Article 8, Code of Conduct and Roles of the Vice Chairs

[juliakcdems]

The Article 8 small group looking at the Code of Conduct section and roles of the vice chairs (Julia, Nathaniel Block, Carin Chase, Ben Berry, and David Fleetwood) will be meeting via Zoom on Saturday 12/20 at 1 PM. If you would like to join as an observer please email Julia at julia...@gmail.com and she'll add you to the invitation. We will post our notes to this thread following the call.

[Nathaniel Block]

Good evening all,

In preparation for the Article 8 small group meeting this weekend, I have the following suggestions of additions to the current proposed amendment. In general, I believe that the proposal by Vision 2020 and Mr. Forbes is a significant improvement on the procedures we have now. But when looking at what happened with the situation in 2018, I believe that adding certain procedures and making one proposed substantive amendment are important to ensure we do not go through that process again. In my suggestions below for the rationales I gave, I do not mean to say in any way that I support or agree with what happened or the "defenses" and arguments that were used. I only discuss them to show how I believe my suggestions will prevent those issues from arising again. I also have a proposed edit to how we define and describe the standard used for investigations for clarity, not a change in the actual standard. The last suggestion is adding one more type of potential discipline to the current proposals. Finally, the language I propose is not meant to be final, but rather a jumping off point and suggestions.

1. Proposal - Upon receiving all information from the accuser(s) and any witness(es) the committee shall provide the accused with the specific allegations against him or her. The information provided to the accused must give them information on what portion of the code they are accused of violating and Awesome, thanks! approximately when such is alleged to have occurred. The committee need not give the name of the accuser(s) or any witness(es). Upon receiving the specific allegations against him or her, the accused shall be given a minimum of five days to respond to the allegations either in a written statement or in an interview with the committee. They may also provide signed witness statements in their defense. The chair of the committee may grant more time to respond, in their discretion.

Rationale - During the situation in 2018, the violator used the argument that they were given 24 or 48 hours (I cannot recall which) to respond to the argument. They claimed this was an insufficient amount of time to respond and they were unable to defend themselves in that period of time. Them, and some supporters, used this amount of time as a procedural defense which helped to drag the situation out longer than what should have occurred. They also claimed they were not given adequate information on the charges against them, which they used to further drag the process out. Additionally, keeping accuser(s) and witness(es) from being identified in the information to the accused allows for them to hopefully be protected from harassment for coming forward. Further, the WSDCC Code of Conduct procedures explicitly allows for the alleged violator to respond to the allegations. If we are codifying investigation procedures under the proposed Section 8.2.6, we should codify a chance to submit a defense as well.

2. Proposal - Once the accused has submitted a defense, if any, the accuser and any witness shall be given an adequate amount of time to rebut the defense. The chair of the committee shall determine the appropriate amount of time based on the specific allegations and to give any victim(s) the time they need for their own well-being to respond.

Rationale - The accuser(s) and victim(s) should be given the last word and a chance to respond to any defenses by the accuser based upon the suggestion in (1) above.

3. Proposal - Amend proposed Section 8.2.2: Membership to the following: "The County Chair, KCDCC Vice-Chairs, and three King County LD Chairs chosen by the KCDCC Executive Board shall each either serve as a member of the committee or, by notifying the Executive Board, appoint a person to serve on their behalf. The First Vice-Chair or their appointee shall chair the committee."

Rationale - During the situation in 2018 the violator used the claim that there were interpersonal issues between himself and the vice-chairs as a defense which not only dragged out the situation, but also lead to three of the four vice-chairs resigning. By adding three LD chairs as chosen by the Executive Board to the Committee, it will help eliminate this type of defense and also give the Executive Board more ownership over the Committee and hopefully have more trust in any proposed disciplinary actions by the committee.

4. Proposal - Amended proposed Section 8.2.6: Investigations to require four members to find a violation for an accusation to be determined to be a violation of the Code of Conduct.

Rationale - By expanding the committee as proposed in (3) above, there should be a roughly proportional expansion of the number of individuals required to find an accusation to be valid. This would mean either 4/7 or 4/8 (depending on if the County Chair or First VC are voting members of the committee) to find a violation. Currently it would be either 3/5 or 3/6 under the current proposal.

5. Proposal - Amend proposed Section 8.2.7: Standard of Review for Investigations to the following: "The committee shall use a more likely than not standard when determining the outcome of its investigations. That is, the committee shall determine, based on the testimony and evidence that the committee gathers, whether it is more likely than not that the accusation is true and the code of conduct has been violated."

