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UCO Budget for 2013 passed by Delegates, Despite the efforts of "The Usual Suspects"!
Thanks to our Treasurer Dorothy's Professional Efforts.
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UCO Budget for 2013 passed by Delegates, Despite the efforts of "The Usual Suspects"!
Thanks to our Treasurer Dorothy's Professional Efforts.
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Delegate Assembly 10-5-2012 from David B. Israel on Vimeo.
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Videography ..... Laurent Lesage ..... WPRF
Video Rendering and Upload to Vimeo ..... Ed Black ..... UCO
Post to BLOGGER ..... Dave Israel ..... UCO
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Join our Geek Squad
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Dave Israel
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A SUGGESTION: That the two microphones at the front of the auditorium be rewired so that during delegate assemblies the moderator can turn either one, or both, OFF.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone speaking at the microphone is told he or she is out of order, is out of time, or is speaking out of turn, etc., the person should not be able to keep on talking—or shouting as the case may be, and often so loud that the moderator can't be heard. In this day and age of electronics, couldn't this be done at nominal cost?
It seems to me it be worth it. It would make the moderator's job easier, and it would save us in the assembly from having to put up with the endless loud "takeover" rantings of some.
I think that is a wonderful idea. Some of the speakers go on and on and each speaker constantly repeats and repeats the same thing and to tell the truth I sometimes wish I could leave. Their spewing is a turn off as far as I am concerned. I'm still ambivalent re the Golf Course but more and more these people are turning me off with their spouting.
ReplyDeleteIn total agreement w/Lanny..
ReplyDeleteperhaps something sort of a
"Key word" could as well
be included in the cut off
system, preventing repetition? How about it Dave?
I totally agree with Lanny. There should be a way that they are able to shut these people off once their time is up. I get sick of listening to some of them repeating themselves and keep going on and on. The pro-active committee is beating a dead horse. We gave $25,000 and they claimed that they wouldn't ask for any more and now their back for more. Give me a break. NO MORE...let them go get donations on there own
ReplyDeleteI'm a snow bird and have filled out the WIFI questionnaire, would some one please tell me where I am to email it to and the email address?
You can email the Wi-Fi survey to ucopresident@gmail.com and Dave will see that it gets where it needs to go.
ReplyDeleteI want to thank you for filling out the survey. I will be posting the current stats sometime today.
Again, if we hire a sheriff's deputy for the meetings, they can escort out of the building loud mouths and other obnoxious types so we are not hostages to their nonsense.
ReplyDeleteHi Plcruise,
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, there is no need for a deputy to be hired once a proper standing rule is established, and consistently enforced. In addition to the two minute time limit for discussion, it is advisable to prohibit a person from returning to the microphone to speak again on the same motion, even if all others have had their say. If a person refuses to obey this rule, they can be removed from the meeting by a two-thirds vote of the Delegates.
Hi Randall,
ReplyDeleteOctober 7, 2012 4:31 PM,
I wish I could share your faith in all to follow "the rules".
The evidence suggests that there are two or three who come to disrupt and derail the business of the Delegate Assembly, they seek the notoriety of Mob Rule, and the rules, and regulations of a Civil Society mean nothing to these people.
In fact, to be castigated by a 2/3 vote of the Delegates would be the zenith of their intent.
I remind you of the article by David St. John Esq. reproduced in this BLOG; "Dealing with Difficult People"; in which among other thing he states, "difficult people, enjoy being difficult"
As one works down through Attorney St. Johns process, the bottom line is: "Call the Police"!
Of course, nothing would suit their purpose better than to taken out of the Assembly in handcuffs!
Thus, the shriekers and agitators, come not merely to enjoy the show, but rather, they come to be the show.
No rule, standing or otherwise will dampen their sense of their dramatic value.
But, if you doubt my analysis, make your motion for the "standing rule" and we shall see!
Dave Israel
I'll say two more things. First, I think that you, Dave, have done a superb of moderating under these difficult conditions. Some of us would like you to have put up with less, but in going BEYOND our personal "red lines"—in going to the point where half the assembly is groaning and THEN holding to "no more"—you have wisely removed the grounds for any to criticize.
ReplyDeleteI was amazed when to one man who got up repeatedly you finally said, "Please sit down." I thought to myself, "He is saying 'PLEASE'?" That was impressive.
The other thing I would say is this: If it were set up so the moderator could turn off the mikes, I DON'T think this should be done the moment a person exceeds his time limit. That would be being too tough and too strict, and would be seen as such.
