Deadline for Response to Objections to Actions Taken

[Guest Grassroots Girl]

A committee meeting was held on JAN 2 and ended at 8:51 pm.

Any objections were due to be sent to the Chair within 10 days per our Rules.  

An Objection to Actions Taken was sent on Friday January 12th at 9:33pm.

The Chair of that meeting refused to acknowledge the objection, responding that the meeting adjourned at 8:51pm, therefore the deadline to file an objection was on or before Friday January 12th at 8:51pm.

Chair stated:

Your objection was received on Friday January 12th at 9:33pm, which did not meet the 10-day requirement.  Therefore you failed to submit your action in time and it is invalid.

Our Rules do not address or define the deadline in 24 hour increments, but rather states the deadline is 10 days.  Is she right in asserting that the Objection is invalid because it was sent 42 minutes past the exact minute that the meeting in question ended? There were at least 2 other members whose Objections were dismissed for this reason, despite all being sent to the Chair for consideration by the close of the 10th day, which is the deadline. 

I have attached an image of the Rule that applies to Objection for our organization.

Thank you

 

[Gary Novosielski]

Ultimately each society must interpret its own bylaws. Rulings of the Chair are appealable by the motion to Appeal [RONR (12th ed.) §24].

The closest analogous rule in RONR is the calculation regarding days of previous notice:

9:4
In all such cases, to avoid uncertainty about what period in advance is reasonable, the specific number of days’ notice required—which will depend on the conditions of the particular assembly and which each organization must determine for itself—should be prescribed in the bylaws (56:34). Unless otherwise provided in the bylaws, the number of days is computed by counting all calendar days (including holidays and weekends), excluding the day of the meeting but including the day the notice is sent.

In other words, whole days count, not hours, minutes, or other fractions of a day.  Also, I do not see in your quoted bylaws any requirement that the objection must be received within 10 days.  Analogous rules in RONR provide that things must be sent by a particular time.  Your bylaws say it must be made.  It is up to your organization to decide whether made means sent or received or something else.

Edited January 20, 2024 at 07:22 PM by Gary Novosielski

[Guest Grassroots Girl]

Thank you so much for your reply. It seems this would be obvious and I appreciate you referencing 9:4. As for appealing the decision, our Rules Chair is in her pocket and shown himself to be willing to break rules. This Chair received multiple objections against the way the they ran the meeting, they gave a speech during the discussion phase of the motion just before the vote was taken, then rushed to count votes in a virtual meeting with no verification provided.  They have no real interest in hearing the concerns of the body or offering transparency. To dismiss multiple complaints because they came in an hour, more or less after the meeting in question adjourned indicates they want to avoid being held to proper Parliamentarian procedure.

[Gary Novosielski]

Well, "complaints" have no parliamentary standing, and "objections" only matter in some narrow situations. But the requirement that they follow the rules applies without regard to their "real interest" in concerns or transparency.

The major point is that the leadership can (and will) only get away with what the assembly as a whole will put up with.  It is easy to simply ignore a complaint, but less easy to ignore a properly raised Point of Order, and if ruled upon unfavorably a properly seconded Appeal From the Decision of the Chair. [RONR (12th ed.) §23-24]

Learn the proper forms, and use them without hesitation.  Make sure you have allies in the assembly who are prepared to clamp on and not let go until the rules are properly observed.

To quote Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them...."

 

Edited January 20, 2024 at 08:17 PM by Gary Novosielski

[Guest Grassroots Girl]

Thank you for the advice.  I'll make every effort to follow your direction. I am hopeful that most in the assembly observed what a handful of us observed and agree the Chair did not follow proper parliamentary procedure.  Unfortunatelywe did not make a timely Point of Order in the meeting, though I did bring a Point of Information about older members not having enough time to manage the virtual technology needed to vote. I was called OOO for my comment, but the next morning, 2 members had filed complaints stating they did not have the ability to get their votes up before the Chair rushed to closed the vote.  We'll see if my appeal to the dismissal of my Objection goes anywhere. 

If this vote didn't have potentially dire consequences for the membership at large, I wouldn't bother fighting this particular issue at all.  They go their own way often, with little regard for the rules.  But this time it matters. 

[Gary Novosielski]

Your procedure for "complaints" , "objections", and something called an "appeal" which apparently bears no resemblance to the motion to Appeal in RONR, are rules of your own design, and so are not anything RONR would apply to.  Are these rules in your bylaws somewhere?  How do they work?

They seem to be quite unlike the rules in RONR.  Does your organization adopt RONR as your parliamentary authority?

[Joshua Katz]

On 1/20/2024 at 7:43 PM, Guest Grassroots Girl said:

though I did bring a Point of Information about older members not having enough time to manage the virtual technology needed to vote. I was called OOO for my comment,

I would agree that using a point of information in this manner is out of order. A point of information is used to ask a question.

