President’s Update re Board Meeting

President’s Update re Board Meeting 11/18/14. Believe it or not this update is short and positive!

MEETING DATE 12/15/14

The next meeting of the Board will occur on December 15, 2014, a Monday at 6:00 p.m.  Typically our meetings are the third Tuesday of every month, but in honor of our Jewish colleagues due to the fact that Hanukkah/Chanukah begins at sunset Tuesday, December 16, 2014, the Board agreed to change the date of the meeting. All members are welcome and encouraged to attend this Board meeting and every Board meeting.

DISAFFILIATION ELECTION BY MEMBERS

There was a flurry of debate and some emails disseminated in advance of the 11/18/14 Board meeting about the controversy of whether the members would be permitted to vote on remaining affiliated with AFSCME or DISAFFILIATING, or whether it would be just the Board who decided this important issue without a membership vote.  

On 12/15/14 the Board would either unilaterally vote to merge permanently with AFSCME with no ratification by the members or vote to DISAFFILIATE which would then require ratification by the members. To be more specific, the Side Letter Agreement between AFSCME and the ADDA had a clause that stated the Board needed to pass a “resolution of withdrawal” which would then require ratification by the members, that is, an election. If the majority of the Board did not approve that resolution then the matter was over and we permanently merged into AFSCME.

However, that issue now appears to be tentatively resolved in favor of an election by the members!  The Executive Director of AFSCME Council 36, Cheryl Parisi, attended our meeting and announced that AFSCME Council 36 has decided that an election by the members is the right thing to do. She indicated she is awaiting a letter from AFSCME International which I assume would approve modification of the Side Letter Agreement permitting the election without the need of the Board’s approval. 

So, I said tentatively simply because until we have that letter which she said would be coming soon, I cannot be definitive.  If her statements are confirmed by the letter, and we have no reason to assume otherwise, this is definitely good news for all our members who will now get to decide this issue directly for themselves. 

WE WILL HAVE A MEMBERSHIP ELECTION!  

If you want more information, please come to the 12/15 meeting at AFSCME Headquarters. 

Again, this means that on 12/16/14 ballots will be mailed to all members for the members to decide whether to remain permanently with AFSCME or to DISAFFILIATE!

TRUSTEES

Finally, three good people have volunteered uncontested to be our new Trustees and were approved by the Board last night: 

Frederick Mesropi
Steven Schreiner
Maria Santos

Thank you three for volunteering to keep the ADDA transparent and honest about our financial obligations to our members.

EMAIL ACCESS TO ADDA OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS

There was a complaint about not having email access to the Officers and Directors of the ADDA Board. The Board has agreed to assign email addresses to each member of the Board and those will soon be on our website at laadda.com. 

Sincerely, 

Marc Debbaudt
ADDA President