[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal Counsel

[Michael Snow]

Tim Starling wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>
>>> We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very 
>>> careful
>>> process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
>>> defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
>>> good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
>>> community*.
>>
>> Is there a timetable for this? Failing that, is there a definite
>> commitment from all sides that this is, indeed, an interim position?
>> When can we expect the first report about the outcome of the search
>> process?
>
> Mav assured us that Tim Shell and Michael Davis were temporary 
> positions, remember that?
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2004-January/000254.html

Given that what Mav wrote is liberally laced with qualifiers like "I 
imagine", "I can only surmise", and "My understanding is", and he 
evinces some confusion about the meaning of the passages he interprets, 
I find it surprising that his post would be taken as an assurance of 
anything at all. Certainly the bylaws themselves do not say that Tim or 
Michael were temporary appointments.

The reference to annual elections deals specifically with the community 
representatives. (There's also a section about annual elections for 
Chair, Treasurer, etc., but those are the Board electing "from among its 
members" for its own internal positions, not elections to seats on the 
Board itself.) The section dealing with replacement of board members 
calls for an interim appointment if the resigning member was elected, 
for the other positions it simply says "the remaining Trustees may elect 
a replacement." There's no indication I can find that either the initial 
position or the replacement would be limited to a particular term of 
service.

--Michael Snow