But when it came to a proposal to simplify its monthly meetings byreducing the official voting block on issues from 26 board members to anine-member executive committee, the discussion was anything but quick, thevote was split, 20-plus board members rejected it.
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| Some of the NPU-B board members at Tuesday nights meeting included (left to right) Nancy Bliwise, Bill Bozarth, chairman Sally Silver, Abbie Sherman and Michael Isaacs. |
“Currently, we have a full board meeting (thefirst Tuesday of every month) composed of all standing committee members,”NPU-B chair Sally Silver said at the September meeting at the Cathedral of St.Philip in Buckhead. She explained that the suggested change is “instead ofevery single person being required to be here, the requirement for attendancewould shift to an executive committee.”
The executive committee consists of the chair,vice chair, business coordinator, neighborhood coordinator, recorder, treasurerand chairs of the 3 committee, Silver said.
Silver explained “that in no way means” theremainder of the board cannot attend, participate in discussions and vote —they can do all that. “We aresimply trying to streamline it,” she said.
Although not everyone spoke on the issue, themajority of the board seemed to not be happy with the amendments because theyfeared a loss of communication and interest in issues before the body.
“My concern is if you’re not required to dosomething a lot of times you don’t do it,” said board member Lisa Martinez. “Ifthe requirement lessens, my concern is that it’s not going to happen and thatyou’re going to actually have less input for the executive committee down theroad. I’m thinking three and five years down the road. How is this decisiontonight going to change that?”
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| Other board members at Tuesday night's monthly meeting were (left to right) Bill Murray, Bob Connelly, Lisa Martinez, Bob Stasiowski and Nancy Bliwise. |
Bill Murray, who chairs the NPU’s ZoningCommittee, saw the proposal differently. He thought it might encourage more boardmembers to go to different committee meetings and participate on that level,where he said most of the work is actually accomplished. He and a couple ofother speakers said the proposed new setup would put more emphasis on thecommittees work.
With most NPUs around the city, the wordingdealing with business members is not as important as it is with NPU-B. This NPUis the only one in the city that, when it was established in 1975, was set upto have an equal number of neighborhood and business representatives elected tothe board.
If a new neighborhood is formed and joins theNPU, as Buckhead Heights did within the past two years, it is eligible for amember on the board and the board has to be expanded also to include anadditional business representative.
Now that the major proposed change to the bylawsdealing with the executive committee being the only people required to attendthe monthly meeting was rejected, Silver said the executive committee needs toget together to “hammer out a template” and “begin polishing and seeing anyother changes” they may want to make.
In the meantime, Silver said she will pursuemaking changes to make monthly meetings more efficient—sending out board andcommittee meeting agendas in advance and having minutes from all meetings recordedwithin a few days after meetings and emailed to all board members.
“I think there’s plenty of housekeeping thatcould be done to bring us better up to speed,” she said. “Maybe we won’t need achange, maybe we will. … Maybe we’ll be such a smooth well-oiled machine, wedon’t need to change anything.”
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