board. Protection of assets
and disbursement authority go hand-in-hand. Article X awards disbursement
authority to the Treasurer, President, and Vice President. Presently all
with disbursement authority are Board members. Under the proposal, none of
them are.
Article IV section 4 refers to the term of officers, where in fact only one
or possibly two of the Board members are officers. It should be rewritten
to substitute "board member" for "officer".
Article IV section 7 is horribly written. Presently, action between Board
meetings includes the word "must" signifying matters of urgency. This
ensures that in the absence of exceptional circumstances, board action is
taken in a scheduled, open meeting pursuant to an agenda. The proposal
allows for between-meeting actions to be taken whenever "required or
permitted". This leads to routine decisions being made hastily and behind
closed doors.
In addition, there is a bizarre addition which essentially states that "No
means yes". It reads, verbatim, "The casting of a vote by Board members,
regardless of outcome, shall be construed as consent as applied to these
actions."
Article V has multiple duplications and conflicts.
President is responsible for providing the Board with a current status of
the Club's finances. Yet, Treasurer is separately responsible for a large
list of financial duties including informing the Board of expenditures in
budget items.
Education and Training is responsible for fulfilling the corporate
purpose. However, this individual is unelected and has no voice in Club
governance.
There is a new position "Manager of Telecommunications". Seeing as the
reason for the existence of the Club is telecommunications, this position
makes little sense. It would be similar to a municipal water district
appointing a "Manager of Water".
Further, this individual's responsibilities require that telecommunications
support be provided through mysterious organization referred to as SBTAC.
This is a separate entity about which little is known. Why should it be
coded into the SBARC bylaws that federally-licensed communicators must use
an unknown outside agency to provide communications support?
Also within this job description is the responsibility that this individual
provide Club resources, equipment, and personnel to this SBTAC unit. It
also refers to SBTAC as "Club sponsored". Nowhere else is this sponsorship
defined. Could there be a conflict of interest here? Who is behind SBTAC
and are they behind this agenda of bylaws change?
There are several conflicts and overlaps between the Manager of
Telecommunications and the Education and Training position as well as
Emergency Services.
In addition to the functional issues above, the document is riddled with
typographical and grammatical errors.
Article II Section 3: Strike the comma after "more" in the second sentence.
Article V - Vice President: Strike the comma after "duties" in the second
sentence.
Article V - Treasurer: Strike the comma after "President" in the second
sentence. Change "Treasure" to "Treasurer" in the fifth sentence.
Article V - "Public Information Office" should be "Public Information
Officer" in the title.
Article V - "Education and Training" should be "Education and Training
Coordinator" in the title.
Article VI, section 3: Singular vs. plural. Change "A newly elected
Officer or Directors" to "A newly elected Officer or Director". Strike the
commas after "office" and "elected".
Article VII: Singular vs. plural. Change title from "A Publications
Committees" to "A Publications Committee".
There are likely more errors. A thorough review with adequate time for
members to review and provide feedback regarding these drastic changes to
SBARC governance before voting is strongly recommended. Whoever is
responsible for bringing forth this proposal on election night is being
highly irresponsible.
