Extending a questionable term indefinitely

[J. J.]

22 minutes ago, Weldon Merritt said:

It worked for me.

And I. 

[AFS1970]

Wow, thanks for all the replies, this has given me much to think about. 

So as to if the requirements are to be elected or to serve, well they actually never use either of these words. 

Article VII, Section 1 is titled Eligibility Requirements for the position of Chief. it says …"shall hold office for a term of two (2) years or until his successor has been elected. It then proceeds to list 7 other requirements (a-g), which includes e. Shall live within two (2) linear miles of the Fire District." 

Now I should say that none of us are trying to declare the chief's position vacant, the bylaws committee is in fact trying to amend the bylaws so he remains eligible. However a previous attempt at that failed largely due to our vice president who spoke at length against it and was actually the first to suggest the chief could continue to serve indefinitely. I think most members voted against the measure since they thought the chief could just continue on. 

Now to further complicate matters, I have found two other relevant sections.

First a section on nominations and elections which includes the following language: "The President shall at the start of elections advice attending members eligible voters present and any ineligible candidates." I realize there are spelling and grammatical errors in that section. As near as I can tell it means he should advise the attending members of who are the eligible voters and any candidates that have been determined to be ineligible. 

Second is a section on filling of vacancies that says "if the position of Chief should become vacant, said vacancy shall be acted upon at the next regular meeting of the company. A special election shall be held within 30 days and nominations shall be made for the position at the meeting at which the vacancy was acted upon." It does not say anything about how the position is determined to be vacant.

So we have our work cut out for us. 

[Guest Zev]

Are those items (a) through (g) about eligibility for election purposes or are they requirement for holding the office once elected, or perhaps both? Read it carefully. It might make a difference. Nevertheless, I would continue the attempt to amend the bylaws, if that is what you want, in order to remove any doubt as to the eligibility to hold the office. I cannot tell if the vice president is correct or not but if no one is willing to raise a Point Of Order and no one is willing to vote in favor of it or an Appeal, then I suppose the chief would continue in office.

[Joshua Katz]

9 hours ago, AFS1970 said:

Article VII, Section 1 is titled Eligibility Requirements for the position of Chief. it says …"shall hold office for a term of two (2) years or until his successor has been elected. It then proceeds to list 7 other requirements (a-g), which includes e. Shall live within two (2) linear miles of the Fire District." 

 

What this paraphrase omits is whether these requirements are to become chief, or to be chief. (Although it certainly sounds like a good idea for the Chief to be able to get to a major incident quickly while off-duty.) Please include a longer quote.

9 hours ago, AFS1970 said:

 Now to further complicate matters, I have found two other relevant sections.

 

I don't think either of these are relevant to the current question. For that matter, I don't think the term of office is relevant to the current question (at least, not the part apparently being cited). 

[J. J.]

As I've indicated, this could be a bylaw interpretation question.  It would be better to amend the bylaws to state if this a matter of "continuing eligibility" or a requirement at election.

I hate giving the bylaw interpretation answer, but it often is.

[George Mervosh]

17 hours ago, Josh Martin said:

I think Mr. Mervosh may have fallen through a “not” hole.

I've been hanging out with J.J. for far too long it seems.  

[RSW]

23 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

23 hours ago, George Mervosh said:

Procedural rules in statute always prevail.

On 4/3/2019 at 9:34 AM, Joshua Katz said:

Yes, but so what? Rules in the bylaws also prevail, too.

RONR provides that the rules a given organization may adopt are:

“Corporate Charter, Constitution and/or Bylaws, Rules of Order (which include a standard work on parliamentary law adopted as the society’s Parliamentary Authority, and any Special Rules of Order), and Standing Rules. Each of these types of rules is discussed below.”

and that 

“The only limitations upon the rules that such a body can thus adopt might arise from the rules of a parent body (as those of a national society restricting its state or local branches), or from national, state, or local law affecting the particular type of organization.”