Hi Lanny,
ReplyDeleteOctober 7, 2012 8:46 PM,
I did not miss your first suggestion regarding turning of the microphone.
This sort of action is tantamount to stepping onto a slippery slope, it would reek of excess out of frustration.
Our unit owners and Delegates have a right to speak, until liberty becomes license, and then action must be taken.
The question is, what action; if for example I were to have a PBSO Deputy in the hall to take someone away, then the cry would go up; "police state", even though it would be perfectly legal.
I think the best approach is for a Delegate to rise and move to expel the member.
But even this approach would require a sworn Officer to carry out the vote, if it were successful.
The PBSO solution is required as we have no Bylaw enabling a Sargent at Arms with the substantial power to remove an expelled member, although; RONR does indeed contemplate such power.
Dave Israel
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteThe following is extracted from rulesonline.com
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Art. XIII. Legal Rights of Assemblies and Trial of Their Members.
72. Right of an Assembly to Punish its Members
73. Right of an Assembly to Eject any one from its Place of Meeting.
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72. The Right of a Deliberative Assembly to Punish its Members. A deliberative assembly has the inherent right to make and enforce its own laws and punish an offender, the extreme penalty, however, being expulsion from its own body. When expelled, if the assembly is a permanent society, it has the right, for its own protection, to give public notice that the person has ceased to be a member of that society.
But it has no right to go beyond what is necessary for self-protection and publish the charges against the member. In a case where a member of a society was expelled, and an officer of the society published, by its order, a statement of the grave charges upon which he had been found guilty, the expelled member recovered damages from the officer in a suit for libel, the court holding that the truth of the charges did not affect the case.
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73. Right of an Assembly to Eject any one from its Place of Meeting. Every deliberative assembly has the right to decide who may be present during its session; and when the assembly, either by a rule or by a vote, decides that a certain person shall not remain in the room, it is the duty of the chairman to enforce the rule of order, using whatever force is necessary to eject the party.
The chairman can detail members to remove the person, without calling upon the police. If, however, in enforcing the order, any one uses harsher measures than is necessary to remove the person, the courts have held that he, and he alone, is liable for damages, just the same as a policeman would be under similar circumstances. However badly the man may be abused while being removed from the room, neither the chairman nor the society is liable for damages, as, in ordering his removal, they did not exceed their legal rights.
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These are the sorts of rules which are needed to be infused into our Bylaws!
Dave Israel
Standing rules may be okay if they're good ones. I don't agree with only one bite of the apple per discussion item, however. Often in a productive discussion you want a person with helpful input to be able to speak more than once.
ReplyDeleteAs for the microphone shutoff putting us on a slippery slope, you may be right, Dave, and certainly the moderator must be patient and do this with great discretion. But I can see this as possibly SAVING us from going down the slippery slope of (1) calling in Security, and then (2) calling in police.
How? You finally (after we've had enough of "X") shut off his mike. When he realizes this, you address "Y," at the other mike, to proceed, and he does, and we are hearing his voice, not X's, because it is amplified. After a bit of disgruntlement, X goes and sits down. Why? Because he realizes he's broken the rule, and in the quietest way possible after having been very patient, you have enforced it.
No?
How about imposing a set time limit on any matter of discussion, with the option of extention by the Presiding Officer?
ReplyDeleteAfter each seconded motion, the Presiding Officer declares a discussion period, say fifteen minutes, turns on the mikes and starts the clock. At the end of the discussion period, both mikes are turned off, and one of three things happens:
A- The matter is voted on.
B- President declares an extention to the discussion, turns on the mikes and restarts the clock.
C- Move on to new business.
No motions can be made during the discussion period because one is already on the floor. I don't know how this idea would hold up to Rules. Not my department.
These Assemblies are starting to resemble public hearings for the subway or the airport, where every lunatic, lunatics' cat, or professional pot stirrer shows up to hog the mike. These people have a right to speak, but time limits and advanced registration of speakers keep the hearings from becoming freeforalls. Just look how Palm Beach County handles the zoning hearings at Vista Center, with an overflow crowd of cranky retirees and some of the same loudmouths from the Delegate Assembly in attendance. Public hearings and assemblies of voting delegates are not exactly the same thing, but nobody at Vista Center gets hauled away in chains by PBSO.
