I don't think it's as bad as all that. Had we been following the wiki, the new nomination would have been apparent, but I think in the future we should push information to the lists when people will be surprised if they don't have it. It's always been the case that, once elected, the ALAC representatives are free to vote their conscience and take advice, but not instructions, from others in the region. Speaking only for myself, I greatly prefer this current model and would not recommend the LACRALO approach as you have described it. Precisely because people have day jobs, it would be very difficult to give binding instructions to the ALAC reps on the issues. I'd rather accept the time commitment of those who are elected and trust their judgment. If we disagree with their choices over time, we can replace them at the next election. On Sep 28, 2007, at 7:53 AM, Thompson, Darlene wrote:
Our two ALAC reps (Beau and Robert) are supposed to be taking direction from the region and moving it forward. In this case, the direction from the region was completely disregarded and ALAC moved ahead with its own agenda. This is just horrible and a case of the tail wagging the dog. I fully understand that Alan does not have to vote in line with the region but why didn't Beau and Robert? They could have proposed Ross to the region at any time at all for our discussion but did not. I am totally confused and dismayed because, up until this time, I totally trusted our two ALAC reps to forward the regions wishes. I guess I was wrong.
I think, regionally, we need to have this stuff addressed either in our Rules of Procedure or in our Operating Principles (whichever is appropriate) so that this does not happen again. I've been told that LACRALO has excellent wording in their RoP dictating the limits to the powers of their two ALAC reps. I naïvely thought that we didn't need that. I think I was wrong.