So per rules of order, a bylaw yields to governmental law, making the chain:

Law
Charter
Constitution/Bylaws
Rules of Order
Special Rules
Standing Rules
Custom

Something provided for by statute (Law) pretty much trumps everything else, and violation of Law would constitute an ongoing breach.

[Richard Brown]

3 minutes ago, RSW said:

So per rules of order, a bylaw yields to governmental law, making the chain:

Law
Charter
Constitution/Bylaws
Rules of Order
Special Rules
Standing Rules
Custom

Actually, RSW, Special Rules (of order) take priority over ordinary Rules of Order such as the rules in the Parliamentary Authority.

[RSW]

5 minutes ago, Richard Brown said:

Actually, RSW, Special Rules (of order) take priority over ordinary Rules of Order such as the rules in the Parliamentary Authority.

Apologies - you are absolutely correct. I got those two out of order when I was turning the descriptive list in RONR into a short summary.

Thanks for the correction!

[Joshua Katz]

1 hour ago, RSW said:

So per rules of order, a bylaw yields to governmental law, making the chain:

 

Well, it yields to applicable procedural law, not substantive law, but I don't see what this has to do with the conversation about the handling of an officer who no longer meets the qualifications in law or bylaws.

[J. J.]

2 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

Actually, RSW, Special Rules (of order) take priority over ordinary Rules of Order such as the rules in the Parliamentary Authority.

Usually. 

 

3 hours ago, George Mervosh said:

I've been hanging out with J.J. for far too long it seems.  

I'm not hanging out with J. J. that much anymore. 

[AFS1970]

14 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

What this paraphrase omits is whether these requirements are to become chief, or to be chief. (Although it certainly sounds like a good idea for the Chief to be able to get to a major incident quickly while off-duty.) Please include a longer quote.

The title is just eligibility for the position. It seems based on this and other officer positions that the custom (or previous interpretation) has been that these are eligibility to be elected. In my short time here I have never seen anyone else become ineligible in mid term, so I suspect it is something we have never had to deal with.

As for a longer quote, I am not sure it will help but here it is:

Section 1: The Chief of the Company shall be elected at the Annual Meeting of the Company and shall hold office for a term of two (2) years or until his successor has been elected. 

a. Shall have served for at least one (1) complete term in each of the grades of officers or shall have previously served as Chief, Assistant Chief or Captain.

b. Shall have been a member in good standing for a minimum of seven (7) consecutive years

c. Shall be Connecticut Certified First Grade Firefighter II

d. Shall be a minimum of 21 years old

e. Shall live within two (2) linear miles of the Glenbrook Fire District

f. Shall have served at least one (1) complete term as an Executive Board Member

g. Shall be an expert in Fire Equipment Operations and Fireground Deployment.

 

I agree that most of this is likely to fall on the side of us interpreting our own bylaws. My main question was about the president's interpretation of extending the term, which I think is questionable at best. However I have found on this forum that since everyone has been a part of multiple organizations even on the interpretation questions there is usually some good advise given.

[Joshua Katz]

1 minute ago, AFS1970 said:

I agree that most of this is likely to fall on the side of us interpreting our own bylaws.

I agree, but in my personal opinion, this looks far more like a qualification for election. This is because the flush language of the Section deals with election, and the qualifications are listed as subparts to that Section. But that's just, like, my opinion, man. 

 

3 minutes ago, AFS1970 said:

My main question was about the president's interpretation of extending the term, which I think is questionable at best.

Questionable at best, and more to the point, irrelevant to the topic at hand. 

By the way, I see that this is a CT department. I was Secretary and Parliamentarian of a CT fire department. 

[Richard Brown]

On 4/3/2019 at 9:47 PM, AFS1970 said:

Article VII, Section 1 is titled Eligibility Requirements for the position of Chief  (Emphasis  added)

4 hours ago, AFS1970 said:

Shall live within two (2) linear miles of the Glenbrook Fire District

 

4 hours ago, AFS1970 said:

I agree that most of this is likely to fall on the side of us interpreting our own bylaws

 

4 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

I agree, but in my personal opinion, this looks far more like a qualification for election.

