No, there wasn’t. I was there.
No, there wasn’t. I was there.
…your representations in this thread would be right up there toward the top of the list.
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You make the same objection twice in the same post, so – since I was there too, of course – I’ll ask: What objection did your bionic hearing allow you to hear when the question was directly asked by the board member to those seated there, in those following 10 seconds of silence, that I did not hear?
And since there have been a few misrepresentations of very basic principles of meeting procedure here, I’ll note two of them in the following, one of them relevant to this thread and one of them relevant to an error Walter made – I’ll stop saying he “misrepresented” things, as that is clearly not working, and state that he is “wrong about” things; hopefully that’ll be clearer.
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A unanimous decision is one reached without objection. It is related to a decision “by acclamation,” where instead of yeas and nays taken the chair simply states, “is there any objection to the motion?” As a matter of definition, in a 100 member body, if a decision has 2 yeas, 0 nays, and 98 abstentions, the decision is reached unanimously.
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Minutes, properly formed, are the official organizational record of what was done at the meeting – what action was decided to be formally taken by a deliberative assembly. In other words, it contains 1) motions made, seconded and put before the body, 2) the disposition of said motions (whether they were adopted or failed), and 3) paltry little else. In particular, discussion should in the majority of cases not appear in minutes, for a wide variety of very good reasons.
That does not mean that what isn’t in the minutes didn’t happen. It means direct action – a motion and a vote – was not taken due to whatever it was. In this case, a motion was already on the floor and this was merely within the context of discussion of that motion.
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Sitting at the board table, I never heard a single person. So if you did say something it was not loud enough for us to hear it.
I’m happy acceding the technical point on what constitutes a unanimous vote or decision, although not recognizing the abstention for what it was is a bit disingenuous. But to pretend that there was unanimity on this topic in that meeting is certainly a misrepresentation.
I don’t remember those 10 seconds explicitly, but I do remember concluding relatively early on in the discussion that whatever decision the board was going to make had already been made, and so didn’t really see much of a point in making much further vocal comment.
I’ll note that several comments and points that were made during the meeting did not make it into the minutes – I understand why – but that’s a good argument for making at least a voice, if not video, recording of such future proceedings.
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And are these not the people who would most likely be affected by Walter’s posts on Talk? Since the poll is anonymous, there is no reason for those in favor of his ban not to speak up, so it should pretty accurately reflect the ones who want the ban continued. Even in the face of this, 3/4 still say “bring him back”.
Those people either had an axe to grind, or didn’t know that Walter was the subject of the complaint. Guilty until proven innocent, eh?
(edit: This post has been redacted. The final quote and response was a personal insult, which was unnecessary and shouldn’t have been typed in the first place. My apologies to slinkygn for the outburst. See the edit log for details.)
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Posted on Walter’s behalf:
Alex Rhodes wrote:
Again Walter will present alternative facts and will hide behind
hearsay. In that meeting I said that I wish more people used flags as
my guess is that it’s mainly Brandon, Brooks myself and a few others
that did most of the flagging. I never mentioned my wife. It was in
relation to all of talk not just you.
Mellisa Rhodes wrote:
And I guess Walter did say that he heard from “witnesses” but that’s
his M.O.-
Since the minutes failed to record your statement, I only had the
statement of witness,
https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/discourse-flag-counts/19506/11
There were others, despite Mrs. Rhodes assertion. People frequently
share such things with me, but ask that I not name them, since they are
afraid the board (at least a few of its current members) will choose to
find some excuse to punish them. Something that some board members have
shown a pattern of doing.
https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/got-banned-getting-banned-trying-to-get-banned-with-your-help-change-is-coming/8648/16
Also, I have been waiting for nearly a month for the data that would
directly address this particular issue. A month where the board has
FAILED to properly respond to a legal request for the data. And before
YOU misrepresent that request, the only NAMED flaggers I requested were
those on the board (or accounts linked to theirs). The latter naming is
needed to address yet more possible violations of conflict by law…
You ask what rule you’re breaking, I will say
https://dallasmakerspace.org
/wiki/Rules_and_Policies#Code_of_Conduct12 specifically number 4.
Frankly, I am amazed that you can write that with a straight face. If
you ignore all of the allegations (for which no complaints were filed
and therefore I had no opportunity to defend myself) as YOU SHOULD HAVE,
and restrict yourself to the actual text of the PM for which I was
banned from Talk you have to be kidding if you think that rises to a
justification for my banning from Talk. If it does a few on the current
board should have been banned from Talk quite a while ago, as well as
MANY other posters on Talk… So lets drop the pretense that your acted
properly on this. This is particularly when you essentially ignored the
threat of phsyical violence I received from the gentleman who complained
about me…
Mellisa Rhodes wrote:
… like how he heard that a board member had inappropriate romantic
contact with a vendor.
