Pacifica National Board
Elections Committee Regular Meeting - March 25, 2007

MINUTES

A regular meeting of the PNB Elections Committee was convened at 5:09 pm PDT by
Bob Lederer, with Rosalinda Palacios acting as Chair Pro-Tem Chair and Terry
Goodman serving as Note-Taker. No minutes were approved.


Attendance

Present: Teresa Allen, Lydia Brazon, Jane Gatewood (arrived at 5:36), Terry
Goodman, Bob Lederer, Henry Norr (arrived at 5:19), Rosalinda Palacios, Sandra
Rawline, Cerene Roberts, Deb Shafto, Jack VanAken, and LaVarn Williams.
Also present: Art Stasney of the Technical Advisory Workgroup (left early).
Absent: Carolyn Birden, Ambrose Lane, and Carol Wolfe.


Revised Agenda
1. Officer Elections, Chair & Secretary (10 min)
2a. Next Meeting Date (15 min)
2b. Member Communications (List Servs)
3. Update on Elections Supervisor Hire (5 min)
4. Update on Scanning Software (3 min)
5a. Report from WG on Issues from NES & LES Reports (10 min)
5b. Committee Priorities (30 min)
5c. Definition of Staff (10 min)
6. Waiver Policy at Each Station (12 min)

The meeting was convened by Bob Lederer, pursuant to his appointment by the
PNB.

Motion from LaVarn Williams that the absences of Henry Norr and Carolyn Birden
be excused.
Motion ruled out of order. PNB policy does not recognize excuses for PNB
committee absences.

Motion from Bob Lederer that Rosalinda Polacios serve as Chair Pro-Tem of this
meeting.
Motion passed without objection.

Rosalinda Palacios chaired the remainder of the meeting.

Point of order from Bob Lederer that the committee should establish an agenda
before conducting its business.
Well taken.

The committee developed an agenda and approved it without objection (see
above).

1. Officer Elections (5:24)

Carolyn Birden (in absentia), Rosalinda Palicios, and Terry Goodman were
nominated for the office of committee Chair. Carolyn Birden withdrew
subsequent to the meeting.

Jack VanAken and Carolyn Birden (in absentia) were nominated for the office of
committee Secretary. Jack VanAken withdrew. Carolyn Birden withdrew
subsequent to the meeting. Jane Gatewood volunteered subsequent to the
meeting.

Nominations were closed at 5:33 pm.

The committee agreed without objection that Terry Goodman would send ballots to
committee members by email, that ballots would be returned to Jack VanAken
serving as teller, that the deadline for ballots would be April 4, 2007, and
that Jack VanAken would send a status update and reminder to members every two
or three days.

2a. Next Meeting Date (5:40 pm)

Motion from Cerene Roberts (as amended in discussion) that the committee's next
meeting be on the second Thursday of April (April 12, 2007) at 8:30 pm EDT, but
that consideration of a regular meeting schedule for the year be postponed.
Motion passed without objection.

2b. Member Communications (5:53 pm)

There was discussion about the listservs in use by the committee. There was
general agreement that both the private Yahoo! Group and the publicly readable
Google Group should be continued.

3. Update on Elections Supervisor Hire (6:02 pm)
Bob Lederer reported that the ED has announced that the search has been
narrowed to two finalists and that the selection should be finalized by the end
of next week. Lydia Brazon noted for the record that the job posting was
difficult to find on the pacificafoundation.org website.

Motion from Cerene Roberts (as amended on the motion of Henry Norr) that the
Committee should request of the Executive Director a written report on how the
job was announced, where it was posted, for how long, how the hiring was
handled, etc.
Motion failed by substitution.

Substitution Motion from Sandra Rawline that Sandra Rawline request details of
the Elections Supervisor hire from the ED on behalf of the committee.
Motion passed without objection.

4. Update on Scanning Software (6:15 pm)
Art Stasney reported that the software used in the previous Delegate elections
needs modification to work with hand scanners, identified Ilya Ivdokamov (sp?)
from Wisetrend as key contact on this issue, mentioned that the purchase of
compatible scanners needs to be coordinated, and identified possible incomplete
deliverables from the prior election.

There was discussion of the report.

The committee agreed without objection that Henry Norr, LaVarn Williams, and
Rosalinda Palacios will attempt to reach Les Radke to follow-up on any
outstanding issues from the prior delegate elections.

5a. Report from WG on Issues from NES & LES Reports

Bob Lederer summarized the issues identified in the NES Report on the 2006
elections in an email message to committee members (see Appendix A).
Additional issues identified by Local Elections Supervisors were added before
distribution at the suggestion of Jack VanAken (items 11-13 in Appendix A).
He suggested prioritizing items and scheduling them for later consideration.

Motion from Cerene Roberts (as amended on the motion of Bob Lederer that the
committee establish a working group to present to the committee a proposed new
elections timeline after a review of various existing proposals, including
consideration of the possibility of changing delegate terms and the frequency
of their election.
Motion passed without objection.

The following members were appointed to the Election Scheduling Workgroup:
Cerene Roberts (facilitator), Henry Norr, and Teresa Allen. The workgroup is
open to all committee members and Carolyn Birden shall be invited.

