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Sent: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 1:14 PM
Subject: Fwd: Code of Regs. proposed changes, draft 4-1-13

Dear Tremont Leaders and Community Activists:

 

I am sorry that I did not formulate this communications earlier. This may come as a surprise to many of you block club leaders that TWDC staff and Board since its March Board meeting has put together a process to potentially approve the process and language for many by-law (Code of Regulations) changes at the May 20th Annual meeting.

 

I was made aware of this matter about a month ago. Cory contacted me and asked my opinion. TWDC Board in February had a brief discussion about the advantages of the Board self-appointing Board members to the Board. I told Cory in my opinion that the current Code of Regulations did not provide the Board that right. Board members are voted in by the membership. Secondarily Ex-Officio's are sent to the TWDC board via the constituent group process and election which then is affirmed by the Board. This based on the past try's of changing the Ex-Officio clause to the current regulations.

 

This was the only request from Cory to the Board, and has some merit. The proposals in Deane's email below has many other changes to the code of regulations. I cannot support the language for Cory's initial request as written. There needs to be two classes of Ex-officio. one leaving the existing process alone for recognized constituent groups, the second giving authority to the Board to appoint a Ex-officio for recognized community organization partners (such as Merrick House, Metro Health) but these appointments need to be capped at a number not more than five or six or you risk the board be not community driven.

 

I can send you email threads over the past ten days in which I highly objected to this flawed process. First a meeting was held just between Deane Malaker and Tim Jenkins in Deane's living room to pick and choose the items to request changes. I was supposed to be included in this process along with Lynn Murray. We were not made aware in time for this meeting and when I expressed my concern to Deane, he told me Tim Jenkins said why complicate this matter with more attendee's. After the fact then the date of April 4th was arbitrarily chosen to have a true Committee meeting. This date conflicts with the meeting date for the TWDC Economic Development and Housing Committees. This is not the way to exclude invites to a already flawed process. Not to mention no advance notice to the TWDC membership.

 

As a former Board member, especially when this matter was a heavy topic from 2009-2011, I can tell you a extensive transparent process took place for well over a year, and included the TWDC attorney sitting on the past defunct committee. These current actions are not transparent and lake the proper community engagement that we all have come to expect from TWDC.

 

Is this intentional? I will leave this up to you. During the past, several TWDC members voted these provisions down multiple times. In January 2012, I reached out to many people personally knowing that I would be elected as TWDC President. This was to convince them that proposed changes to be voted on in 2012 were the best of the suggestions from 2009-2011, and it was in the best interest of the community. In the past many people including the majority of minorities voted these propositions down. I made several promises that if any further by-laws were to be entertained a new Code Committee would be formed and individuals like David Gamble or Erich Hooper would have a seat at the table. Well those changes past, but after significant funding source pressure, and lack of commitment by some elected board members, I resigned my TWDC Board Presidency in August of last year. If you go to the TWDC website and look at Committee's you will see a entry still from my Presidency. The Ad-Hoc governance committee was to be formed back in September of last year. This was to give proper time to get community input and engagement from block clubs and stakeholders to properly address by-law changes if any for the 2013-2014 calendar  year.  

 

I am asking you to please engage, I know it is short notice for Thursday's meeting. I am a member of the Committees already scheduled to meet so I cannot attend.

 

Some questions, since the Executive Director only brought one issue to the table, and did reach out to me, why does TWDC's Board want to entertain additional changes that polarize and disenfranchise classes of residents and stakeholders in the Tremont Community? None of these are critical to the day to day operation of the organization, nor the abilities of a committed Board. If these were a priority these should have been voted on last year too. When we had at least 600 members with the right to vote. In the past many attempted amemdments were driven by NPI to continue to get funding.

 

I will be making a separate request to TWDC later asking for the total number of voting members as of yesterday's deadline to be allowed to vote at the May 2013 Annual Meeting. Based on Communications with TWDC staff early last week TWDC received close to 300 signed membership cards. Hopefully another good percentage was turned in the last week. TWDC staff has tried to get the word out, but this is a matter for the Board to work on too. Potentially 40-50% of the TWDC membership that were voting qualified in 2012 will not be qualified electors in 2013, including the majority of its minority members. Does anyone else see any concerns with this being probable that TWDC would go forward with asking for code of Regulation changes that were questioned in the past?

 

We need to make a difference the majority of us are community related. Sometimes TWDC should do what is in the best interest of the Community first. Including open and transparent processes with Community engagement from all demographics in Tremont.

 

Based on my ongoing health issues and those of my mother, I need to try to limit my engagement process. If this process continues unabated I intend to address the membership at the annual meeting. We do have that right. But if TWDC gets the proposed changes attached we would be only allowed to speak under new business if we let TWDC Board know in advance.

 

At least we still have the capacity as members to dissolve the corporation. In closing I will quote my neighbor who just recently resigned from TWDC's Board too, Georgiann Franko. "TWDC has made themselves irrelevant to many in the community, and many residents especially in Ward 14 choose not to want to participate in the organization". She resigned because she felt the current board composition are not treating people like neighbors versus numbers. Georgiann works hard with St. Augustine's, Friends of Clark Field, Second District Community Relations and other groups that do good things in Tremont.

 

Regards,

 

Henry P. Senyak

 

 

You have my permission to forward this email but only in full

 

From: mmda [dot] 226 [at] gmail [dot] com
To: hsenyak [at] aol [dot] com
Sent: 3/30/2013 3:13:40 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Code of Regs. proposed changes, draft 4-1-13

 

Henry:

 

Attached is Tim's draft for discussion.  We'll be meeting on Thursday, April 4 at 6:30 at Loop, and will have another meeting on Wed. April 24 at 6:30 at Loop, the day before the board meeting.  Meanwhile, we will probably be exchanging emails of ideas, etc.

 

All of this stuff, and more, is part of what came out of the lengthy process of the former committee.  The board can either reject all or some or come up with some things on its own at their April board meeting.

 

Deane

 

P.S.  If you can't open jpg, get in touch with Tim.  I don't have Word.

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