This post was updated October 24, 2021 to include latest changes.
This document shows the changes proposed by the Officers and Board of Directors to the current SLN bylaws as updated April 15, 2015.
Most of the edits are to clean up and update language, to remove specific dates for various functions, and make things work better in a remote-meeting environment. Also, we removed one officer position, and better defined the term “Board of Directors”.
The Officers and Board plan to offer this for a vote at the November, 2021 meeting.
David Grayson Duggan says:
After more than 15 years of service to SLN–three years as your president–I am not on the ballot for re-election to its board. All things must come to an end but I think that the members should know that this community organization has decided that there is no room for dissent within the board, or its subcommittees, no matter how measured or meritorious. No better proof of this can be found than in the proposed amendments to the bylaws, Art. V, Sec. 5: “An officer or director may be removed for cause by a unanimous vote by the remainder of the Board of Directors.”
In my experience having served on several boards of charitable organizations this is unprecedented. It also runs afoul of many concepts dear to our democratic way of operation: no requirement that notice be given to the alleged “offender” that his tenure is in jeopardy, no definition of what constitutes “cause,” no opportunity to be heard on whatever the charges may be, and no opportunity to have counsel present during whatever hearing is convened. In fact, this new provision is contrary to the procedures in Roberts Rules of Order by which SLN meetings have been governed during my involvement: a board member, elected by the members, can only be removed by a vote of the members. This bylaw change raises the prospect that SLN, rather than a community organization, is in reality a club for like-minded individuals.
I have had my disagreements with the board and its Neighborhood Development and Review [zoning] Committee on a number of issues and in the last few years, the Alderman has rejected the NDRC’s “findings” on several proposals. Refusing to look to the future and the real prospect of climate change, and use common sense, the NDRC has not conditioned its recommendations to upzone a parcel on the developer’s installation of solar power. It has remained wed to the amorphous “tangible benefit to the community” standard for its recommendations, rather than the legally-sanctioned “highest and best use” standard adopted by the Illinois Supreme Court. The result has been lousy development: one need only look to the four-years-and-counting excrescence at the former Herdegen-Brieske funeral home and the spate of vacant storefronts on Lincoln after developers received the coveted zoning allowing for ground-floor commercial below residential.
Whoever is elected to the board and chosen for the NDRC I wish well. I simply hope that the members perceive the merits of what I have been proposing and consider who they’re having represent them.