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.