The Non Meeting

Yesterday, I attended what was called to be an endorsing convention of the Palos Verdes Peninsula chapter of the California Republican Assembly. For this post, I will use "PVPRA" to identify the Chapter.

The history that led to the event and the event itself is the fodder of a short-story length post so if you aren't wishing to read the whole thing, here it is in a tiny nutshell:

No endorsement of Measure P, The Marymount Plan was voted on during yesterday's event.

Now that you have that bit, should you not wish to read on, have a nice day and thanks for stopping by.

And now to the short story.

Once upon a time a group of folks, led by Mr. Rick Marshall and others seeking endorsements for Measure P, The Marymount Plan, decided to seek the endorsement of PVPRA.

On September 17, 2010 at what was described as an Endorsing Convention, Rick and a group of Marymount supporters created an endorsement of Measure P that was quickly ruled null and void by the State leadership.

At the September meeting it was thought that only members of PVPRA could vote for an endorsement and to become a member the thought at that time was, you filled out a membership form, pay your dues, and poof, you could vote.

The bylaws of the California Republican Assembly (CRA) state that once the State Membership Secretary receives the membership forms and dues, within ten days of the potential member's payment of dues and completion of forms, they would be allowed to vote to endorse candidates and ballot measures 30 days after the Membership Secretary receives the dues and forms.

So, the CRA leadership quickly decided that since the majority of 'new' members voted for the endorsement of Measure P, The Marymount Plan on the same day they gave the PVPRA their dues and forms, that endorsement was null and void.

Now let's go a bit forward.

The Membership Secretary and other leaders of PVPRA knew or should have known that to start the 30-day clock for voting purposes AND to be in compliance with the bylaws of the CRA, the dues and forms submitted to them on or about September 17 should have been sent to the State headquarters "within 10 days" according to the by-laws expected to be followed by every chapter and ever member.

Somebody at PVPRA didn't send in the dues and forms to the State Membership Secretary until long after September 17, 2010 and the State Membership Secretary didn't place into valid membership all those who paid their dues and filled out their forms on September 17, until October 12, 2010.

This means that every 'member' of PVPRA who would have wanted to vote on any endorsement will have to wait until November 12, 2010 to 'legally' do so according to the bylaws of the CRA.

Please remember that November 12 is ten days AFTER the November 2 Special Election on Measure P, The Marymount Plan and ten days after the General Election.

As of October 12, 2010, according to the CRA Membership Secretary, there are only eight members of the PVPRA who are currently allowed to vote on any endorsement.

At yesterday's meeting, two of the eight actually were present.

As it also turns out, the Chapter's President and its Membership Secretary, who I believe is Mr. Rick Marshall were NOT among the members who were eligible to vote for any endorsement of any type, according to one set of rules provided to the group by the State Membership Secretary and backed up by the CRA President.

I have no independent confirmation today that Mr. Rick Marshall is a paid consultant or lobbyist for Marymount College but he sure seemed like it to be during the entirety of yesterday's meeting.

He was the one who called for the Endorsing Convention yesterday even though he knew he was not eligible to vote, according to one set of bylaws.

Mr. Marshall 'took over' the meeting just after it was begun and just after the President confirmed that there were not enough of the eight members present to have a quorum in the first place.

Mr. Marshall should have just allowed the gathering to end because whatever was produced as any type of endorsement would have been shot down, probably tomorrow, by the CRA leadership.

In attendance and representing the leadership of CRA was one of the only two members of PVPRA eligible to vote, Mr. John Stammerich. The other eligible member eligible to vote was Mr. Todd Blair, a reasonable fellow in my book.

Just after the lack of a quorum was confirmed, Mr. Stammerich moved to end the meeting, but Mr. Rick Marshall didn't want it to end so he 'took over' the meeting, attempting to secure some kind of endorsement of Measure P, The Marymount Plan.

