Yes, we are in agreement. Maria is an 'Appointed Trustee', not a
'Community Selected Trustee'. So the number of 'Appointed Trustees'
went up by one, the number of 'Community Selected Trustees' went down
by one.
For political convenience, the WMF board is spinning her seat on the
board as if she were a Community Selected Trustee, but it's obviously
not true unless we start redefining the plain English meaning of
words. The result is a board with a democratic deficit, and the way
most trustee boards with elected members handle this is to ensure that
the appointed replacement will be obliged to stand for election at the
earliest opportunity.
I welcome a procedure like this to be written up for the WMF board so
that we can avoid the difficulty of vacated seats in a more credible
way. The current system of bartering and balancing lists of pros and
cons between sitting trustees, their lawyers, and a volunteer election
committee that is appointed by the Board of Trustees, is unhealthy and
it is a fantasy to imagine that the end result can be called
democratic.
It would be a comfort if Maria Sefidari would confirm that she will be
running for an election by offering up her seat at the earliest
possible opportunity, rather than gripping on to it based on the
tenure granted by James Heilman's democratic selection. We voted in an
election where the winner of the election was the selected candidate,
shifting the meaning of what our votes were for after the election, so
the board can later on pick and chose from a list of candidates that
they find to their political tastes, is not the way we want to run
transparent and credible elections.
Fae
On 27 February 2016 at 12:09, Craig Franklin <cfranklin(a)halonetwork.net> wrote:
Patricio's email on the topic makes it quite clear
that María was appointed
to the seat vacated by James Heilman:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-January/081540.html
And, as we are all aware, James was himself appointed as the result of an
election. Unless the relevant authorities in Florida have overturned
María's appointment and I have not heard about it, she is sitting in the
seat formerly occupied by James.
I don't disagree that it would be a good thing to have a formally agreed
procedure on how to handle vacancies that might arise in these
community-selected seats, but that doesn't change the reality that we must
deal with here and now.
Cheers,
Craig
On 27 February 2016 at 21:47, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 27 February 2016 at 11:33, Craig Franklin <cfranklin(a)halonetwork.net>
wrote:
While it's nice to think that everyone might
be able to kiss and make
up,
the trustees (particularly Jimmy) and James have been mauling each other
politely in public for the best part of two months. I don't think it's
realistic to expect that everything can just go back to the way it was,
and
expect that the BoT would function properly again with James back in
place. Keeping in mind his former position as a community selected
trustee
has already been filled with Maria Sefidari, at any rate.
Correction: Maria Sefidari was a "candidate for community selection",
she was not selected by the community but appointed using an post
election invented procedure for political convenience. If Maria wishes
to become a community selected board member she would need to *win an
election*, until that time she is in reality an appointed member.
I hope that Maria will run for a proper election at the earliest
opportunity. She was a good candidate and would be a better
representative if correctly elected.
Fae
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