[HSU-CoordBoardInternal] Town Meeting

[smd11 at hampshire.edu]

In regards to the Accountability Boards charges against Hampshire  
College?s Coordinating Board, I believe it be important to address  
certain errors, misjudgments, and inaccurate assumptions made in the  
Accountability Board?s emails of 11/17/13. I believe these falsies to  
of the utmost relevance as they make up the entirety of the  
Accountability Board?s accusations.

      Firstly, the belief that Accountability Board possesses the  
power to suspend Town Meeting is not only baseless, but a blatant  
contradiction to HSU norms and an anti-democratic power-grab at the  
expense of the entire student body. Town Meeting organization and  
facilitation is the primary responsibility of CoordBoard. Town Meeting  
in no way falls under the purview of the Accountability Board. What is  
more, Town Meeting is the central origin of power in the HSU. For  
Accountability Board to suspend Town Meeting, they would be directly  
nullifying the system of democratically legitimized governance, in  
favor of their own opinions of how HSU ought to be run. With this fact  
in mind, the suggested suspension of Town Meeting by Accountability  
Board will from here on be referred to as Accountability Board?s  
planned coup.

      Secondly, the assertion that failure to meet certain guidelines  
expressed in the ?Red Binder? is grounds for disciplinary action is  
untrue on its face. The ?Red Binder? is an unratified document, so its  
violation is in no a punishable offense, or even an offense of any  
kind. The interesting thing about this assertion (Accountability  
Board?s planned coup) is that Accountability Board doesn?t even  
consider the ?Red Binder? to be a binding contract. The very existence  
of Accountability Board makes this clear, the ?Red Binder?  does not  
endorse the creation of an Accountability Board, it endorses the  
creation of the Committee of Ten. Unfortunately, the members of  
Committee of Ten found that it was too difficult to find ten members,  
so they accepted the non-binding nature of the ?Red Binder,? and  
lowered the membership requirements and changed their name. Were  
Accountability Board?s assertions to be for a moment accepted, that  
very board would be forced to immediately disband until an adequate  
number of members could be acquired.

      Finally, the Accountability Board has a fundamentally incorrect  
understanding of the way in which the HSU derives legitimacy. The HSU  
is now, and has always been a bastard child. It has no official  
founding documents, or any other form of official legitimacy derived  
from Hampshire College. The ?Red Binder? and traditions of the HSU  
serve as guidelines to aid with consistency, but are in no way  
contractual. However, it would be the greatest of errors to assert  
that the HSU was illegitimate. In the absence of founding documents,  
the HSU derives its legitimacy from the participation and trust placed  
upon it by the Hampshire College student body.  When complaints are  
brought to, and addressed by, Scope Groups, the entire HSU is  
legitimized.

      The central body, and exclusive source of power in the HCU is  
Town Meeting. If Town meeting continues to meet and function with  
student involvement, than CoordBoard and the entirety of the HSU are  
legitimized.

-Samuel Dean, At Large Member of CoordBoard

Quoting committee10 at hampshire.edu:

