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To: The Lino Lakes Charter Commission From: Commissioner Mike Trehus Date: April 14, 2011 Subj: By -Law Change Proposal Dear Commissioners, Due to the recent lengthy debates over how our meetings are to be conducted, I would like to propose a change to our by-laws. Background On page 3 of our by-laws under Section 4 it states "The meetings will be conducted in accordance with Robert's Rules of Order, Revised, latest edition." The obvious intent here is to provide for orderly and efficient meetings. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way. Commissioners are volunteers who bring a wide variety in backgrounds, training, skills, and public service experience to the Commission, yet this single sentence is the only guidance we have. As a volunteer committee with limited available time and money, it is not a simple matter for the Commission to provide its members with a thorough education in "Robert's Rules" (RR), particularly in a large group setting with constant member turnover. As a result, members are left to their own devices to learn how meetings are conducted and how to participate in the deliberations. This is not necessarily an undesirable situation. In fact our City Council has a similar provision regarding RR, but observation of their meetings shows that they are predominately efficient, orderly, and respectful while only employing the barest essentials of RR. Moreover, their meetings seldom if ever involve debate over what does or doesn't comply with RR. Rationale I think we can all agree that: • In order to have discussion where all members are on equal ground, every Commissioner should have equal knowledge of meeting rules; • RR is too complex to be intensely and equally understood by a volunteer group of our size, makeup, and turnover; • Anything less than complete understanding by all Commissioners can result in misinterpretations and debates over RR, taking time away from the actual issues; • We cannot afford to have a neutral parliamentarian or referee attend meetings to clarify disagreements over what RR says; • Commission meetings should not be bogged down by debates over meeting rules, we need to instead debate the issues at hand. Proposal We simply remove the sentence on RR (above) from our by-laws, and in its place insert a short and simple distillation of RR that everyone can understand and easily refer to. I have taken the liberty of writing a draft for this purpose. Please note that I have used the Microsoft feature of "Track Changes" to show what I propose to be added or taken away from our current by-laws. Note: A good reference can be found at http://www.robertsrules.org/