First Break It
We are blessed with Leadership in the Linn County Republican Central Committee who have a simple strategy.
First: Break It.
Then: (GASP) "OMG, we have a CRISIS!"
And demand Emergency Powers which include full and total control over what they have broken,
In order to FIX it.
We got an example of this at the August LCRCC meeting.
There was a problem with credentialing.
Which, to my knowledge, had NEVER happened before.
The usual process is that credentialing starts at 6:30 PM.
Voting members are given their credentials with the lime green card that
shows they are entitled to vote.
Now, it is true that some do not understand this, and have tried to vote
without credentials in the past, but most do understand and abide by the process.
Assistant Members get yellow cards, however, if both permanent members have not shown up by 7:00 PM, the start of the meeting.
The Assistants are given lime green voting cards.
Or, at least, they have at EVERY meeting until August.
To understand how this all came about, we must go back to July's Meeting.
Another thing that has always happened is that after the meeting, the Team Leader (or in the past, the Sub Committee Chair) takes all the materials home to re-sort them.
Except for at our July meeting, when our County Chair, Cindy Golding, and our Secretary, Gary Ellis, decided at the end of the meeting that THEY would do take possession of the credentials, rather than leaving it up to the Team Leader, Justin Wasson.
Now, they may or may not have had a valid reason to take the materials home.
But what IS true is that on the night of the August meeting, they STILL had possesion of the credentialing materials,
A month after they improperly took them,
For which, in my opinion, THERE IS NO EXCUSE.
But there IS a reason, that reason being that they have, since the "Teams" were enacted, tried to take control away from the duly appointed Team Leader,
Who has been affirmed in his postion by TWO votes of the full Central Committee.
You see?
They REALLY do not like that portion of our Constitution, which states:
The Executive Committee is subject to the orders of the Linn County Central Committee, and none of its acts shall conflict with actions of the Linn County Central Committee.
So it turned out the Chair, Cindy Golding, and the Secretary, Gary Ellis, had possession of the materials AND decided to start credentialing members almost an hour earlier than the Membership's Team's standard practice.
In doing so, they made a Dog's Breakfast of the whole process,
Which does not come as much of a surprise to anyone who has been around the LCRCC for a few administrations.
Before Cindy Golding took over as Chair, we often had as many as 200 people attending meetings. We required a meeting room two to three times as big as the one we use now.
Since her advent as Chair, attendance has dropped 80%, while a similiar drop has been seen in attendance at fundraisers and other events.
The new Executive Committee, along with our Chair, decided to disenfranchise a large portion of the Central Committee by abolishing the sub-committees, and replacing them with "teams" who had limited voting members (who were chosen by them.)
That had the expected result.
While it is true they got their desired Total Control, one member expressed to me that when he was on three subcommittees, he felt he contributed, but now he is not on ANY teams and sees no point, since he would have NO SAY in anything.
Quite a few of our disenfranchised members were some of our hardest working volunteers.
But if your goal is CONTROL, rather than a healthy, functioning Central Committee, such people are expendable.
But, no matter. I understand from talking to some of them that they have found other ways to "Help Republicans Get Elected" and "Support Conservative Causes," so they are just as busy as they have always been at these endeavors.
In any event, when we realized that the Chair, Cindy Golding, and the Secretary, Gary Ellis, had attempted to take over the credentialing process at the August meeting, we understood why things ended up in a mess.
The most comical outcome was that because the Membership Team Leader, Justin Wasson, having had the credentialing materials taken from him without his permission, stated that he had had nothing to do with the credentialing that night, and, more accurately, the mess it turned into,
THEY tried to claim he had RESIGNED!
Now, I can't make up stuff that like that. It takes an intellect on the level of Cindy Golding to come to that kind of a conclusion:
From: clgolding@aol.com <clgolding@aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 11:15 PM
To: jrwasson@live.com
Cc: egarye@cs.com; brett.e.mason@gmail.com; tuckerusa@aol.com
Subject: Membership & Meeting setup team leader?
Justin,
There appeared to be a serious breakdown in the communication among the Membership & Meeting Setup Team on August 18th, causing disruption of the LCRCC meeting. Then, when questions arose, you stated publicly that you were not in charge of the Membership Team and credentialing was not your responsibility. This was confirmed by Jim Conklin during his "Point of Order."
Harry Foster, Mike Dupree and Deb Dupree handled the credentialing process but, apparently, were not provided the documentation to credential Assistant Committee Persons, as Jim Conklin requested.
This action and your statement indicates to the executive team that you have tendered your resignation.
Please let me know by 5 PM, Monday, Aug 31, if you intend to complete your responsibilities and have the sign-in sheets and credentials there on time or if you are resigning, per your statement during the meeting.
You can reach me at 319-360-1028 or 319-899-4700 or the office number 319-432-9467 or reply to this email.
The next LCRCC meeting on Sept. 15th will have a Candidate Meet & Greet from 6-7PM.
The membership sign-in needs to begin at 5:45 PM to be courteous to our guests and our members who wish to hear the speakers.
In addition, I have asked the Secretary, Gary Ellis to work with the Membership & Meeting Setup Team to develop procedures to help avoid delays and confusion in future meetings and to assure that we have accurate attendance records for our minutes.
Again, you can reach me at 319-360-1028 or 319-899-4700 or the office number 319-432-9467 or reply to this email.
I hope to hear from you before Monday evening.
Cindy Golding
Chair
Linn County Republican Central Committee
