NOMINATIONS PERIOD OPEN NOW THRU NOVEMBER 30th @ 5PM

BOARD POSITIONS on 2021 BALLOT [2021 Candidate:]

President [2021 Candidate: Karen Hardy, incumbent]

Vice President [2021 Candidate: Amanda Dykema-Engblade]

Secretary [2021 Candidate: Maia Rigas]

Treasurer [2021 Candidate: Tisha Sandberg, incumbent]

(x3) Members At Large [Betsy Kane, +2 positions open]

NOMINATIONS & CANDIDATES:

Tom Simms has generously offered to support WANT as Nominations Monitor for the upcoming election cycle.  *Any* member in good standing wishing to volunteer themselves or nominate another member to participate in the 2021 WANT board should reach out to Tom to express their interest.  Tom has been a member of WANT for many years, and has served with the Land Use & Zoning committee.

Thomas Simms

simmsmthomas@gmail.com

773-307-3213

We enthusiastically welcome any interest to join the board from members of the WANT community!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DETAILS:

As announced our last WANT General Membership meeting, we will be hosting the annual WANT board elections.  COVID restrictions have upended most of the year and we would like to do our best to move forward.  As was pointed out then, we are well outside what the bylaws lay out for a traditional election and we are further stuck in the sense that they also don't provide us with an outlet to adapt to our current situation either. They do give some guidance in how it was intended and we want to continue in that direction fairly. 

The WANT board recently met virtually to discuss the circumstances as well as a path forward and have agreed to a course of action that attempts to be as fair as possible while following the spirit of the bylaws.  We cannot in good conscience work on changing the bylaws during the same meeting where an election is active, but we have agreed revisiting the WANT bylaws will be a priority in the coming year.  We will address these gaps and update them for the times we live in today. 

REVISED ELECTION PROCESS:

We will host an open Nomination period through November 30th.  During this time, a member not affiliated with the current board will accept nominations for candidates or interest from any member in good standing that wishes to offer themselves as a candidate for any board position through November 30th, generally via email or phone call.  The Nominations Monitor will collate all candidates nominated during this period and will report their findings to the board by 5pm on November 30th. 

The next General Membership meeting will be held on the evening of December 1st.  The monitor will verify the result of the Nomination period for the General Membership. 

• If there are no positions with more than one candidate, the new board can be adopted by acclamation at the Dec 1st meeting, following the language of the bylaws.

• In the event that there are two or more candidates for a position, it will be announced that a virtual election will be held from December 2nd through December 16th.

o   Most members have paid their 2020 dues electronically via Paypal or have provided us with an email address at some point.  To ensure that only members in good standing participate in a vote that is otherwise anonymous, we will email a link to a Survey Monkey ballot to all persons who have paid their 2020 membership in full by the December 1st meeting.  A Survey Monkey ballot allows each person to vote only once while ensuring that members with voting privileges get to vote anonymously and with confidence.  Our general email list is over 470 addresses and our membership is about a quarter of that number. 

o   For those who paid in cash/check and do not have an online presence, we will provide a printed hard copy of the ballot to their home address.

o   The board will send an announcement at the close of the election period announcing the results and will begin the work of the coming year appropriate to the outcome.

Although not ideal, we hope this solution will allow WANT to move forward into 2021 in a fair and constructive manner, given the constraints of a fully virtual environment we are in today.  With a new board in place, we can begin to address the work of revising the bylaws to fit our modern world.

Thanks for your flexibility!  Please stay safe and healthy!