CoI recommendation pasted, and are we even real?
Angyl
Ok I copypastaed the CoI y’all liked to the link we distributed as our proposal, and added the date. The extra information at the top pushed us over the lovely page line we had before, but the actual policy minus that note will still fit.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zQim7-1VvzxjT_wLABEheYc-bNd-UqddXuY1EKOnptU/
Then I landed in a wormhole! I heard back from Scott Forbes and we never actually formalized any Standing Rules after we took ourselves out of Bylaws last cycle. So we don't have any to inherit.
That said, we did spin up last cycle under the previous Bylaws, and kept operating with the same set of people, quorum issues and all, so it’s not like we ever reformed or did anything else that would have brought that up. We just never kicked out our own Standing Rules. Honestly I don’t know what that means for right now, like are we even real? That’s super out of my pay grade, but one thing it definitely means is that we need to make some to start with, and probably we should iteratively develop them all cycle for the next team to have something useful to start with.
Somebody better at Parli than me will have to tell me if we need to like, have Shasti fire us all and reboot or if we can just oops and build the rails under the train or what. All I know is I’m really happy with the work we’ve done so far and I’d like us to keep working while it’s sorted out.
Since we’re not recommending any motions right now, just asking for reading and feedback on the proposal, plus that the CoI work was at the request of the Endorsements Committee per Historic Duties and they get to decide if they approve of our work, I don’t think this introduces any new stuck-ness, but we should probably try to get some basic Standing Rules that aren’t going to land us in another round of quorum problems together by the end of April.
We probably want to start with these Duties from the 2018-04 Bylaws:
https://www.kcdems.org/bylaws/hist/kcdccbylaws-2018-04.xml#AIX-9.1
Bylaws and Rules Committee
Duties:
Review and recommend revisions to the KCDCC Bylaws to be approved by the KCDCC or its Executive Board.
Review and recommend Standing Rules of the KCDCC to be approved by the KCDCC or its Executive Board.
Provide support when requested to other committees with internal committee rules and processes.
Prepare proposed County and Legislative District reorganization rules.
Also, in addition to the problem we found last meeting, we also had a request to address the “February 1” in current Bylaws 8.1.4. Basically hitting that date turns out to be super hard and in function hasn’t been accomplished very broadly and it’s just not working out well in practice, and a rule that’s too hard to hit in the real world is probably not a very good rule. The intent there iirc was to have committees set expectations and check in on them, and imo that’s still a great intent that’s worth another try with an easier bar.
So in addition to fixing that rule, we also need to develop our own annual plan and measurable goals. I’ll start by submitting the idea of having some kind of PCO Bylaws meeting at least once per term, in cooperation with the other Committees and Executive Board, and refining the process around that into a hybrid system that as much as possible retains the accessibility gains made under Covid when we can meet in person again.
Current bylaws are here:
https://www.kcdems.org/bylaws/bylaws.xml
Here’s what Robert’s has to say about Committees:
http://www.rulesonline.com/rror-09.htm
- Angyl