Rationale - This simply changes the name of the standard from "preponderance of the evidence" to "more likely than not." As a trial attorney, I believe that understanding the standard of proof is one of the most complicated things for people to understand. To me, less legalese is better, while keeping the same standard in place. Also, eliminating legalese to me means that nobody could confuse our process with a legal process.

6. Proposal - Amend proposed Section 8.2.10: Outcomes of Investigations to add a disciplinary action of "formal warning or reprimand" to the potential disciplinary outcomes.

Rationale - This is technically a less severe punishment than a censure and may be appropriate in certain cases.

I look forward to hearing any questions, suggestions, or concerns and discussing further with individuals.

Sincerely,

Nathaniel

On Tue, Dec 18, 2018 at 7:16 AM juliakcdems <julia...@gmail.com> wrote:

The Article 8 small group looking at the Code of Conduct section and roles of the vice chairs (Julia, Nathaniel Block, Carin Chase, Ben Berry, and David Fleetwood) will be meeting via Zoom on Saturday 12/20 at 1 PM.  If you would like to join as an observer please email Julia at julia...@gmail.com and she'll add you to the invitation.  We will post our notes to this thread following the call.

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[frui...@tara-jamie.net]

I have an over-arching question/concern about this section

Is it possible to move most of it from the bylaws to Disciplinary standing rules? Sections 8.2.4-8.2.14, say?

Section 8.2 is about four pages long. The by-laws, without the table of contents, total about 24 pages long, so nearly 17% is about disciplinary complaints (not counting the other sections that cover officer removal). Yes, we are coming out of a bad situation, but do we want to present disciplinary review as a disproportionate part of the organization's mission?

Also, it's a big side trip in the Committees section. At the very least, the particulars about dealing with complaints (sections enumerated above) should go in a separate section. But if it's at all possible to move this to Standing rules (making the bylaws shorter!) that would be to the good.

This is no reflection on any of the content, just a plea to streamline the bylaws.

Tara

Sent from my iPad

[Marcella Stone-Vekich]

Thanks, Tara! I’ve been thinking that it cries out for separation to standing rules. Perhaps that way, they can be updated in the future without having to go through a bylaws approval process. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Nathaniel Block]

Good evening all,

If we do elect to place such as a stand rule versus in the bylaws (and I am not advocating one way or the other) I would highly encourage us as a committee to have proposed standing rules ready to go at the PCO meeting to propose and ideally pass. To me, the Code of Conduct is too important to punt down the road.

-Nathaniel

[Angyl]

Agreed.

[Shasti Conrad]

Up in the 1st LD, they just put a note that said that they had adopted the Washington State Democrats Code of Conduct. Perhaps we put that into the bylaws and develop procedures and any additional content via standing rules. 

On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 9:54 PM 'Angyl' via King County Democrats - Bylaws and Rules Committee <brc-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Agreed.

[Bryan Kesterson]

I think Nathaniel has presented a good list of recommendations, and I also support the concept of moving these to standing rules instead of the bylaws. 

I would like to add an additional recommendation to Nathaniel's list for the teams consideration. Confidentiality is critical to these investigations. Public release of information is not fair to the accuser, the accused, or anyone else involved. Further, it may expose both the individual and KCDCC legal action. I would recommend that Section 8.2.8 regarding confidentiality of investigation be expanded to include a sentence indicating that violations of confidentiality will be considered a violation of the code of conduct and will be subject to investigation and discipline. 

Bryan Kesterson,
47th LD Washington State Democratic Central Committeeman
22955 130th Pl. S.E.
Kent, Wa 98031
Cell: 206-304-2701
bryan.k...@gmail.com

[Angyl]

Please be super careful with the language around this. Silencing the victim from elevating the evidence of having been wronged to outside sources is one of the things HR often tries to do that effectively protects their abusers. Honest truth from me, if reporting something to an org put me in a situation where also reporting it elsewhere would be punished, I wouldn’t bother to tell the org at all, I’d go straight to a lawyer and the press.

- Angyl

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[Bryan Kesterson]

Assume someone comes forward with a complaint and asks that the matter be treated confidentially. How would you change the wording to reinforce investigator's responsibility to respect that request?

