[Lnc-business] About the Policy Manual - What Happened to the Missing 4 Pages?
liber8or at austin.rr.com
liber8or at austin.rr.com
Tue Feb 5 11:11:36 EST 2013
Of course it's appropriate to voice your concerns. However, it's also appropriate for everyone else to be silent.
Geoffrey Neale
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
-----Original Message-----
From: Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2013 06:57:04
To: <liber8or at austin.rr.com>; <lnc-business at hq.lp.org>
Cc: Carla Howell<carla.howell at lp.org>; Robert Kraus<robert.kraus at lp.org>; Ruth Bennett<BennettRuth at comcast.net>; Alicia Mattson<agmattson at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] About the Policy Manual - What Happened to the Missing 4 Pages?
Geoff,
According to the language I quoted from the Policy Manual in my original message below, the LNC does vote on changes of formatting such as table of contents and endnotes, and any such changes should have been proposed to the LNC for approval before being made:
> "4) Document Maintenance
>
> The Secretary shall maintain a complete copy of this Policy Manual.
>
> The Secretary is authorized to propose corrections to formatting, spelling, grammar,
> capitalization, punctuation, article and section designations, cross-references, and such
> other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to the Policy Manual,
> provided such changes would have no effect on the meaning of the adopted Terms,
> Definitions, Rules, and Orders.
>
> The Secretary may propose adding or amending annotations in the form of endnotes and
> introductory language to provide relevant references to authoritative statutes, the Party’s
> Corporate Charter and Bylaws, the parliamentary authority, and explanations as to how
> Special Rules of Order differ from the parliamentary authority.
>
> The Secretary shall promptly submit such proposals to the LNC, along with any written
> opinions provided by the Party’s parliamentarian. These proposals shall be considered
> adopted thirty days thereafter or upon the close of the next LNC meeting, whichever is
> sooner. The LNC may veto such proposals by majority vote prior to adoption.
> The LNC reserves the right to also propose and adopt non-substantive, as well as
> substantive, changes."
I haven't said or implied anything about compelling responses from staff or anyone else, in this or any other message that I'm aware of. Do you think it was inappropriate of me to voice concern?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
On Feb 5, 2013, at 5:50 AM, liber8or at austin.rr.com wrote:
> Starchild - you have no authority to compel responses from anyone, especially staff.
>
> However, I would like to know if there are any real ommissions. To the best of my knowledge, the LNC does not vote on table of contents or endnotes, so changes such as these cannot be unauthorized. Are there any real differences?
>
> Geoffrey Neale
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
On Feb 4, 2013, at 9:18 PM, Starchild wrote:
> I'm concerned that no answers have been forthcoming about the apparent unauthorized changes to the LNC Policy Manual which I documented in a message posted January 14 (see below). The only response I saw to that message was from LNC regional alternate Scott Lieberman, who suggested that the fault could have been with immediate past secretary Ruth Bennett not providing the staff with an accurate version of the document, but when I responded asking him for any evidence to support that theory, did not see anything further on the subject.
>
> I'm copying Ruth along with LP executive director Carla Howell, operations director Robert Kraus, and Alicia Mattson who was secretary prior to May 6, 2012 on this message, in case any of them have information that can shed some light on the matter.
>
> I urge everyone to acquaint themselves with what my research turned up by reading or re-reading the message below before responding, in order to increase the likelihood that we can find out what's going on here without engaging in possibly unfounded speculation or responses that offer superficially reassurance without really providing credible explanations of the various peculiarities documented below.
>
> Love & Liberty,
> ((( starchild )))
> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
> (415) 625-FREE
>
>
>> From: Starchild <sfdreamer at ...>
>> Date: January 14, 2013 4:12:18 AM PST
>> To: lnc-business at ...
>> Subject: [Lnc-business] About the Policy Manual - What Happened to the Missing 4 Pages?
>> Reply-To: lnc-business at ...
>>
>> Over the past few months I have made several references to the LNC Policy Manual being 72 pages long -- mostly in the context of expressing my concern that the document has been growing out of control and threatens the authority of our convention delegates. Therefore I was quite surprised to notice, when looking at the Policy Manual a couple days ago, that it had only 68 pages. If I somehow subconsciously wished a shorter document into existence, you all have my apologies, and if I can manage to prove my heretofore unsuspected paranormal powers to one of the groups offering reward money for proof of possessing such powers, I promise to share some of the winnings with the LP!
