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Claims that we ran the membership meeting unfairly
Claims that we ran the membership meeting unfairly
Let's take Santos' charges one at a time:
"-Failure to post an agenda."
This is ridiculous. We clearly stated the purpose of the meeting when we called for it in our mass-mailing to the entire KOOP membership. It's also been publicly posted on this website since that time as well.
"-Outright refusal to allow proxies to vote on meeting chair and voting rules."
Since Friends held an overwhelming majority of proxies and since that already gave us a decisive advantage, we attempted to show our good faith by allowing the first couple of items to be voted on without proxies. So what is Santos complaining about? If we HAD used proxies, then Santos would STILL have been outvoted, and even more so! Board supporters complained strongly that our use of proxies was unfair, and here Santos is claiming that our NON-use of proxies was unfair. I guess it's "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." Here's how the Texas Observer put it:
Board supporters insisted that any membership vote must include "proxy vote" from members and organizations not present; that issue resulted in a lengthy procedural debate, with the predictable effect of exhausting the meeting and driving many members away. In the end it made no difference: either by proxy or present voters, the meeting overwhelmingly voted "no confidence" in the current board of trustees, and asked the board to step aside for a transitional committee which would organize new elections for station governance. The board ignored the request and denounced the meeting as "illegal," and took steps to revise station by-laws to prevent the possibility of any such meeting ever happening again.
"-Happily not allowing many folks any chance to speak, including myself, saying there was 'not enough time' (whose fault?), while allowing any delay that seemed to serve the nonposted agenda."
Again, the agenda wasn't just posted, it was posted individually to hundreds of KOOP members in our mass-mailing. And "whose fault" was it for not having enough time for everyone to speak? Well, it was David Santos' fault, for one! Santos' tried to derail the meeting by repeatedly complaining about a supposed lack of agenda, and insisting that we abandon the agenda and make a new one. He pushed for this although he knew (or should have known) that there was little member support for his proposal. We wasted a great deal of time holding an vote on this item just to make it official that we would use the original agenda. (Counting 150+ voters during a meeting takes a lot of time.) There would have been more time available for speakers had Santos not attempted to derail the meeting.
"-Meeting chair seemed to openly restrict speakers to friends on one side of the debate. Many, like myself, were never allowed a voice."
It is absolutely untrue that the chair restricted speakers to the Friends side. In fact, many more NON-FRIENDS than Friends spoke. The chair allowed non-Friends to speak in greater numbers than were represented by the votes, clearly indicating that she went out of her way to give them a forum. This will be apparent when we post the minutes from the meeting here. As for not being allowed to speak, did Santos really expect that all 150+ members would each have time to go on for 3 minutes apiece on each issue? Sure, Santos didn't get to speak, but neither did I!
"-No roll call was allowed for the big vote, effectively hiding electoral sleazyness."
Oh please. It's no secret that the overwhelming majority of KOOP's membership opposes the Board of Trustees. That's why they gave us hundreds of proxies and that's why we called the meeting in the first place. In addition, it was easy to see how outnumbered Santos' camp was by simply looking around the room and noticing the hands in the air. And finally, Santos expected a ROLL CALL vote for 150 people?! This is absolutely ridiculous. If Santos was unhappy about the limited time for speakers, then why is he saying we should have used a voting process that likely would have taken quadruple the amount of time as a standard hands-in-the-air vote?
"-KOOP's bylaws, and provisions of State Law regulating nonprofits were plainly violated."
Absolutely untrue. Which part of the bylaws, and which provisions of State Law? Oh, and if Santos is really so concerned about the bylaws and State Law, then why haven't we seen him complaining when the Community Board and Board of Trustees blatantly violate them? (such as voting without quorum, and removing the membership database from the office)
"-Inadequate voting safeguards (sloppy polling incl. conflicted ex-employee counting votes in head)."
We registered members when they came in, giving them a special voting card. As for an ex-employee helping to count the votes, what exactly is the point here? That's supposed to be a problem somehow? Why? And I'm not sure what he means by counting the votes in her head -- in any event, for every vote-counter, there were one or two additional people verifying the counts. As for the other "sloppy safeguards", Santos doesn't say what he's referring to.
- "So in the end, by a shabby process of railroading by a small minority of KOOP's membership, a shrill motion passed that calls for a lawsuit between the factions!"
Santos completely misunderstands our position. Our goal was to support democratic-minded candidates in the Community Board election, and have the Community Board recall the Board of Trustees. The motion we passed at the membership meeting allows an oversight committee to take control of the station in an emergency, if this action is approved by a judge. We had no intention of going to court, but simply wanted this option to be available if an emergency situation forced us to do so. After our disappointment with the board's mishandling of the Community Board election, and their seeming stall on holding another election, we decided that we had spent long enough trying to work with the board in good faith, and filed a lawsuit to recall the board and appoint the Oversight Committee. The lawsuit would have been completely unnecessary if the board had simply heeded the wishes of the membership and stepped down.