The Reader’s Digest Version
Grand Lake Neighbors is having officer elections this spring. To get the full story, read the rest of this article (I encourage you to do this – it’s not that long). To participate in planning the election process, come to our meeting at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church on Thursday, February 4, 7:00pm. To nominate someone for office, send an email to mdavidflack@yahoo.com (please wait until February 5 to do this). To vote, come to our meeting on Thursday, April 1, 7:00pm, again at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church.
The Full Story
Grand Lake Neighbors will be having officer elections this spring. We would like to get more members of the community involved in the group so we are expanding the number of officer positions. Here’s the first draft of our new organizational structure.
Organizational Structure
| Position | Duties |
| Chair | Coordinate activities of the volunteers. Develop and articulate the vision of the group. Plan and run the meetings. |
| Vice Chair | Assist the chair. Fill in when the chair is absent. |
| Recording Secretary | Meeting minutes, agendas and other record keeping duties. Post agendas and minutes to the web site. Document goals and accomplishments. Fill in when Membership Secretary is absent. |
| Membership Secretary | Maintain mailing lists. Evaluate and approve Yahoo group membership requests. Manage the Yahoo group. Fill in when Recording Secretary is absent. |
| Webmaster | Improve and maintain the web site. Recruit contributors. |
| Block Group Liaison | Communicate with block groups. |
| Community Group Liaison | Communications with GLTC, GLRAG, Lakeshore BID, GABA and the many other groups operating in our geographical area. |
| Treasurer | We have no money, so we don’t really need a treasurer. We will postpone filling this position until we have money or need to raise some. |
We hope to have an election process that is simple and fair. We want enough rules so that most people view the process as transparent and legitimate. But we don’t want to burden ourselves with unnecessary bureaucracy. Here are our proposed election schedule and rules.
Election Schedule
- February 4 – Finalize organizational structure and election process.
- February 5 – Publish final organizational structure, election schedule and rules. Begin accepting nominations.
- March 4 – Close nominations.
- March 5 –Publish list of candidates.
- April 1 – Hold elections.
- April 3 – New officers assume positions.
This schedule is a bit drawn out. Normally this process would take one month instead of two. But we already have city planners scheduled for the March meeting to discuss residential zoning. So we will stretch the elections out until April. Besides, it seems only fitting that we vote on April Fools’ Day.
Election Rules
- Candidates and voters must live or work in the geographic area covered by Grand Lake Neighbors – beats 14Y or 16X.
- Candidates and voters must be 18 or older.
- A candidate must be nominated by someone other than himself or herself. I can already hear complaints about this. But really folks, if you can’t convince even one of your friends to submit your name, you don’t stand much of a chance on election day.
- Candidates must comply with the election schedule. In particular, a candidate may not run if the nomination arrives after the nomination close date. The purpose is transparency. We do not want a new candidate to pop up at the last moment. This would deprive the community of the opportunity to learn about that candidate and decide how to vote.
- Proxy or absentee voting is not allowed. Each voter must vote in person at the scheduled election meeting.
- For each office, a minimum of 10 votes must be cast for eligible candidates. We want to prevent a very small group from holding poorly publicized elections.
- The candidate with more than half of the votes wins the election. If no candidate has more than half the votes, there will be a runoff between the two candidates with the most votes. If there are tied votes, a runoff may include more than two candidates. Runoffs occur at the same meeting as the original vote.
To participate in planning the election process, come to our meeting at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church on Thursday, February 4, 7:00pm, or post a comment to this article, or send a message to the Yahoo group: GrandLakeNCPC@yahoogroups.com. To nominate someone for office, send an email to mdavidflack@yahoo.com. Please wait until the nominations open on February 5. To vote, come to our meeting on Thursday, April 1, 7:00pm, again at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church.