Bryan Kesterson,
47th LD Washington State Democratic Central Committeeman
22955 130th Pl. S.E.
Kent, Wa 98031
Cell: 206-304-2701
bryan.k...@gmail.com

[Nathaniel Block]

Good evening all,

I agree generally with Angyl’s concerns about how silence helps the accused and abusers, not victims. But to answer Bryan’s question, if we wanted to go this route, I believe there is a way we could phrase such where if the accuser(es) or victim(s) ask for confidentiality a violation of such would then be a violation. My main issue with this is that we would be putting the impetus on doing such on the victim(s) or accuser(s). But on the other hand, we should also respect their position and their concerns.

Just my two cents.

-Nathaniel

Sent from my iPad

[Julia Reed]

The kind of after the fact confidentiality Brian is proposing is a non-starter for me. It is one of the ways in which abusers continue to hold positions of power. Forcing victims to sign confidential arbitration agreements is a specific step that is used to silence  people who have experienced bullying and abuse.  If we find this is unresolvable difference then we will need to bring it forward to the full BRC for a vote. 

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[Julia Reed]

I should add, I would be open to putting something about confidentiality into the section related to the role of the Ombud, as I think it’s important for members to have a person to go to discuss concerns prior to bringing them forward for an investigation if they wish. This was a specific goal of creating an office of the Ombud at the city of Seattle - which we recently did as part of our own anti-harassment efforts - providing another tool for people who were victims of harassment to access if they needed support when deciding their next step. 

I would want to be careful about the specific language, but I was already wanting to suggest adding a sentence to the section on the role of the Ombud about advising members as well as the committee. 

[McDonald, David]

It seems to me that this should be separated into two discussions:  the discussion of whether a complainant or accused have the right to disclose and the  question of whether anyone else in the process has any right to disclose if the two principals want confidentiality.   Everyone other than the complainant and the accused, it seems to me, has no legitimate basis for ignoring a requirement of confidentiality and should be subject to a code of conduct violation.  That part of the discussion should be easy.   The more difficult question is what should be the rule when one of the two principals wants confidentiality and the other wants disclosure.  There are three basic ways to deal with the two principals:  if both want disclosure, then barring some articulated interest of the rest of us, disclosure occurs.  If both want confidentiality, then the rest of us should respect that.  If they disagree then this Committee needs to make a judgment as to whose wishes will govern in that circumstance.  It should not be arbitrary, it should be consistent and it should reflect a policy.

 

From: brc-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brc-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Julia Reed
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To: brc-...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Angyl
Subject: Re: [KCDCC BRC] Article 8, Code of Conduct and Roles of the Vice Chairs

 

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[Bryan Kesterson]

It was never my intent to generate something that would silence the victim, and I apologize for not being clearer about that earlier. My concern was about the ombud and other investigators. They will be given access to privileged information and have a duty to protect it. I agree with David's analysis. Hopefully we can find a way forward that satisfies peoples concerns about not silencing the victim but also has protections against capricious release of information.  

Bryan Kesterson,
47th LD Washington State Democratic Central Committeeman
22955 130th Pl. S.E.
Kent, Wa 98031
Cell: 206-304-2701
bryan.k...@gmail.com

[Julia Reed]

I apologize as well for misunderstanding your intent. I appreciate the deep thinking and rigor that people are bringing to these discussions. 

[Nathaniel Block]

Allow me to apologize as well if my suggestions was mistaken in any way for attempting or suggesting that we should silence victims or accusers.

I’d also like to second Julia’s last comment where I also greatly appreciate the thoughtfulness of everyone’s input. It also gives me great hope that we are debating and discussing ideas, not going after individuals. I hope that we can not only continue these high level discussions, but also continue to work together collaboratively both in this committee and in KCDCC as a whole to make the Bylaws and the organization as a whole as strong as possible and get wins up and down the ticket every election.

-Nathaniel

Sent from my iPad

[Angyl]

Full disclosure, IANAL and I’m super not good with legal language and that’s one of the things I hope to learn on my time here with people who are good at it. Also, no personal blame for ideas! Everybody’s got different pieces of the puzzle and it’s putting them all together that’s our job here. Also also I started writing this hours ago so there’s some redundancy now, sorry! I’m hoping to get better at using more precise words and less of them too. 🤞

One thing that could be a piece is: Person bringing the report can at any time for any reason waive their confidentiality request. If the person bringing the report is not the victim (i.e. whistleblower), the victim’s wishes should override. If anyone else overrides a victim’s request, that’s definitely a violation and should be addressed as such, but then we would have the problem of proving it.

(There should be a super simple process for this waiver like sending an email or something similarly low barrier.)

