Racial Demogogery, Procedural Games, and Poor Meeting Facilitation--all of these were on exhibit at the CNIA meeting last night--called due to a petition from 50 members of the organization to replace the entire board. Politicians were there: Linda Wejcman, Brian Heron, and about 300 folks from the neighborhood showed up. The idea was the original board election was contested--folks weren't properly identified, and that there may have been folks who weren't elegable members participating. So you'd think, since folks were told to bring identification to the meeting, that people would be asked for identification in order to participate. That didn't happen. Central is a racially and culturally diverse neighborhood and continues to be. The meeting last night really accomplished nothing. The current board ended up staying on--but this was after two votes--one which seemed to oust the board (folks voted by holding up their voting cards)--and the second which kept the board in place--this one had tellers counting folks as they walked by on two different sides of the room. Now ofcourse, folks could have snuck around, and got counted twice--and who knows whether this happened. I had understood that the League of Women Voters was going to supervise this election in order that it be fair--but what occured is there was a facilitator from the league who lost control of the meeting, and lots of very angry folks playing procedural games. It was one of the ugliest meetings I've been to in a while. My guess is unless CNIA gets itself together, that neighborhood organization is gone. They've already lost lots of funding since they fired the executive director. Something else that really needs to happen is a change in bylaws, so only residents of Central and property owners can vote. The business of folks who work in Central is hard to verify, and the folks who live in the area really ought to be the decision makers. Eva Eva Young Central
