To all Rodgers Forge residents:
Please comment with your name and address with feedback.
I have had complaints by two residents about the way the RFCA election is to be conducted on Wednesday the 14th. I would like feedback from other residents.
The Rodgers Forge Community Association amended its by-laws this year after a By-Laws Review committee was formed. The results include changes to the requirements for membership, the years of service for a member and require that ½ the board be elected one year, and ½ elected the following year staggering each year thereafter.
In order to comply with those requirements, the RFCA Board drafted documents to explain the requirements for membership and required all current board members and all applicants for board membership to sign in acknowledgement of the requirements. The purpose was and is to make sure all board members are aware of the board requirements since they changed in May.
In order to comply with the new by-law of ½ of the membership being elected each year, the Nominating Committee was tasked with finding a solution as 19 positions out of 23 were up for election. The board agreed to ask 7 current members who had served 2 years, to extend their service one year. This makes 12 positions up for election this year, and 11 will be up for election next year.
After the By-Laws Review Committee finished drafting its proposal for changes, the proposed changes were on our website. There were two documents, the By-Laws Proposed Changes and a Rationale document explaining how to handle the election this year only, in order to comply with the changes and have a smooth transition.
On May 3 at around 5 pm the documents ProposedBylawChange.doc and Rationale.doc were added to the website. These documents are still available through Google, but the page linking to them no longer does and does not show up as part of the Google search.
By the 14th of May the documents were removed from the bylaws.shtml page and replaced with the current content which is the final approved changes. They were approved at the May 11, 2011 RFCA meeting. The final version of by-laws does not differ very much from the proposed changes which is here: ProposedChanges.doc. The rationale document explains the exception for the election this year. Please look at it. Rationale.doc .
The links to the website are: http://www.rodgersforge.org/docs/ProposedBylawChange.doc and http://www.rodgersforge.org/docs/Rationale.doc
The RFCA’s goal was to make all actions open and transparent to the community. This year especially we have made changes to meet this goal. This blog, our updated website and numerous notices in the newsletter were used to bring this information to the community.
I welcome your comments,
Jennifer Helfrich
RFCA president
It is my understanding that Kris Henry at the Forge Flyer was aware of the proposed changes before they were voted on and was also given an interview with a member of the Board to explain the changes in detail at some point in time after she was made aware of the changes. Why did she not publicize this information so that the community could express its concerns at the FOUR scheduled meetings subsequent to the initial publication of the proposed changes on the website? Wouldn't this have been a better and far less polarizing way to address the situation?
ReplyDeleteThis is an email I just sent the board:
ReplyDeleteJennifer,
You or your husband, Eric, (I'm not sure which one of you is Houseguest) left this comment on the Forge Flyer yesterday: "Kris, Perhaps you would care to explain exactly when it was and how you were made aware of the extension of the existing board's terms."
And then you left this comment this morning, "Kris, you still haven't answered my question as to when you first knew about these documents. It has been over 12 hours since I asked it and you have yet to respond. You are not being particularly transparent about this."
And this comment was posted yesterday on the official RFCA blog: Anonymous said... "It is my understanding that Kris Henry at the Forge Flyer was aware of the proposed changes before they were voted on and was also given an interview with a member of the Board to explain the changes in detail at some point in time after she was made aware of the changes. Why did she not publicize this information so that the community could express its concerns at the FOUR scheduled meetings subsequent to the initial publication of the proposed changes on the website? Wouldn't this have been a better and far less polarizing way to address the situation?"
Leaving aside for a moment that this is a strange way for the board to communicate with me and the community, it's not true. I only learned about the term extensions after the board vote. The board voted on all this on May 11, and here is an email I sent to you on May 18:
(more in next comment)
Hi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI don't want to cause you headaches or make a federal case out of this, but I just met with Janice about by-law and nominations changes and learned that the board approved these at the May meeting. But the proposed changes weren't published in the newsletter or posted on the website or blog as required by the by-laws (page 137 of the 2010-11 directory) -- unless I'm missing something, but they are not on the blog now and the website has the by-law changes that were approved last year.
I'm just confused about the process, and Scott referred me to you.
Thanks,
Kris
The rest of our email conversation is as follows:
Hi Kris,
By-Laws proposed changes were posted on the website 13 days before the board vote, after approval the changes were posted and remain there now. By-Laws amendment requirements on page 137 of the 2010-2011 directory were met.
Jennifer
Kris wrote:
Oh, do you know where? I can't find them. Do you have a link?
Sent from my cell.
Jennifer wrote:
website under by-laws- have to go get Greg
http://www.rodgersforge.org/bylaws.shtml
Kris wrote:
Thanks for the link. I guess you're right that the requirements were met, but I think perhaps the bylaws need to be clarified to require that the info be in the newsletter or at least on the blog (to be really forthright the bylaws would require they be published in both places). I had no idea these were on the website and I'm not sure how the average resident would have known it, either. How many of us check the bylaw page of the website daily to see if there happened to be changes?
What is posted also doesn't address the fact that half the board is going to be given an additional year without being elected again.
I know that Scott was not being nefarious or trying to sneak this by people, and I personally agree with the change to get rid of district reps and instead have everyone be on for two years. But I am still a little troubled by this being done in a less-than-transparent way. Scott tells me he or Janice asked Del to post the proposed change on the blog, but apparently that didn't happen and no one checked to make sure it did happen.
On another topic, I saw the sign at 300 Hopkins about the variance request and talked to the homeowner. She told me the RFCA is opposing it. I must have missed that -- when did the board vote to fight that?
