[HSU-CoordBoardInternal] Town Meeting

[Ethan Warshow]

I'd just like to add that the PVS document in the red binder actually was
approved by the board of trustees, and therefore gives legitimacy to us. It
in no way mentions the accountability board, and in my memory even
delegates the task of accountability to what became coordboard.

I agree with everything else Sam said.

Ethan Warshow
At-large member, HSU-CB
erw11 at hampshire.edu
802-505-1735



On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 8:33 PM, <smd11 at hampshire.edu> wrote:

>
>
> 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 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
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> ------
>> 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
>>
>
>
> ------
> 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
>
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