On the accused’s side, it seems like maybe they should lose any claim to confidentiality over matters they were found guilty of, since otherwise that could block paths to other legal remedies. I’m uncertain about matters they were cleared of, as these trials aren’t a real court of law and don’t have tools to warrant or compel discovery or hold in contempt. If the process is speedy enough, I could see an argument to allowing the accused to compel confidentiality for the course of an investigation, but would be worried about that being used as a path to block outside or adjacent investigations. That said if outside investigations have the power to override CoC policies and achieve discovery through FOIA or legal means, this might not even be germane at all.

I also don’t think that anything that was previously public should be covered at all. I can’t imagine that holding up in any court. This should only apply to things that couldn’t be independently discovered in the public sphere, like internal communications.

Also have to be wary of what it means to go after leakers to the press - the vast majority of press I know are quite willing to sit in jail to protect their sources, and I’m not sure it’s wise to set up any situation that -requires- KCDCC to make that court challenge. #awkward

Also perhaps worth considering is a non-retaliation against whistleblowers piece? Iirc the matter earlier this year was not reported by the victim, but instead by others who were aware of the issue after consulting the victim. This can be a very important mechanism because of power dynamics.

Retaliation in general seems in our current state discourse to be a big concern. I don’t really know what a good non-retaliation policy looks like, but I’ve been aware of (and, to be honest, one of) many, many people who have expressed fear of speaking out about or reporting things due to concerns about being removed from their roles or blocked in seeking future roles by the person they wish to speak out about, who holds or influences systemic power over them, which ties back in to one of the big reasons people don’t report.

In a best case scenario, a good reporting system serves the org by surfacing problems early and independently, allowing patterns to become clear to any ombuds or team responsible for monitoring conduct. Should those problems then get addressed, there’s no need to take the issue any further. (Some models use third party vendors so there’s a complete separation of reporting mechanisms and presentation of evidence, anecdata suggests victims have greater confidence in those systems because the third parties have no part in or alliances to the rest of the power structures.)

In the real world, there’s typically a lot of harm done and ill will at play before things get reported. A lot of this delay, in the real world discussions I have had with people, comes down to fears of retaliation - it has to get so bad that the current harm feels bigger than the retaliatory harm would be.

We’ve also seen that sometimes people sit on things until someone is up for a significant power increase. So any waiver might need to be allowable even years in the future. “This dude was removed from his org role for groping employees and I was one of those employees” might matter again if he’s trying to become a senator.

I didn’t sign up for this team because it’s way outside my expertise to actually solve these problems. There’s probably no perfect solution. But we can still learn from the past and try to avoid the known pitfalls, while leaving some space around known unknowns. I think it’s admirable that we’re trying to figure it out and that we have such good minds on it, and I have every confidence that you’ll step up to the best of your significant abilities.

- Angyl

--

[Chris Roberts]

I do not have answers to all of the questions in this thread, but the questions raised seem to point to the fact the specific rules of procedure should be in a standing rule, rather than in the bylaws, with only the composition of the code of conduct committee described in the bylaws and perhaps threshold requirements for penalties. 

The reason is that I am not sure any group can reach the ideal result that works for every situation and there is some value in making it easier to adjust the standing rules as new questions arise. 

Chris

[tedb310]

Hello, I wanted to sit in on todays Zoom meeting as an observer, but the crush of the holidays got in the way of that. So here are the comments I would have made during public comments:

I think there are two topics, first is our Code of Conduct and what is and isn’t acceptable behavior. I think on this front we should go the way of the 1st LD and adopt the state’s code. It’s sound and also I believe there is value in having consistency in various party orgs on this front. That way an individual who wishes to be active in multiple levels of the party should always be able to know the rules.

The second part of the issue is remedial action for violations of the rules. I feel the bylaws revision we are working through is to a certain degree motivated by the events of earlier this year, and while there may be a wide variety of opinions of what went wrong I think there is common ground in that no one was satisfied with the process. I know this will probably be an unpopular opinion, but as a member of this committee I fell obligated to express my concern of the proposed bylaws. My feeling is that relying on elected party office holders to conduct the investigation of events like this is not the way to go. I think back to last year the eboard in the course of the process received two reports, one written by the vice chairs and one written by a woman who was skilled in doing this type of work. I apologize I don’t remember her name; I think her first name was Afton and I believe she did work place harassment work for a union. I don’t want to be critical of the vice chairs, they did better than I could have, but differences between the reports were stark. It is my opinion that getting a report of the quality of the second report in the hands of eboard as quickly as possible will greatly speed up the process for all. Investigating work place harassment is not a simple task, people undergo a great deal of training to do this and have rewarding careers doing so. Expecting (hoping) that we have elected office holders in place that can pull this off if heaven forbid something goes wrong is asking for trouble. I think best procedure for us would be to have the vice chairs determine if there is evidence of wrong doing and if they find there is we bring in a pro to deal with it, assuming we don’t happen to have one in our membership. This would mean we should find an agency that can do that now when there is not a problem, and that we should also establish a rainy day fund for this. Actually this would be a good service for the state party to offer local orgs.

