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Commandeering the Community Board Election
Commandeering the Community Board Election
The Community Board elects the Board of
Trustees, and has the power to recall them. That being the case, the
trustees want to have as much control as possible over the election
of new Community Board members. Knowing that the membership would not
stand for the trustees running the Community Board election
themselves, the trustees agreed that an Election Committee could
operate and supervise the Fall 1998 Community Board
election.
Despite this, the trustees still asserted their authority over the election committee, overturning procedures that were voted on unanimously by the members of the committee. In mid-October, the trustees met and voted to extend the election -- without considering input from the full election committee, which was scheduled to meet later that night.
It's also worth noting that Friends members on the committee wanted the election to follow KOOP's bylaws, by splitting the Community Organizations into five groups (Hispanic, Women's, Youth/Student, Co-op, and Other), but the two trustees on the committee (Aida Franco and Carol Hayman) pushed for the election to violate the bylaws by putting all the Community Organizations into one group. (At the 1/13/99 board meeting, trustees Teresa Taylor & Carol Hayman, and Community Board chair Eduardo Vera made the same bylaws-breaking "lump all organizations together" proposal for the new Community Board election.)
The trustees also made bizarre charges against the election committee, saying that the committee intentionally withheld ballots from minority voters, and that they somehow manipulated the mailing so that some bulk mail items would arrive later than others. What's more, community board chair Eduardo Vera (who is married to board of trustees president Teresa Taylor) made insults to the election committee over the air (which, besides demonstrating a major lack of tact, is a violation of KOOP's on-air programming rules).
In the end, the trustees wound up invalidating the election, claiming that some ballots had been stolen. They made this decision without considering input from the election committee.
And finally, in November, KOOP members and election committee members packed a board of trustees meeting, pleading with the trustees to simply allow those whose ballots were taken to re-vote. The board refused, insisting that another election be held from scratch. (And despite that promise, the board made no substantive progress on having the new election held until we took them to court.)