On 1/20/2024 at 7:43 PM, Guest Grassroots Girl said:

If this vote didn't have potentially dire consequences for the membership at large, I wouldn't bother fighting this particular issue at all.  They go their own way often, with little regard for the rules.  But this time it matters. 

One reason to push for adherence even when it doesn't "matter" is to make it easier to demand it when it does.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 1/20/2024 at 7:43 PM, Guest Grassroots Girl said:

Unfortunately we did not make a timely Point of Order in the meeting, though I did bring a Point of Information about older members not having enough time to manage the virtual technology needed to vote

As @Joshua Katz points out, this motion is for the purpose of asking for information, not providing it.  Because this misunderstanding has become so common, the name Point of Information is now deprecated, and the correct name of the motion is now Request for Information.  If a member desires to offer information, this is done during normal debate.

[Josh Martin]

On 1/20/2024 at 12:36 PM, Guest Grassroots Girl said:

Our Rules do not address or define the deadline in 24 hour increments, but rather states the deadline is 10 days.  Is she right in asserting that the Objection is invalid because it was sent 42 minutes past the exact minute that the meeting in question ended?

It will ultimately be up to your organization to interpret its own bylaws. RONR has no rule specifically on this matter, as this procedure of "objections to actions taken" is unique to your rules, but RONR does provide guidance for computing the number of days required in the context of giving notice.

"In all such cases, to avoid uncertainty about what period in advance is reasonable, the specific number of days' notice required—which will depend on the conditions of the particular assembly and which each organization must determine for itself—should be prescribed in the bylaws (56:34). Unless otherwise provided in the bylaws, the number of days is computed by counting all calendar days (including holidays and weekends), excluding the day of the meeting but including the day the notice is sent." RONR (12th ed.) 9:4

In that context, the computation does not include the exact time at which the notice was sent. So to the extent this rule is applicable here, it would seem to me the objection was sent within the time limit. I am personally inclined to favor this interpretation.

With that said, I do not think the chair's alternative "down to the minute" interpretation is unreasonable. Ultimately, it will be up to the organization to interpret its own rules and determine whether the "ten day" rule means ten calendar days or ten days exactly, down to the minute. If this issue has arisen in the past, the precedent set by the chair in rulings upon this matter (and any subsequent appeal) may be of assistance in this regard.

I will also note that the rule in question says the objection must be made within ten days "after the person knew or should have known the facts upon which it is based." That may somewhat complicate matters. I assume that 1.) the action upon which the objection is based occurred at the meeting in question and 2.) the person making the objection was present at the meeting. If both of these assumptions are correct, then basing the computation of when the objection is due on the date of the meeting seems reasonable. If one or both of these assumptions are incorrect, however, that may change things.

On 1/20/2024 at 1:20 PM, Gary Novosielski said:

Also, I do not see in your quoted bylaws any requirement that the objection must be received within 10 days.  Analogous rules in RONR provide that things must be sent by a particular time.  Your bylaws say it must be made.  It is up to your organization to decide whether made means sent or received or something else.

The original post says that the objection was sent and received at 9:33 PM (presumably, the objection was sent by electronic means). So it doesn't seem this distinction will make a difference in this instance.

On 1/20/2024 at 2:02 PM, Guest Grassroots Girl said:

Thank you so much for your reply. It seems this would be obvious and I appreciate you referencing 9:4. As for appealing the decision, our Rules Chair is in her pocket and shown himself to be willing to break rules. This Chair received multiple objections against the way the they ran the meeting, they gave a speech during the discussion phase of the motion just before the vote was taken, then rushed to count votes in a virtual meeting with no verification provided.  They have no real interest in hearing the concerns of the body or offering transparency. To dismiss multiple complaints because they came in an hour, more or less after the meeting in question adjourned indicates they want to avoid being held to proper Parliamentarian procedure.

The chair's behavior at the meeting, as described here, certainly seems problematic.

But I am not certain I agree that "To dismiss multiple complaints because they came in an hour, more or less after the meeting in question adjourned" necessarily "indicates they want to avoid being held to proper Parliamentarian procedure." While I do not agree with the chair's interpretation in this matter, I do not think it is an unreasonable interpretation. So long as this is the chair's honest interpretation of the rule in question and the chair applies this interpretation uniformly, I do not think this interpretation is, in itself, problematic.

Nonetheless, it is ultimately up to the assembly itself to interpret this rule - at least, that's how it works under RONR. You mention something about an appeal being handled by a "Rules Chair," so it seems your organization may have customized rules on that subject as well.

Edited January 21, 2024 at 07:11 PM by Josh Martin