ARC MEMBER COMMUNICATIONS

In a message dated 11/22/2008 5:17:01 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, LWingerter@evansvillegov.org writes:

Regarding Lynn Lopez

Thanks for the Board’s in depth reply to Suzann Otto’s letter. I still have a couple of questions based on the 2 letters.


1. What is the difference between ‘Did not vote’ and ‘Abstained’ in recording voting percentages?
2. Based on the Board’s comment ‘Abstentions however should only be used when a Board member is directly involved or affected …’, and assuming that the two instances referenced for example are not the only two instances, do the 6 votes that Lynn Lopez did not vote on in July and 7 votes in August that directly related to her position as Treasurer and club finances count against her in the percentage calculations?
3. Would those 13 votes have been enough to bring her voting percentage down?
4. Regarding the Timeline for Treasurer Lopez, why does it not start in July when all of the finance motions were made that seem to have started this ball rolling?

Thank you.

Lisa Wingerter

BOARD RESPONSE

Lisa,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding “abstentions” and vote counts. At the risk of being redundant, since many questions have been answered elsewhere in the ARK and on the ARC website, we will address the four questions you presented as follows:

  1. As indicated in other letters we have answered and in the November 19th letter from Mr. Liosis at AKC (included in 4th Quarter ARK), there is no difference in “abstain” and “did not vote”.
  2. “Abstain” is not a proper response to a call for the votes in question in your letter, from the Treasurer or any other Board member. Since “abstain” and “did not vote” are the same (per AKC, Robert's Rules of Order and our Parliamentarian), the only issue is did the votes reflect “for” or “against”.
  3. Based on the responses to 1) and 2) above, they were not votes.
  4. “The ball got rolling” the day the membership passed the bylaw in question by an overwhelming margin. The “time line” was not for the purpose of outlining any particular period of votes, but to inform the membership about a particular time frame related to how the automatic removal took place and what occurred afterwards.

We hope this helps in understanding the remaining areas you felt needed to be addressed.

The ARC Board of Directors