Motion from Terry Goodman (as amended on the motion of Bob Lederer) that the
committee establish a workgroup on staff lists to consider both definitions and
administration of such lists for the purposes of delegate elections. This
working group may include staff guests invited by committee members.
Motion approved without objection, then reconsidered and amended.
Motion passed without objection, as shown above.

The following members were appointed to the Staff Lists Workgroup: Bob Lederer
(facilitator) and Terry Goodman. The workgroup is open to all committee
members and Mary Berg shall be invited. Terry Goodman is to send to Bob Lederer
contact information for the staff members invited to the committee's workgroup
on this issue last term.

Motion from Cerene Roberts (as amended by the motion of Bob Lederer) that a
workgroup be formed to address the issue of membership lists, focusing first on
lists where membership is determined by time worked. Station staff whose work
involves coordination of volunteers should be invited to participate.
Motion approved without objection, then reconsidered and amended.
Motion passed without objection, as shown above.

The following members were appointed to the Membership Lists Workgroup: Cerene
Roberts (facilitator) and Deb Shafto. The workgroup is open to all committee
members and individuals identified in the motion shall be invited.

Motion from Terry Goodman that the Elections Committee continue use of a
technical advisory workgroup.
Motion passed without objection.

The following members were appointed to the Technical Advisory Workgroup: Jack
VanAken, Art Stasney, and Deb Shafto. The workgroup is open to all committee
members. Lydia Brazon will follow-up to confirm Art Stasney's acceptance of
the appointment.

5b. Committee Priorities
This item was discussed in 5a, but may continue as unfinished business.

5c. Definition of Staff
This item was assigned to a workgroup in the discussion of item 5a.

6. Waiver Policy at Each Station
Discussion of this item was postponed by adjournment.

Motion from Bob Lederer to adjourn.
Motion passed without objection.

The meeting was adjourned without objection at 7:51 pm PDT

Terry Goodman
Note-Taker
(These minutes were approved on 5/20/07.)

-----
APPENDIX A - Summary of Issues Identified in NES & LES Reports

****************************************

Recommendations of National Election Supervisor
From Les Radke's 2006 report (direct quotes)

1. Election Timetable (p. 7)
The first recommendation is one that all National Election Supervisors have
made - change the timeline for the elections.

2. Local Election Supervisors - Duties & Support (p. 9)
a) Recommendation: The duties of the Local Election Supervisor should be
rewritten to exclude overlap with the National Election Supervisor and to
include outreach as an important part of their job. (p. 10)
b) Recommendation: Each station should be required to have a coordinator
appointed to orient and work with the Local Election Supervisor.

3. Staff Lists (p. 10)
Recommendation: That the definition of paid staff be clarified. (p. 11)
Unpaid staff recommendations:
1 The standard for Unpaid Staff be made the same for all stations.
2 All regular programmers and producers be considered staff regardless of
hours worked. A regular program is a program that does not have a scheduled
start and stop date.
3 The coordinator of a collective be considered a member of the unpaid
staff. If the collective produces a regular program, the programmers and
producers be considered members of the unpaid staff. If the collective is
producing programs for a limited period, programmers and producers would be
considered members of the Unpaid
Staff if they worked for a radio station at least 30 hours in the preceding 3
months.
4 For purposes of defining hours worked, every hour of programming for a
public affairs programming should assume 9 hours of time to produce it, and for
every hour of programming for a primarily music program should assume 6 hours
of production time.

4. Listener Mailing Lists (p. 16)
Recommendation:
1 That the motions passed by the PNB concerning membership lists be
implemented. These motions concern the maintenance of the mailing lists as
well as procedures that should be followed nationally.
2 That a manual for the maintenance of the listener mailing lists be
uniform throughout the network.
3 That procedures be established to protect the security and integrity
of the mailing lists.

5. Volunteer Lists (p. 17)
Most volunteers are also paid members, and therefore those lists need to be
compared so that volunteers who are also paid members don't get 2 ballots.

6. Gift Memberships (p. 17)
The question came up in New York about the voting rights of people who have
gift memberships. Traditionally gift membership is not given for voting
rights. Therefore I ruled: "This is a reminder to all stations that recipients
of gift subscriptions are not eligible to vote in our Pacifica elections. The
bylaws are quite clear that a member must contribute in her or his name, and it
is this active act that is equivalent to registering to vote."

7. Access to mailing lists (p. 18)
I certainly would like to minimize the use of money in our Pacifica campaigns.
Perhaps a ruling that allowed all candidates to send out their literature in
one mailing for all the candidates would meet the standard for access to the
mailing lists.

8. Security & backup of membership list (p. 19)
Finally there is the question of security and the backup of the membership
base. Clearly there should be a network wide policy on who has the authority
to change the database and who can access it. This should also be included in
a manual.

9. Unfair Campaign Complaints (pp. 19-22)
[Hard to determine recommendations to PNB vs. next NES]

10. Technology Questions (pp. 22-25)
[Appear to be operational suggestions for next NES]

****************************

ADDITIONAL TOPICS OF RECOMMENDATIONS BY LOCAL ELECTION SUPERVISORS:

11. Community candidate forums - increasing turnout

12. Ballot identifiers and envelopes

13. Post-electoral documentation