I think the revisions proposed by Representative Wagenius and others
will be a help both to neighborhood groups and residents.
Listed below are some of the problems caused by the current non-profit
membership statute, some specifics of the current statute, and how the
proposed revisions will help both neighborhood organizations and people
living in neighborhoods.
PROBLEMS CAUSED BY CURRENT STATUTE
1) It is much harder to vote for president of your neighborhood
organization than for president of the United States
2) the vast majority - probably over 90% - of Minneapolis neighborhood
organizations are conducting their annual elections out of compliance
with state law. The same is true for St. Paul. At the rate we are
going, it will be 2091 before all Minneapolis groups are in compliance
with state law.
3) Many neighborhood groups are spending hours and hours of volunteer
time, and/or shelling out big bucks for legal help, attempting to bring
their bylaws into compliance with state law. Despite these efforts,
many groups are still out of compliance
4) for those neighborhood groups that are in compliance, most of the
residents, if they came to the annual meeting, would be ineligible to
vote. Of the neighborhoods I know, 95 to 99 percent of the residents
are ineligible to vote.
5) Although, as far as I know, there have been no lawsuits filed
charging neighborhood groups with illegal elections, a handful of
neighborhood groups have had factions threaten to go to court ot
overturn election results using the non-profit membership statutes
. this number will likely grow.
These are serious problems for Minneapolis neighborhood groups. The
problems are not the size of a gnat.
CURRENT STATUTE
I am not a lawyer, and it seems that every lawyer who reads the current
statutes has a different interpretation. But here are some of the
points in the current statutes that particularly effect neighborhood
groups.
In a non-profit corporation, you must be a member to have voting rights.
a person cannot be a member without the person's expressed or implied
consent.
What implied means, is open to interpretation. Some neighborhood groups
have people sign forms saying they want to be members.
In any case, you cannot simply say that all the people in your
neighborhood are members and have voting rights.
The non-profit, after fixing a date for a meeting, must prepare a list
of voting members.
When a date is fixed, only voting members on that date are entitled to
notice of and permitted to vote at the meeting.
The list must be available for inspection by any voting member within
two days of announcing a meeting, and continuing through the meeting.
Notice must be given at least five days before the date of the meeting.
What this means is that you cannot simply walk into your neighborhood
organization's annual meeting and announce that you want to vote. If
you are not on the membership list, you cannot vote.
PROPOSED STATUTE REVISIONS
The revisions are intended to deal with many of the worst problems
caused for neighborhood groups by the current statute.
Gone are the expressed and implied members, the membership lists, and
inspection of membership lists.
Basically, anybody who can show that they live in the neighborhood
cannot be denied the right to vote.
If this bill passes, it will be as easy to vote for president of the
your neighborhood organization as it is to vote for president of the
United States
It will be far easier for neighborhood groups to be in compliance with
state laws
And the vast majority of neighborhood residents will have the right to
vote, instead of being excluded from voting.
The statutes creating these problems are complex, and the proposed
changes are also complex.
I am sure that anybody who reads the bill will find something they are
not in 100% complete agreement with. So do I.
But the real question is whether the neighborhood organizations and the
people living in neighborhoods are better off with the proposed changes,
and I think this proposal is an improvement over the current law a
hundred times over.
And remember - the current statutes have been on the books for over a
decade, and until now nobody has tried to fix these problems.
If someone has a better mousetrap by all means go for it, but let's not
wait. Let's get these proposals on the books.
Writing in Cooper
Jay Clark
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
612-625-2513
.
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