>>
>> Obviously, as thrilling as it might be to me personally, such an explanation is hardly likely. So could my memory have been mistaken? I went to the Internet Archives site, which preserves older versions of websites, to check, and found that as of their last web-crawl of LP.org on December 7, 2012, our Policy Manual did in fact list 72 pages. If you go to http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.lp.org and click on the calendar link for December 7, it takes you to LP.org as it appeared on that date, where you can click on the "Our Party" pull-down menu and select the "LNC Meeting Archives" option, which takes you to a page that includes a 72-page Policy Manual:
>>
>> http://web.archive.org/web/20121103013551/https://www.lp.org/files/LNC%20Policy%20Manual-Adopted%202012-05-02.pdf
>>
>> Deepening the mystery, the web address for the version of the Policy Manual currently on our site -- https://www.lp.org/files/PolicyManualupdated12NOV2012.pdf -- suggests that the document may have been updated in November 2012 . However the last update listed in the document's Log of Changes (p. 66), and the date that appears on the title page of the document, is May 2, 2012.
>>
>> In comparing the version of the LNC Policy Manual from the Internet Archives with the version that currently appears on LP.org, two major differences stand out:
>>
>> (1) In the Dec. 7, 2012 version of the document linked above, the Endnotes [basically footnotes describing how various provisions in the Policy Manual relate to Roberts Rules of Order and to the LP Bylaws] begin on page 67 and continue to the end of the Policy Manual halfway through page 72. In the currently posted version of the Policy Manual, the Endnotes are completely missing.
>>
>> (2) The "Detailed Table of Contents" published in the currently posted version of the Policy Manual is a lot less detailed than the "Detailed Table of Contents" as it appeared on Dec. 7, taking up only a single page whereas it previously encompassed nearly three full pages.
>>
>> Curiously, the currently posted version of the Policy Manual, like the Archived version, contains both a "Condensed Table of Contents" and a "Detailed Table of Contents". However in the currently posted version, both tables of contents appear to be identical! Essentially, the actual Detailed Table of Contents was removed, and the "Condensed Table of Contents" was printed a second time in its place, so that it now appears on two consecutive pages, listed first under the heading "Condensed Table of Contents" and then a second time under the heading "Detailed Table of Contents".
>>
>> Can someone explain what is going on? It's always possible that I overlooked an email or am forgetting something, but I don't recall the LNC being notified of or authorizing the changes to the Policy Manual documented above. The "General Delegation of Authority" provisions in Section I of the document itself appear to indicate that no other body or individual has the authority to make these changes in the absence of such notification or authorization (I've highlighted the relevant language from sections 3 and 4 below in boldface):
>>
>>> Section I.1 GENERAL DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY
>>>
>>> 1) Participation by LNC Alternates at Meetings
>>> Free substitution of Alternates for Regional Representatives at LNC meetings is
>>> permitted.iii
>>>
>>> 2) Proposed Agenda
>>> The Chair shall propose an agenda for each session of the LNC.iv
>>>
>>> 3) Executive Committee
>>> The Executive Committee shall exercise all powers of the LNC between LNC meetings
>>> except for the addition, deletion, or amendment of the LNC policy manual or amendment
>>> of the budget beyond the limits specified elsewhere in this Policy Manual.
>>> Notwithstanding, the LNC reserves the right to exercise its authority through electronic
>>> mail ballots.v
>>>
>>> 4) Document Maintenance
>>> The Secretary shall maintain a complete copy of this Policy Manual.
>>> The Secretary is authorized to propose corrections to formatting, spelling, grammar,
>>> capitalization, punctuation, article and section designations, cross-references, and such
>>> other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to the Policy Manual,
>>> provided such changes would have no effect on the meaning of the adopted Terms,
>>> Definitions, Rules, and Orders.
>>> The Secretary may propose adding or amending annotations in the form of endnotes and
>>> introductory language to provide relevant references to authoritative statutes, the Party’s
>>> Corporate Charter and Bylaws, the parliamentary authority, and explanations as to how
>>> Special Rules of Order differ from the parliamentary authority.
>>> The Secretary shall promptly submit such proposals to the LNC, along with any written
>>> opinions provided by the Party’s parliamentarian. These proposals shall be considered
>>> adopted thirty days thereafter or upon the close of the next LNC meeting, whichever is
>>> sooner. The LNC may veto such proposals by majority vote prior to adoption.
>>> The LNC reserves the right to also propose and adopt non-substantive, as well as
>>> substantive, changes.vi
>>
>>
>> Meanwhile, the only changes to the Policy Manual which I at least *do* recall the LNC authorizing this term (based on a ruling of the chair which was not overturned), a dissolution of the pre-existing membership of various LNC-created and Bylaws-mandated committees, so that these committees could be repopulated, is not reflected in the currently published version of the document. Pages 64 and 65 of the Policy Manual still list the persons who served on these committees during the previous LNC term.
>>
>> I do strongly urge that when those committee assignments are updated, that the information of who served on which committees last term be preserved in some other archival section of LP.org for the historical record, rather than simply deleted.
>>
>> In the meantime however, I'm most concerned about the fact of LNC Policy Manual changes apparently being made by staff, or someone with access to the website, without the knowledge of this committee.
>>
>> Love & Liberty,
>> ((( starchild )))
>> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>> (415) 625-FREE
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at ...
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
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