Well, its funny you would choose that particular tidbit. The FACTS are
that a member, Allen, told me that Robert bragged about his Tinder
‘date’ and how it led to the current Cintas contract. I raised the
issue as a conflict, without naming Robert. It was Robert himself who
responded that Yes, he met the Cintas saleswomen through the Tinder
dating site, but that it wasn’t a conflict. I then went on to document
that conflict. One of several such conflicts. Here is the thread which
PROVES my assertions concerning that failure to follow our conflict by
laws…
The enforcement of our conflict by laws is vital to the space. They
exist to prevent real and significant issues. The FACT is that prior to
my raising this issue, prior boards rarely had any board member recuse
themself for conflict. The current board had more such recussals in
their first 3-4 months then ALL board in DMS history… I commend you
Alex, since MOST of the prior board recusals were yours.
As to the other items in your list, yes, there were members (including
current board members) who told me exactly what I wrote. And there were
witnesses for those statement beyond me. The difference is that I am
willing to publically call out our board when they do such things in a
manner that isn’t transparent… Someone needs to.
Surprisingly, if I was continually spreading the lies you’ll claim, one
of you would have been able to successfully prosecute a formal
complaint against me about it… Or even more significantly a libel
suit… The fact is that things such as Roberts Tinder relationship
with the CIntas saleswomen were common knowledge long before I became a
member. BUT no one bothered to risk the ire of board members to raise
the concerns and get them dealt with, so that we actually followed our
by laws. If there is a rumour of misconduct by a board member, it
should be dealt with openly and without rancor. If its false, then it
gets dismissed and we move on. BUT the same is true if it is true. It
needs to be dealt with…
And yet the witness right below it in that thread, @merissa is dismissed?
https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/discourse-flag-counts/19506/12?u=mellissarhodes
Yes please do call out board members, committee chairs, or other members when you see something is wrong. The problem is, you state things as fact, you put all of your trust in second hand accounts and spread gossip in a way I think is damaging.
After I posted that list of gossip spread I thought of another. A smaller scale but just as inflammatory. When you asserted that the Lemons car was stored at Brandon and Merrisa’s house and was basically a personal project that we(the makerspace) were funding for Brandon.
Your gossip spreading is especially a problem for us because we as an organization don’t have the best memory–we have members here that don’t see the pattern because they’re new or they’re not on Talk regularly and they’ll assume you’re telling the truth.
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Walter again you are basing your information of third party accounts which are not true you act like this was some conspiracy. Correct me if I am wrong but we are talking about 2014 now? I don’t even believe you were a member at the time. It was no secret that I met a Cintas fire rep on tinder and asked if she could get me a quote on fire extinguishers as at the time it was need because we had just moved in and only got the bare minimum to get us through the CO. I then shared the quote with the board of directors at the time and it was a decent deal to get us fire extinguishers and it was unanimously passed at that BOD meeting.
I would like some clarification on this point: Is the Lemons car a personal project of Brandon, or is it owned by DMS and administered by the Automotive group?
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It is absolutely a DMS project.
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This is citing a situation that you caused as evidence that it was justified. Attacking a particular director about their personal dealings inherently causes them to need to recuse themselves.
You’re using the situation you caused as evidence for your cause!
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The world isn’t out to get you Walter. But people do not like arsonists. Pick a battle. ONE.
Tilting at every windmill is not a battle, and it’s not noble.
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Wait, so what happens if someone makes baseless accusations (i.e. character assassination) of all the board members, does that mean they can’t be removed from the organization? Since all the board members would have a conflict of interest.
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Walter believes that he can prove them to be true. Is there harm in sitting down and putting the (provable) facts on the table to settle this, once and for all?
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I’m not talking about Walter’s accusations, I’m talking about his logic for conflict of interest. He believes people that have been the target of abuse by a member, shouldn’t be allowed to vote on the discipline of that member. So logically, what happens if a member attacked all 5 board members, there’s no one left to vote!
Unrelated, but all the board of directors, committee chairs, any officers and all of the members are giant nerds! Now I’m off to break a bunch of rules, since literally everyone has a conflict of interest and can’t vote on anything concerning me.
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all the board of directors, committee chairs, any officers and all of the members are giant nerds!
And here I thought I was doing good losing weight…
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Me too, I have lost 75+ pounds while I have been on the board.
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75 lbs?! That’s awesome!
Boards should practice delegation in these cases. Decisions can be made by others without creating an appearance of a conflict of interest. Hiring a 3rd party mediator to make a decision that is binding is a good example practiced by many other boards. They often have the mediation fee charged to whoever loses.
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