Process, Process, Process.
The problem boils down to process. It seems that the selection of Gerrie Schipske ended up with the announcement of her selection going out to Central Committee and the public before approval by the Central Committee.
Missing at tonight’s meeting were the officers of the board other than Florice Hoffman. Florice had the unfortunate task of chairing the meeting that started out with Regional Director John Smith calling for a point of order demanding the approval of the agenda prior to the start of the meeting, which has never been done. Also missing was the Interim Executive Director, Henry Vandermeir.
Smith moved that the matter of the hiring decision be referred back to the Executive Board. The Executive Board minutes indicate that they prospectively approved the referral of the hiring decision to the Central Committee directly once made, without further consideration by the Executive Board.
It seems that there was enough disagreement that the agenda was not completely distributed to all of the members of the Central Committee.
The recommendation to send the matter back to the Executive Board failed.
UPDATED 2/23/10 @ 7:30 am
Towards the end of the meeting a motion was made to approve the recommendation to hire Gerrie Schipske as Executive Director as recommended by the search committee. That motion was shouted down as out of order because it wasn’t on the agenda.
Bottom line, from what I have been able to figure out from this mess, the Democratic Party of Orange County does not have an Executive Director, an Interim Executive Director, or a Political director (after the end of the week). The appointment of Gerrie Schipske is not dead, it just hasn’t been voted upon. The next meeting of the DPOC is scheduled for the fourth Monday in March. The Political Director Henry Vandermeir was staying on through the end of the month to help with the transition, which had already started and was almost complete.
All indications are the Vandermeir has moved on and had no intention of staying on past the end of the month. As soon as I am able to find an authorized spokesperson for the party to tell me what is happening next, I will share that information.