To the right is a link to the bylaws, which were written when the community council was formed in the early 90s. Many of the provisions are no longer followed and some are outdated, so the bylaws are due for an overhaul. For example, we no longer collect dues, so it is difficult to know how many active members there are, which leads to difficulty in deciding when we have a quorum to conduct business. There is no provision for formulating a budget or plan for the activities for the coming year, which makes it hard to delegate responsibility for running events such as the yard sale or the salmon bake without holding meetings dedicated to organizing them. And the membership elegibility is totally determined by the boundaries of Whittier Heights, while many of our most active members come from areas outside; they join because no community councils exist in Loyal Heights or in the Holman triangle north of 85th Street. I'm sure if you read the bylaws for yourself, you could find more examples of things that need changing.
I will propose some amendments over the next few weeks on this page. If you have suggestions of your own, please add them in the comments, and we can debate them online. In December, we will devote part of the meeting to making changes to the bylaws.
Let's dump the $5 dues. I much prefer raising funds through our annual dinner, and don't like the idea of any financial barrier standing between people joining or not. However, we do need to have some way of determining a quorum for taking action on issues or spending money.
Posted by: Andrea Faste on December 2, 2003 09:16 PM