At the very least, a time- limited discussion period would control the confusing problem of motions being forwarded and seconded while a preceding motion remains on the floor. That seems to happen at almost every Assembly and sorting it out is a time-waster. One day, Randall is going to catch a cold and not be in the theater to keep track of these things.
In the end, the PBSO will need to be involved. The chaos at Delegate Meetings goes back some years. Who can forget the crazy 2006 scene with the toilet paper and the red shirts on the UCO stage? Its on YouTube for those who are interested.
ReplyDeleteHuh! I was just thinking about that meeting, but I think it was in 2008, right after I got my place. That time, it was the Officers up on the stage that were causing the problem and the Delegates that had to end the lunacy. The play there, as I recall, was to eat up the clock and lose the quorum, but I forget what the issue was that they were trying to Johnny Carson off the agenda. When the President-Pro-Tem got to describing the "tingle" that he felt during his trip to the Holy Land, the members of the Executive Board that were on the floor had to take control of the meeting.
ReplyDeleteGoes to show you- things can work both ways. Proves the value of Rules and "institutional memory". That was the first Delegate Assembly that I ever watched. Every Assembly that I have watched since has been measured against the Red Sportjacket Meeting.
It was probably not a coincidence that at a subsequent Assembly, a Delegate rose and motioned to "end the blog". That Delegate, who happens to be one of todays' "usual suspects", no doubt realized that these Assemblies are now available to anyone in the world. The Red Sportjacket Meeting was the last real freeforall.
Since my own "institutional memory" does not reach back to pre-blog times, I can only imagine what the old-time dog and pony shows were like.
Hi don4060,
ReplyDeleteOctober 9, 2012 1:25,
Your memory is quite good, I was not a UCO Officer at that time, but the central issue was UCO Open meetings, and the absurd rule that if you wanted to attend certain meetings, you actually were required to call the then President of UCO and in essence obtain permission; because "we need to be sure the room is big enough"!
The vote went against the President, whereupon he and a VP (the toilet paper waver) resigned, as no doubt a very adult gesture over not getting his way: only to be later re-elected by the same disgusted Delegates who had "caused his resignation"! Explain that absurdity if you can.
Other absurdities from that era; the UCO Reporter was controlled by the UCO Presidents wife (as Editor in Chief), and the galley proofs were read in UCO prior to publication.
That meeting was punctuated by a UCO VP waving the toilet paper which was indeed represented as "the BLOG"!
We really need a good political cartoonist to chronical these Delegate Assembly meetings.
Dave Israel
Ah yes, Dave, those were the good old days--NOT!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePulling the plug on a speaker was tried before. Low points by the Proactive cmte included much screaming, and claiming a rule that no one knew about - it prevented Mr Waldman's brother from speaking because “he did not have a seat on the stage”, then the plug was pulled on Mr. Waldman's mic – I'm sure this has contributed to his attitude about CV. It did not help villagers' opinion of the Proactive cmte either.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to second motions on the floor, my understanding has been this, and Randall (or anyone else) can correct me. There should not BE a second motion on the floor unless it is framed as an amendment to the first motion on the floor. The moderator should say to the person proposing another, second motion, "There is already a motion on the floor, which must be dealt with first."
ReplyDeleteHowever, an AMENDMENT to a motion on the floor can and should be seconded, discussion about it take place, and a vote on it take place BEFORE the first (main) motion finishes being dealt with. In this instance the second motion gets dealt with first.
Example: Whether to have a bicycle shed built in back of the UCO office. In the middle of the discussion, someone says, "I move that the shed be painted red." Now color was not in the original motion. The second motion (the amendment) gets voted on first. If "red" passes, then IF the assembly decides to build the shed, it will be painted red.
Hi Lanny,
ReplyDeleteWhat you claim to be your 'understanding', would best be served by reading on subjects, instead of just simply writing about them. I bet that by spending just a single hour reading a primer on Parliamentary Procedure, you would realize how mostly inaccurate and inadequate your comment actually is.
Hi Randall,
ReplyDeleteI have a Robert's Rules of Order, and I have spent time reading it but not recently. Alas, too,though I like to read and read a lot, I have dreadfully poor retention. I often think it is a good thing I am not taking school tests any longer. I will have another go with Robert's and see if I can pick up on what you are getting at, but right now I'm about to leave on a trip north for a couple of months, and Robert's is not on my reading list. Later—and in the meantime it's good it is you keeping us on the straight and narrow with regard to meeting procedures.