> Hello Mitch:
>
> Thank you for your reply. We'd like to first say that we apologize  
> if we have been appearing in any way disrespectful or condescending  
> towards you or any member of HSU. The work that Accountability Board  
> was given is not an easy one, and it's difficult for us, or anyone  
> for that matter, to demand changes without seemingly being  
> antagonistic or aggressive. It must be remembered that nothing we do  
> is meant to be personal or hurtful.
>
> The guide that we referred to was indeed in the red binder, just  
> like every part of HSU's structure and 'purview.' Thus, if we deny  
> the validity of this document, so would we have to do so with HSU  
> itself. This is linked to the continued struggle the system has been  
> having with its lack of official "bible" or "constitution." Like you  
> say, we are all trying to do our best to pilot this structure, and  
> we, as probably everyone else in the system, are working without any  
> guidance but our own judgment. And we believe that if Town Meeting  
> is being run like this, it should be our responsibility to stop it;  
> who else, if not us?
>
> Accountability Board will meet to seriously discuss the HSU  
> Revisiting Group referred to by you and brought up by one of our  
> members in a previous meeting. It is clear that the idea must be  
> pushed forward, but there isn't any indication of who is to do so.
>
> All this being said, we insist and reiterate the problems we have  
> outlined about the next Town Meeting. Please attend to them as soon  
> as you can.
>
> Thank you,
> Accountability Board
>
> Quoting Mitchell Krieger <miak11 at hampshire.edu>:
>
>> As someone who helped write the document you attached, I want to  
>> explain to you that this was a guide not rules. We wrote that  
>> document the week after the first ever town meeting, and therefore  
>> did not know the realities of how the HSU works in relation to  
>> planning future town meetings. In addition, I would go as far as to  
>> say that at least 80% of the work outlined in that document was  
>> done by a staff member, Nelson Hernandez, whose sole job was to do  
>> work for the SGA. Since then it was understood that this was an  
>> ideal timeline but not mandatory, because even when we had Nelson  
>> to help with the next two Town Meetings, they still did not meet  
>> these expectations. As a result, Coordinating Board has attempted  
>> to live up to these guidelines, but frankly between all the other  
>> things coordboard has on its plate, like communication between  
>> scope groups, issues of purview and purpose, and a consistent  
>> stream of inbox proposals and concerns, I believe that it is  
>> unrealistic to ask us to be bound to this guide.
>>
>> Also, I assume you got that document out of the red binder and I  
>> would also like to point out that the binder is not our bible nor  
>> our constitution. The intent for that binder was to document the  
>> history of the HSU creation process from its inception till the  
>> present, and was meant for Josiah Litant's records. It only was  
>> decided to make them for HSU members once we realized that it was  
>> important for people to know the work that was put into the  
>> creation process. If you look at the first three or so sections,  
>> you will notice an immense amount of contradictions, paradoxes, and  
>> much of what is in that binder consists of brainstorming, research  
>> and suggestions rather than actual HSU foundation.
>>
>> In addition, Coordboard has had a variety of other issues it has  
>> been grappling with, and in order to plan a quality town meeting,  
>> these issues needed to be addressed first. I apologize that  
>> advertisement has not begun yet, but we as a body are struggling  
>> with a lot of things, and I ask that accountability board be  
>> understanding in regards to the fact that this is a new student  
>> government structure, that we are still in the process of figuring  
>> out. CoordBoard was understanding when a request was submitted to  
>> Accountability Board (what was called at the time Committee of 10)  
>> from a community member about an issue of accountability and ethics  
>>  in regards to a specific scope group and Accountability Board was  
>> unable to resolve it because the board did not have structures in  
>> place how accountability operates in the HSU. I request that you do  
>> the same for us when we are not successful in our endeavors.
>>
>> We, just as you are too, are in the process of piloting the  
>> Coordinating Board and the larger HSU structure. This semester  
>> there have been many revelations as to how what we had envisioned  
>> last year, did not function in the way we wanted and we needed to  
>> adjust, therefore creating contradictions with the red binder. Town  
>> Meeting is just one example of that. Another example might be the  
>> changing the status of FundCom to a scope group rather than being  
>> some weird combination of sub-committee and money distributor.
>>
>> The last thing I want to mention is that I do not appreciate the  
>> way accountability board has been conducting itself. Every time I  
>> have an interaction with the board I feel frustrated and  
>> disrespected. Your emails sound condescending, and ill informed as  
>> to what is actually happening in the Hampshire Student Union, and  
>> your visits to various bodies are similar. I respect the work that  
>> you do and recognize how important it is. I know that I have not  
>> been the perfect scope group coordinator or coordinating board  
>> member but, it seems to me that the board does not take into  
>> account the work that we are doing in what is a long process of  
>> governance. I have had experiences with the board where they seem  
>> to be of the mindset that they are above, better than, and superior  
>> to the rest of the Hampshire Student Union. In addition,  
>> accountability board was one of the very last structures created  
>> for the HSU, and it was never clear what kinds of powers were  
>> invested in it. However, I do know that the power to put a hold  
>> town meeting is NOT anywhere in the purview of Accountability  
>> Board. There needs to be a discussion had about how the  
>> accountability board keeps people accountable, because as of right  
>> now, whatever process you are using is unclear, hurtful and  
>> unproductive. This kind of discussion was never had with anyone,  
>> just like discussions surrounding purview and the workings of  
>> Coordboard was never discussed. I hope we can have a discussion  
>> about this soon.
>>
>> I hope that we can all come together soon to discuss these issues  
>> as one large group. At this point the HSU is standing on its last  
>> legs because of inner conflict, unclear purview, and a lack of  
>> understanding among its members. There needs to be something done  
>> to address this. There have been a few attempts to create an HSU  
>> revisiting group, which have been met with skepticism and  
>> bureaucracy. I suggest that we need to move forward with some  
>> incarnation of this idea soon regardless of the current debates  
>> surrounding it.
>>
>> --Mitch Krieger
>>
>> On Nov 17, 2013, at 2:06 PM, committee10 at hampshire.edu wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Coordinating Board -
>>>
>>> It has come to our attention that you are planning a Town Meeting  
>>> for this coming Tuesday, November 19, 2013. According to the  
>>> Coordinating Board internal list serve, you were not planning on  
>>> advertising for Town Meeting until Monday afternoon.  This is in  
>>> violation of the guide for how to organize a Town Meeting (see  
>>> attached).
>>>
>>> A date, time and location should be announced three weeks prior to  
>>> the meeting, the agenda should be made public by implementing  
>>> advertising two weeks prior to the meeting, and there should at  
>>> least be some type of advertising on social media at least one  
>>> week prior to the proposed Meeting date.
>>>
>>> We have not seen any of the above.  Please make sure that in  
>>> addition to flyering for this week's Town Meeting that you also  
>>> make it a public event on Facebook that is inclusive to the  
>>> Hampshire Community.  In the same way, make sure that you have a  
>>> clear agenda announced in your advertisements. For instance,  
>>> "food, Diana Fernandez, Tavern Proposal by Wesley Evans, Jlash  
>>> Mystery Time" is not a clear agenda. Please elaborate and provide  
>>> more details about what will be discussed during each of these  
>>> times.
>>>
>>> Please also send us a copy of this.
>>>
>>> If this lack of significant planning happens again in the future,  
>>> we will put a hold on Town Meeting until these guidelines are  
>>> followed.
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>> <o> Accountability Board
>>> <Town Meeting .pdf>------
>>> This is the INTERNAL mailing list for Coordboard. For the sake of  
>>> transparency, all internal communications via email must go  
>>> through this listserv, where they are publicly archived. If there  
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>>> can be open to all members of the Hampshire community. Listservs  
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>>> listserv.
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>
>
>
> ------
> This is the INTERNAL mailing list for Coordboard. For the sake of  
> transparency, all internal communications via email must go through  
> this listserv, where they are publicly archived. If there are any  
> changes to meeting times or locations, then those emails must still  
> be sent out to the Coordboard MAIN listserv  
> (HSU-CoordinatingBoard at lists.hampshire.edu) so that the meetings can  
> be open to all members of the Hampshire community. Listservs are not  
> a secure method of communication and any sensitive info such as  
> passwords or classified infomation should not be sent via listserv.
> _______________________________________________
> HSU-CoordBoardInfo mailing list
> HSU-CoordBoardInfo at lists.hampshire.edu
> https://lists.hampshire.edu/mailman/listinfo/hsu-coordboardinfo