Thank you,

Ted Barker

[juliakcdems]

On Monday, December 17, 2018 at 11:16:22 PM UTC-8, juliakcdems wrote:
> The Article 8 small group looking at the Code of Conduct section and roles of the vice chairs (Julia, Nathaniel Block, Carin Chase, Ben Berry, and David Fleetwood) will be meeting via Zoom on Saturday 12/20 at 1 PM. If you would like to join as an observer please email Julia at julia...@gmail.com and she'll add you to the invitation. We will post our notes to this thread following the call.

Hello all! We had a good meeting this afternoon of the subgroup and I am posting in here our notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16GZC32eKXDZWU4ae8tPsxwp7jhoqD4o_O3sWFGPE2Qs/edit?usp=sharing

We got as far as section 8.2.10 on the Code of Conduct Committee, but we did not finish section 8.2.10.

We're going to meet again on 12/27 at 7 PM via Zoom, if you would like to join and you have not already received an invite, please let me know (julia...@gmail.com) and I can add you to the list.

[juliakcdems]

Hello Team Articles 8.2 and 8.4-8.6:

I wrote up our comments to the Code of Conduct section, including incorporating some feedback from the BRC meeting on Sunday, into the attached report for Friday submission: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cXpEk5FpFQvysu9pfaF3A6dVJ3MPwq0Wpcykxsl_s90/edit?usp=sharing

I'm not sure I understood the confusion you expressed in our earlier notes regarding section 8.11 so I left it out of our proposed changes, but let me know if you want to jump on a call quickly to address.

The notes were:
8.2.11 -- First paragraph ideas:
If the executive board cannot come to a decision based on the committee’s recommendation the committee’s recommendation will be enacted by default? Does this make the committee too powerful?
Should the committee recommendation pass by a simple majority and changes require ⅔ or would this create situations where no agreement can be reached and someone found guilty of a violation skates with no disciplinary action?
More input needed

But when I read 8.2.11, it seems to me it's saying that the executive board does not come to a decision on the committee's recommendations re: whether an action is credible, but only whether to implement their recommended disciplinary action. And the section states how that is done or not done, and how the E-board can disagree with the actions of the committee. I do think majority is the right threshold, given this is going to go through two committee vetting process. Maybe I'm not getting the concern accurately, so le tm eknow if you want to discuss.

[Nathaniel Block]

Good morning all,

I would note that based on the discussion on Sunday related to 8.2.6 the following language was suggested post-meeting by David McDonald acting in his role as an advisor in order to clarify the language and incorporate the “more likely than not standard” fully into the Code of Conduct Committee’s investigative process. To be clear, David was only advising on language not advocating for change:

“Within 30 days of receiving a written complaint, the committee shall investigate the complaint and determine, for each accusation in the complaint, (a) whether it is based on credible evidence; (b) whether it states facts that, if true, would represent a violation of the code of conduct; and (c) based on the investigation the committee believes it is more likely than not that the facts stated in the accusation are true. If three members of the committee answer all three questions in the affirmative, then the accused individual shall be presumed to have violated the code of conduct with regard to that accusation unless and until such finding is reversed by the Executive Board in its review of the committee’s report."

Without this language change, the Committee would only be considering if the accusation is credible, not if the evidence itself is credible and would not be considering if the facts behind the accusation are more likely than not true.

As to 8.2.11, the concern was that the Executive Board could be split regarding what the appropriate punishment would be for a violation. In such a case, if they could not agree to punishment by a majority vote, then no punishment would be imposed for a found violation. Trying to avoid such s scenario was the subcommittee’s concern and why the note Julia mentioned was included.

