Note: This charge concerns actions taken on Saturday of the Convention
Aaron and George Park, at the instruction of John Briscoe, conducted the elections for Senate District Directors. Aaron’s was one of ten Vice-Presidents and George was Membership Secretary. Here again were Bylaws violations, procedural violations and a big mess created by the Park brothers.
First, the convention has an Elections Committee for a reason. They should be involved when these elections were conducted, but they were not.
ARTICLE XIII – NOMINATION & ELECTION OF OFFICERS
Section 13.02. Elections Committee. The Elections Committee shall have general charge of the election and the distributing and the counting of the ballots.
Traditionally, the caucus for electing Directors and their Deputies, can be done any time from when ballots are distributed on Saturday until the final gavel of the convention on Sunday. The reason for this is that some delegated don’t arrive at the convention until the business meeting on Sunday morning. This allows the flexibility to have the most people present when the caucus is held. This was short circuited by John Briscoe. Briscoe required all caucus ballots to be turned in less than an hour after they were distributed.
Furthermore, the ballots should be tabulated by members of the Election Committee. These ballots are supposed to be compiled into a report and presented to the Convention. Those districts with three or less members fall under this bylaw provision.
ARTICLE XIII – NOMINATION & ELECTION OF OFFICERS
Section 13.08. Senate District Directors and Deputy Senate District Directors.
(b) If there are fewer than three Delegates from a Senate District present, the Senate District Director and the Deputy Senate District Director shall be appointed by the Board of Directors.
The appointment mentioned in this provision has always been at the Board of Directors meeting immediately following the Annual Convention. At least until this year. John Briscoe also failed to do this.
To compound this mess, only the Park brothers ever saw the ballots. The Elections Committee was not in charge of the ballots.
Even before the ballots were collected at the Convention, stories were circulated of Aaron and others giving conflicting instructions to people trying to vote.
Dallas Thiesen’s characterization fits well with my experience at the Convention.
It was apparent to everyone present that Vice President Park and Membership Secretary Park took control the Senate District Caucuses Saturday General Session of the 2015 CRA Convention. This was improper, the Senate district Caucuses should be administered by the Convention Election Committee, to ensure order and fairness.
However, the Membership Secretary Park and Vice President Park took over the administration of the Senate District Caucuses away from the Election Committee. As direct result the 2015 Senate Caucuses were disorderly, resulted in delegate confusion, and facilitated Vice President Park’s malfeasance described in above.
Furthermore, Membership Secretary Park failed to validate the results of the Caucuses transmit the final results to President Briscoe for reading at the Board of Directors Meeting on Sunday following the close of the convention.
Had the Convention Elections Committee not been improperly stripped of its duty to facility the Senate District Caucuses the process would have been orderly and any discrepancies in the Caucuses would have been discovered and dealt with during the convention, not months later when it benefits Vice President Park and Membership Secretary Park to raise the issue.
Like all the rest of the information that checks into the Park’s possession, it only sees the light of day after it has been massaged and cherry-picked to serve the will of Aaron and George.
The flaws and shortcomings of this sloppy caucus will be fixed at the May 30th Board meeting.
Had Aaron and George spent their time in February and March concentrating on organizing the Convention instead of playing circular firing squad with Credentials and Charter review, most of the problems we are faced with now would never had happened. Again, the records belong to the Board not George and Aaron.