Vote to Amend Governance Documents

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Sponsors

  • Jennie Plasterer
  • Andrew Camardella
  • Joe Mertz

History

  • Announced: 12/26/18
  • Town Hall: 1/15/19
  • Language locked: 1/24/19
  • Voted on: 1/29/19

Background

For information about previous bylaws and related votes, there are extensive resources beyond the links above. The Wiki and Google Group are the primary repository for that information. Two Town Halls were announced on the Google Group and held both live and online on Oct 10 and Oct 24, 2018

An update of the bylaws and membership agreement has been created. In addition, a wholly new document has been created, entitled Dispute Resolution Committee. When we refer to the “Bylaws Vote”, we are referring to these three interconnected documents. The documents must be considered as one set, as they reference each other and do not stand alone as individual documents.

Bylaws

The Bylaws adjusts several aspects and timing of various functions of organization. Some of these come into conflict with the current bylaws; issues will be sorted out in the vote language. Major changes include:

  • Removed language that was not directly related to the operations of the organization, or rights provided to its members
  • Made one membership tier
  • Gives voting rights to all members
  • Dispute Resolution Committee is instantiated
  • 10% of Membership for quorum
  • Gives power to the board to act on obligation arising from fiduciary duty, matters of health and safety within the facility.

Membership Agreement

The Membership Agreement strengthens and clarifies various expectations for Member Conduct. It also states various organizational processes explicitly, membership benefits, and expectations between all parties.

Major changes include:

  • The revised bylaws only has one membership tier. All Full Members will be converted to a Membership with Member Storage level, and all Starving Hackers will be converted to a Membership level.
  • Updated anti-harassment and code of conduct.
  • Explicitly states rights and responsibilities of Members and Organization.
  • Clarifies methods for resolving disputes.

Dispute Resolution Committee

The Dispute Resolution Committee is an official committee instantiated by Pumping Station: One Bylaws; its management is at the discretion of the board. The revised bylaws include it as a requirement so that it must exist at all times. The document that governs the DRC shall be maintained by the DRC and the Board of Directors, and is provided here for reference - https://docs.google.com/document/d/15FOGG91VR_wQMaRdJBUguScCpBnzG7d77Q3sB1-ZppU/

Reasons for its creation:

  • Instantiates a committee tasked with working on resolving a dispute or issue.
  • Defines a clear and transparent process for raising an issue.
  • Has provisions for storing institutional knowledge about issues that arise and how disputes are handled.

Language

Replace our current bylaws with the revision contained in this document - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gCKp6NKaYEg4mjtNaPlb3eN5U3djD8WfUL5DkcEaYZg/.

Replace our current membership agreement with the revision contained in this document - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pCB4VwE5YOo03PAI9kj07vVi1T-eDjZQWwfOGZls8jQ/

All changes go into effect at midnight following the passing of vote.

If any policy is discovered to be in conflict with language or policies that appear in an ancillary governance document, then the organization will defer to the the newest of the documents. Corrections, amendments, and other forms of revised language will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

Results

Quorum:106

Present:108

For:85

Against:8

Abstain:15

Clarification

Below is the sent to the membership via Private PS1 Google Group on 2/6/19 to clarify final language of Governance documents also posted here for record-keeping:

Hi everyone,

Last week we passed a major revision to our governing documents: updating our Bylaws, Membership agreement, and establishing a Dispute Resolution Committee. Unfortunately, due to clerical error, there has been some confusion about which version of these documents were passed and approved by the membership due to how Google Docs presents suggested changes.

The Board is assuming on good faith that the “suggested” language (i.e. the language that is highlighted or appears in a different color compared to the rest of the document) that appears in the Google docs linked in the “Language section” of the Vote to Amend Governance Documents on Pumping Station: One Wiki is the language the membership has approved and passed into governing policy at PS:1.

Not all Google suggestions will be addressed here for the sake of brevity, as most of the suggested language was grammatical or formatting-related in nature (e.g. capitalizing “Officers” in Section V.2 of the Bylaws). There were, however, a few potentially confusing, minor language adjustments that we would like to highlight for the sake of clarity and transparency. The original Bylaws documents are still available via the wiki page for review with the relevant suggestions cited in this memo. If there is something we failed to address, please bring it to our attention and we will respond as soon as possible.

The 2 main textual issues of note appear in the Membership Agreement as follows:

Including the word “explicit” in section 4.1.13 such that the language reads, “Discussions about explicit sexual behavior or interests.”

Changing the language of section 10.3 from “Completing the required Canvas/online education courses” to “Completing accompanying [sic] Canvas/online education courses required for authorization.”

There were other parts of the Bylaws or the Membership Agreement that appeared as though they included text additions, but were rather highlighted due to the language being tagged for comment or adjusted for formatting changes. Such examples were Section VI.7.G in the Bylaws, the Membership Agreement preamble and Membership Agreement sections 3.1, 4.15, 14.1, and 14.5-9. Google does not distinguish between formatting and textual changes when displaying suggestions or highlighting language.

In the rare case of situations such as the Membership Agreement section 7.5, or section 10.3 where “own” was grammatically incorrectly changed to “owning” and “accompanying” was misspelled, respectively, those grammatical errors will be corrected as they do not change the meaning of voted-upon language, but do affect the overall readability of the document.

The establishment of these Bylaws is the foundation of new and exciting changes at PS1, including all-member suffrage and establishing the DRC. We respect the democratic process that drives PS1 and know it’s the little things that add up, which is why we wanted to clarify this issue for everyone. Thank you for being a part of the PS1 community and for putting in the effort to ensure we can continue as an organization long into the future.

Best,

The PS1 Board of Directors

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