Thanks,
Kris
PS:
I'm not going to make a fuss about the bylaw thing. It bothers me on principal but I don't want to do battle over every little thing. Just an FYI. (I do think, though, that the bylaws might be a little clearer on this subject. Great timing to mention it, I know, now that the bylaw committee has disbanded.)
KH
----
(end of emails; more info in next comment)
It was at the meeting with Janice, which occurred after your vote, that I learned about the board extensions. Of course, even if I had known about them earlier, it is the board's responsibility to alert the community of things like this, not mine. Certainly no one from the board asked me to post this information prior to the vote -- I would have accommodated them.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I was being naive, but I truly expected that during our May 18 email exchange you would say something like, "I didn't realize it was never posted on the blog. I will direct Del to put it on the blog and ask Jay to put it in the newsletter and we can take the vote again in June."
I was frankly shocked that you felt that posting the information on the bylaw page was sufficient. And why it was left out of the newsletter is still a mystery. These changes were not made in response to pending litigation or legislation or any type of emergency; there was plenty of time to handle this in a transparent way.
So, to your point: The reason I did not do a post immediately in May was that I would have had to include the unflattering fact that you felt a short-lived posting on the by-law page was sufficient notice to the community, and frankly, I didn't want to do that.
I was still under the impression that you basically intended to be open and fair and I didn't want to post something inflammatory and undermine your leadership. Maybe I was also just being a coward. Contrary to what you may think, I don't enjoy doing posts that make the board look bad. I don't enjoy the nasty emails from you and other board members (always off the record, of course). I don't enjoy knowing that what I post might be making you or others feel uncomfortable. I also know that much of the community's anger at the board is based on actions it took prior to you joining the board. So that's why I didn't post it.
I later talked to a board candidate who was upset about the term extensions and who made very valid points and who wrote an open letter to several news outlets, including the Flyer. It would have been irresponsible of me to not publish his letter and report on the issue.
You are still trying to turn this on me instead of looking at your own actions. Why wasn't the term-extension plan on the RFCA blog prior to your vote? Why wasn't it in the newsletter prior to your vote? Why did you tell Art Buist that is was in the blog and in the newsletter prior to the vote and that he should have made his concerns known then? Why did you say in your September 9 blog post that the board used the blog and the newsletter to bring this info to the community? It's just not true.
I hope this has cleared up any confusion. Per your requests, I will also share this on the Flyer.
-Kris
Kris, (part one) cross posted on the Flyer
ReplyDeleteThe reason I posted anonymously is because I am not a member of the board (although I do maintain the website that no one apparently visits) and my actions in attempting to clarify what has gone on here are not the board's actions. Jen doesn't read your blog and has no first hand knowledge of the content of it short of the emails that you sent and have subsequently published and informed her about.
If you go back and read your initial post concerning the extension of various members' terms, I don't see how a fair minded would not be left without the impression that board was attempting to conceal something with respect to the term extensions. You do attempt to caveat your criticism of the board's handling of the extensions by saying:
"So while I don’t believe this was a case of someone rigging the system in order to stay in power, it does appear that, for whatever reason, the community was not notified of this change at the proper time in the proper way."
Fair enough. What you neglect to mention in your post is that you, the "press", met with a representative of the board (Janice Moore) at a meeting that was set up for your benefit and had these changes explained to you.(I was mistaken in saying you met before the vote took place and I apologize. I misunderstood the sequence of things). Since you had mistakenly asserted that the changes were never published on the website (a position which you later retracted), it appeared to me and to others that your article was implying the board was attempting to conceal something. This is why I initially responded to you because I had first hand knowledge that your "facts" were incorrect.
(part two)
ReplyDeleteThe impression that your post initially imparted is very apparent following a brief perusal of the comment section:
"The arbitrary board does more arbitrary things. This should come as no surprise to anyone. The board seems to operate under the theory that the fundamental American principle of due process only applies to our state and federal actors, but not to those who act for us in our community. "
"I am trying to impugn the integrity and trustworthiness of several board members. Failure to consult residents about sweeping bylaw changes is not trustworthy. Attempting to enforce covenants where they have expired or been abrogated is deceitful. It's time for CHANGE! "
"The motivation doesn’t matter. It is often “inconvenient” for people in power to have to face the voters. We live in a society where the rule of law, and democracy, out-weigh simple convenience."
Apparently I was not the only person who had this impression. Had you disclosed 1) that the information was posted on the website and 2) that you had in fact met in your capacity as a reporter with a member of the board the negative impressions reflected in the above comments may have been lessened substantially.
Your subsequent post on the matter in your blog I think confuses the situation even further. You state:
"The reason I did not do a post immediately in May was that I would have had to include the unflattering fact that you felt a short-lived posting on the by-law page was sufficient notice to the community, and frankly, I didn't want to do that."
That statement explains why you did not initially put the information on your blog in May but raises several questions.
1) When you wrote your August post concerning the Art Buist letter you asserted the changes never appeared on the website. Here you are using the fact that the changes were only published on the website as the "unflattering fact" that led you to restrain yourself from publishing a post in your blog. Obviously one of these assertions must have been a mistake since they can't both be true.
2) Taking you at your word, at the time of your post in August the "unflattering fact" cat was already out of the bag. You were no longer protecting any discussions that only you and Janice Moore were privy to and could have used that insider knowledge to inform your readers of some of the background information you had concerning the Board's intent to disclose this information. I am trying to understand why exactly the Board voted to set aside time to meet with you to explain the content of its decision making process if the intent was not to have this information placed in the public arena.