MVCC Board Grappling With Fallout from Olson’s Resignation

On Monday evening, the Mar Vista Community Council Board of Directors officially accepted former MVCC Chair .

in the midst of the Nov. 8 board of directors meeting and sent an email confirming his resignation to Acting Chair Sharon Commins the following day.

At a special meeting of the elections and bylaws and executive and finance committees last Thursday, the members officially accepted Olson’s resignation and drafted a motion to take to the full board on Monday night. The motion stated that the resignation was accepted “with regret and recognizing [Olson’s] years of dedicated service to the community.”

Elections and Bylaws Committee Chair Geoffrey Forgione stated he planned to introduce a commendation for Olson that could be ready to be presented at the Dec. 5 board of directors meeting.

While the board must still appoint two people to the currently vacant at-large and Zone 4 positions, another opening must now be announced: that of a new chair.

While the bylaws state that Commins as first vice chair can step in to the position of acting chair, Treasurer Bill Scheding noted that new elections must be held for current officers to be able to take on new positions. Scheding said he would ask the elections and bylaws committee to look into the matter in the New Year and possibly wait until June of 2012 to elect a new chairman.

Forgione noted that there might also be the possibility of holding partial officer elections during the December general meeting.

Scheding said he was concerned about the possibility of the board failing to maintain a quorum. With only seven members now on the board of directors Scheding said, “If we fall below seven directors we could lose our certification with the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. We won’t be able to represent our stakeholders; we won’t be able to do anything.”

Forgione pointed out that the structure of filling vacancies on the board is currently a chair-driven process.

“If we’re going to have factions stonewalling the replenishment of the board then we are going to run into a quorum problem,” he said, adding that there would be no quorum issues if the board  “respects the replacement process.”

Commins issued a motion asking the elections and bylaws committee to look into the election process and report back at the December meeting.

“When you have a process that is derailed a bit you need to examine it and see if there can be improvements,” she said. “It takes two cycles to change the bylaws and they must be approved by DONE so we should start now.”

Commins also pointed out that a volunteer organization depends on the goodwill of its members.

“If you run into issues, if people threaten to resign, it creates destabilization so I suggest you strongly discourage that kind of talk if you happen to hear it,” she said.

However, she added that she felt people on the board were starting to get over the shock of Olson’s resignation and the anger was starting to dissipate.

“What counts now is the stability of the organization,” she said. “We all have to work towards that goal. Other neighborhood council’s have gotten into so much trouble because they descended into dissension, and we’re trying really hard to not do that here.”

 Commins urged board members to be open to ideas and to be willing to discuss issues.

“Stop me if there’s something bothering you in a meeting,” she urged.  “Don’t leave, please. I value discussion highly. I’m just hoping that we’ll have a smooth transition and appointment process from here on out and that we have a lot of goodwill to move forward.”

Second Vice Chair Board Member Bill Koontz responded to Commins’ request by stating, “I will personally never quit this board but I will not toe the company line to grease the wheels of a dirty machine or a machine that’s just chugging along.”

Commins responded by stating that she looked forward to “robust discussions and disagreements and shaking hands afterwards.”

The next regular meeting of the Board of Directors will be held on Dec. 5. The nomination process for the current two open positions on the board was tabled at the November meeting in the wake of Olson’s resignation.

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