Bylaw suspension

[SHOOTER]

May a board vote to suspend a certain portion of its bylaws in a regular meeting until such time as the as the rules for amending  the bylaws can be followed to formally amend that portion? 

[Hieu H. Huynh]

Generally, the bylaws cannot be suspended. What exactly do you want to suspend?

[SHOOTER]

A committee chair is elected by the board to serve in that capacity. 

Within the bylaws it states the committee chair will be a signatory on the organizations accounts. 

The proposed chair refuses to be a signatory. 

Members on the board want to suspend the sentence requiring  it until such time as the bylaws  can be amended. 

 

[George Mervosh]

That rule cannot be suspended since it does not relate to his duties in connection with a meeting.  Perhaps the board should consider appointing someone else committee chair until the bylaws can be properly amended.

Edited December 15, 2016 at 05:51 PM by George Mervosh
I see now the chair is only "proposed", not elected, so he doesn't need to be replaced as chair.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/15/2016 at 11:54 AM, SHOOTER said:

May a board vote to suspend a certain portion of its bylaws in a regular meeting until such time as the as the rules for amending  the bylaws can be followed to formally amend that portion? 

Such a rule is not in the nature of a rule of order, and cannot be suspended.  The member has basically stated that he/she is not qualified to hold that office.  I think it should be treated as a resignation.

[Gary c Tesser]

On 12/16/2016 at 5:17 PM, Gary Novosielski said:

 I think it should be treated as a resignation.

Not refusing to serve, since he's not in the job yet?

[Gary Novosielski]

1 hour ago, Gary c Tesser said:

Not refusing to serve, since he's not in the job yet?

I'm not sure he's not in the job.  We're told he was elected, and presumably did not decline immediately.   By RONR's rules he's immediately in office.  If the OP has superior rules I'm not aware of them.

But a resignation is a request to be excused from a duty, and i'm not sure there's a substantive difference in the nature of the request whether the person has assumed office yet or not.  

What he's done is to declare that he's not eligible to hold the office.  If he had made that statement before the election, then any votes for him should be treated as illegal votes, since he is not eligible.  But he did not announce his unwillingness to qualify until after his election.  For all we know he was willing up until that moment, so we have to treat it as someone who was eligible but became ineligible at a later time.  Ordinarily he would do the right thing and resign, but in any case he can't continue in a job which the bylaws say he may not hold.