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<p>Perhaps I can offer some clarification to the members of FundCom who are concerned. </p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px;">So far as I understand the discussion in Coordinating Board last night, all previous proposals that have successfully gone through town meeting have down so with a supermajority of 60%. There are some documents (my memory isn't as strong on this point, ask Wesley) that state we run under a simple majority as well as some documents that state we run under a supermajority of 60% for the passing of material. So far voting in town meeting has not resulted in a 59% vote in favor which is what the Stipend Act got. The Coordinating Board noticed that these two documents have </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">conflicting</span><span style="font-size: 12px;"> information that has not yet been resolved. The Coordinating Board decided that it was not the Coordinating Board's place to make the policy decision as to which policy overrode the other, as that is clearly outside of its purview. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px;">However, the Coordinating Board also recognized that its failure to properly clarify what the Stipend Act was resulted in a lot of no votes out of misinformation or lack of information. Therefore the Coordinating Board decided that the best course of action (that would not violate its purview) would be to run the proposal to town meeting again. We have shared the ballot information for the vote with Dina, and by the end of the week we hope that Fundcom can edit it to more suitably reflect the information you think the community needs to hear. With more information provided on the ballot, as well as another </span>opportunity<span style="font-size: 12px;"> to reach the community at town meeting, at least I personally think the Stipend Act will go through. There will likely be less No votes. All it needed to pass without causing this simple v super debate was to hit at least 60% and it got as close as 59% in the last vote.</span></p>
<p>Regarding the simple v super debate, this is the type of thing that the document committee (which is meeting for the first time on Thursday at 8pm in the Office) will resolve. The Coordinating Board, (if I had to imagine) regrets that it didn't get more clear information on the original ballot in the first place. But the Coordinating Board (this was the general temperature of our meeting last night) seems confident that the Stipend Act will pass if you are willing to help us with the ballot information and present again at the next town meeting. </p>
<p>I don't know if that helps, and I hope I haven't misrepresented anyone.</p>
<p>-Christopher Porzenheim</p>
<p>At Large Member</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px;"> decision to run the vote to town meeting was done for a couple of reasons. </span></p>
<p> </p>
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<p>On 2014-03-04 13:45, da11@hampshire.edu wrote:</p>
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<pre>Hey Coordboard,
I have just finished talking to a member of FundCom, and I feel that I
need to reach out to you about some of the points of our discussion.
We were talking about the proposal, the voting and coordboard's
discussion and email. The main point of the discussion was that
nowhere in any proposal or endeavor of the HSU has it ever been stated
that there needed to be a 60% majority for a proposal to pass, which
is why this proposal is going back to town meeting. However, people
-including all members of fundcom and anyone who was not involved with
the HSU implementation process in the academic year of 2012/2013- were
under the assumption that since there was no clear passing measures,
and no specific reference to either 60% or 51%, that the passing
percentage was 51%. Which is the popular understanding of the term
"majority"; 51% is the majority.
I talked to them about our discussion, and about the understanding
that we were using the documents written on January 2013. Their
counter argument was that these documents have not been approved by
either the students, nor the administration, nor the Board of
Trustees. And since it was not specified anywhere, and that was not
understood by the community, that that is not valid. Therefore, the
passing majority would be the simple majority, which is 51%.
Therefore, their understanding of the proposal and the voting
measures, is that the proposal did pass yesterday, and the email was
not relevant.
Thank you,
Dina
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