I come  down on the side of thinking that the residency rule we are discussing is in the nature of a qualification for holding the office.  However, I see how it can be also reasonably be interpreted as a requirement for election rather than for holding the office.  Ultimately, I agree with J.J., Mr. Katz and AFS1970 that this is ultimately a matter of bylaws interpretation, something only the organization itself can do.

My opinion is the same with regard to the provision that says the chief " Shall be Connecticut Certified First Grade Firefighter II".  Assuming that that is some kind of official certification, it seems to me that if the chief loses that certification, that he is no longer qualified to be chief.

BTW, I do still maintain that if this provision is in the nature of a requirement or qualification for holding the office, and if the chief has moved outside the boundary of the area he is supposed to live in, he can be removed from office and the position be declared vacant based on a point of order and ruling by the chair and any appeal that might follow. That may or may not be what the majority of members want to happen, but whatever it is they want, i suggest they amend the bylaws forthwith to clarify the issue.  There is a difference between a qualification requirement for being elected to an office and a qualification requirement for serving in that office.

 

[Josh Martin]

9 hours ago, AFS1970 said:

Section 1: The Chief of the Company shall be elected at the Annual Meeting of the Company and shall hold office for a term of two (2) years or until his successor has been elected. 

I would interpret them as requirements for electing and holding office, and I concur with Mr. Brown that if it is a requirement to hold office, the chief may be removed from office through a Point of Order and Appeal.

I don’t know that it matters, since the chief’s term is ending anyway, an election must be held, and he is not eligible to be elected again in any event.

Edited April 5, 2019 at 12:14 PM by Josh Martin

[Shmuel Gerber]

On 4/3/2019 at 7:35 PM, Guest Zev said:

When I click on the hyperlink the system says that the document does not exist. Why?

Maybe the system wants you to become a member instead of just being a guest.

[Guest Zev]

5 hours ago, Shmuel Gerber said:

Maybe the system wants you to become a member instead of just being a guest.

Yes, I had a sneaky feeling that was the case. In the meantime a suggestion perhaps that may help other users: Make similar file downloads as plain text files rather than formatted by some desktop publishing system. Not everyone may have the particular software.

[J. J.]

8 hours ago, Guest Zev said:

Yes, I had a sneaky feeling that was the case. In the meantime a suggestion perhaps that may help other users: Make similar file downloads as plain text files rather than formatted by some desktop publishing system. Not everyone may have the particular software.

Or, you could just contact the author, who would happy to send you the text.

[AFS1970]

On ‎4‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 3:42 AM, Richard Brown said:

My opinion is the same with regard to the provision that says the chief " Shall be Connecticut Certified First Grade Firefighter II".  Assuming that that is some kind of official certification, it seems to me that if the chief loses that certification, that he is no longer qualified to be chief.

BTW, I do still maintain that if this provision is in the nature of a requirement or qualification for holding the office, and if the chief has moved outside the boundary of the area he is supposed to live in, he can be removed from office and the position be declared vacant based on a point of order and ruling by the chair and any appeal that might follow. That may or may not be what the majority of members want to happen, but whatever it is they want, i suggest they amend the bylaws forthwith to clarify the issue.  There is a difference between a qualification requirement for being elected to an office and a qualification requirement for serving in that office.

 

Thanks for all the help, as we undertake the revision we are finding a number of small areas that need updating. We of course can only fix the matter of odd interpretations by changing who we elect to interpret these bylaws.

Funny that the example you mention if Connecticut Certified First Grade Firefighter II, as that certification does not exist and never has existed. Based on the requirements for other officers we think it is a typo combining Certified Connecticut Firefighter II (a professional certification) and First Grade Firefighter (which is a class of membership). We are generally lucky in that there are only 3 main areas that need extensive updating. The rest of the bylaws just need cleaning up from typos and clarifying some odd language/grammar choices. 

We are actually bringing an amendment to the Article that addresses officer qualifications forward tomorrow night instead of waiting for the full revision to be presented because of the urgency of the matter. We may do this with one other section but we might get done with the proposed full revision before we need to fix that.