-Nathaniel

Sent from my iPad

[julia...@gmail.com]

Team Article 8:
As noted, we discussed in the call today a proposed fix to the membership issue on the Code of Conduct committee. I have updated our section accordingly in the big matrix. Please let me know if you're good iwth these changes, or wish to make other suggestions/additions (Nathaniel, I wasn't quite following the discussion on the call re: "a majority of those present voting yes" so maybe just check to see if I've got it right).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rf68Rsk-swCEpbZTvz6iPG0yXyBgS9TKYfZVEqFZQ10/edit#

Also, do we still need to discuss 8.2.11? I'm good with waht's in the Forbes amendment. If you think we need other language, can you input something in column C of the mega matrix to which we can react? Otherwise, let's close?
Thanks!
Julia

[Nathaniel Block]

Good evening all,

I believe there are two possible options we have regarding Article 8.2.6 as it relates to how many individuals most vote in the affirmative:

1. Current language of “If a majority of those committee members present answer all of these questions in the affirmative” means majority of all members present, even if they do not vote.

2. Language of “If a majority of those committee members present and voting answer all of these questions in the affirmative” means a majority of the committee members present who vote. (Note: remember that under Robert’s abstentions do not count).

As to 8.2.11 one of the concerns expressed in the subcommittee was that if the Executive Board does not agree as to the Code of Conduct Committee’s recommendation by a majority, they also might not agree on punishment by a two-thirds vote either, thus meaning there will be no punishment for an individual found to have violated the Code of Conduct. I have no good solutions to this issue.

-Nathaniel

Sent from my iPhone

[julia...@gmail.com]

Ok so I can add "and voting" to the language later, unless there's a broad objection.

On 8.2.11, my read of the clause is that if a majority of the Executive Board does not agree with te code of conduct committee's recommendation about a violation occuring then the situation is closed. So step 1 is -- do you agree with teh COC that this violation occured, yes or no? If yes, then step 2 is do you agree with their recommendation for a disciplinary action. If yes, then the action takes place, and if no, it's only then that the 2/3s majority becomes an issue. If it fails at step 1, then the 2/3rds question isn't an issue. So I'm not sure I agree there's an issue.

Basically, I'm inclined to stick with the Forbes amendment on that piece unless someone wants to come up with alternate language for the group to consider. If anyone does want to do that, please do so by 1/30, otherwise we'll go with what we have.

[Angyl]

Cases I could imagine where that failure happens:

- The board feels the punishment is inappropriate, inadequate, or otherwise disproportionate to the violation

— is there any way to amend it or send it back for adjustment if that’s the case?

- A majority agrees on both violation and punishment, but only a majority. The 49-34% who disagree with the violation inherently disagree with punishment as a logical consequence and will not approve any punishment.

— idk how to get out of this. Maybe violation found but punishment not enacted should just be a symbol of division level? Maybe both should be 2/3, or both 60%? It seems to come down to whatever the purpose of differing thresholds is, and I’m not 100% sure what that purpose is. If it’s acceptible to have this sort of division reflected in the results, then leave it as it is?

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[Nathaniel Block]

Good morning all,

I am fine sticking with the language we have. However I would just like to note what I see as the worse case scenario:

The Code of Conduct Committee finds after a thorough investigation a serious violation and recommends removal from office for a serious violation. 33% of the Executive Board agrees and votes for such. 32% think that is too harsh and vote for suspension only. But for whatever reason the remaining 35% of the Executive Board either disagrees that a violation occurred, and/or believe only a temporary ban on attending meetings is appropriate. In this scenario, even though 65% of the Executive Board believes there should be a rather serious penalty imposed, the remaining 35% block any punishment from happening whatsoever.

Again, I’m fine with the current language, but just want to make sure people know what the worse case scenario could be.

Also, I would note that for section 8.2.2 as amend last night, I would recommend that the language of “The At Large members must have a professional background in human resources, conflict mediation, or have previously served as an ombudsperson in KCDCC or another organization.”
instead read “The At Large members must have a professional background in human resources, conflict mediation, or have previously served as an ombudsperson in KCDCC or another organization to the greatest extent possible.” The reason for this recommendation is that if we cannot find four individuals whom meet the qualifications, including one from each region, then as written, that area of the county will not have an At Large member. In my proposed revision, I believe such solves the issue by essentially stating that such a person is only the priority, not a required qualification if the above occurs.

As always, if anyone has any questions, comments, or concerns I’m happy to hear such.

-Nathaniel

Sent from my iPad

[julia...@gmail.com]

That seems reasonable enough, I'll make that change.