Back and fourths, ups and mostly downs carried on for what was probably just over one hour between Mr. Marshall, Mr. Stammerich and others in the room. I remained silent throughout.

It was very clear to me that Mr. Marshall was doing all he could to try and get whoever claimed to be a member of PVPRA to have a vote to endorse Measure P, partly I believe, to secure at least one more endorsement for the Measure which has fewer "Yes" endorsements on The Hill and "No" endorsements.

Also in attendance at the gathering was former Congressman Steve Kuykendall who watched and listened to the discussions and debate and it is my opinion that he took his time before he made up his mind that Mr. Marshall was just spinning his wheels in the deep mud of a desperate attempt to create an endorsement for the purposes of advertising and marketing and Congressman Kuykendall came up with what I feel was a very good idea that would end the gathering and provide some 'face saving' for Mr. Marshall and Marymount's failed attempts.

Congressman Kuykendall created, with help, a resolution to have the PVPRA Board of Directors select a representative to work with the CRA Membership Secretary to receive direction on how to better interpret the bylaws and what seemed to be two conflicting statements from the CRA Membership Secretary.

That resolution passed unanimously and basically signalled the end of the gathering.

But as I reread my notes, I was able to remind myself about many points I heard and saw at the gathering.

Fairly close to the beginning of the gathering, Mr. Marshall standing up in front of the group, noticed someone sitting behind me recording the gathering.

I am amazed that Mr. Marshall either failed to recognize Rancho Palos Verdes City Councilman Brian Campbell, the person doing the recording, or he simply didn't want others to know who the Councilman Campbell was, who also brought a child to the gathering. Note* there was more than one child in the room during the bulk of the gathering.

I was amazed that the gathering got so heated that the person sitting to my right used the words "Chicken S^*!" out loud, in front of children, and pointed their words towards the CRA Membership Secretary, how decent is that?

Mr. Marshall did confirm that mistakes were made on September 17, but he would not name the individual or that person's position within the group that failed to provide the dues and forms "within 10 days" as the bylaws state and kept them locally until about October 12.

Had that person done their job in a timely manner, the PVPRA could have held a legal Endorsing Convention on or about October 18 to October 23 and not have to wait until November 12 to make an endorsement.

I was appalled when I heard from out of Mr. Marshall's mouth and in a very mocking tone, the following:"If you want to live by the letter of the law, that's fine."

Mr. Marshall directed those words to Mr. John Stammerich who was using printed copies of the bylaws, which make the groups 'laws'.

I truly believe that the gathering called by Mr. Marshall was to find a way to go around the 'laws' or reinterpret them in some way as to create an endorsement for Measure P, The Marymount Plan.

If Mr. Marshall is actually being paid by Marymount College as a consultant or lobbyist, I would think that he should recuse himself from any dealings as a matter of honesty, forthrightness, and conflict of interest matters.

Towards the end of the meeting it seemed to me that Mr. Marshall was even trying to challenge Mr. Stammerich's membership in the local PVPRA because Mr. Stammerich paid his dues online and those local dues hadn't reached the PVPRA yet. That failed miserably for Mr. Marshall too, I feel.

In the end it was Congressman Kuykendall's brain that found a way out of his associate's conundrum and provided some face saving for Mr. Marshall.

It was so strange for me to watch and listen to Mr. Marshall's many attempts at trying to come up with a way to circumvent the written rules and bylaws just to create an endorsement for a group he may be getting paid to support.

If this is how far Marymount has to stoop attempting to gather endorsements from groups, you can clearly see why Measure P, The Marymount Plan is not right for our community, no matter which political party one belongs to.

Mr. Marshall failed throughout the meeting to mention that the California Republican Party and the California Republican Assembly, the Statewide group, oppose Measure P, The Marymount Plan.

And so the deception, misinformation, and fiction continues...

Please Vote "No" on Measure P, The Marymount Plan.

Safety. Everyone. Everywhere. Every hour.