Wednesday, September 9, 2009

CCO Overhauls By-Laws

The Council of Civic Organization (CCO), Virginia Beach's civic league federation, this evening made major revisions to it's By-Laws and Standing Rules.

The vote culminates a process that began last Fall as an effort to rewrite arcane language in the By-Laws. Before it was over, there were major shifts in form and some changes in substance. A few reforms of note:

1. Terms for Officers are now two years long, rather than the previous one year. (Directors had been two years and stay that way.) Some Officers are now elected annually, with the posts split between odd and even numbered years.

2. Three categories of associate membership were added: individuals, business, and community groups. Each category gets two voting representatives and two alternates (like a single civic league) with members of each category having to caucus to choose their representatives.

3. The Executive Committee is renamed the Board of Directors. No more than one associate member may serve as a Director at a given time, while associate members are prohibited from serving as Officers.

While I was originally opposed to adding associate memberships, I came to realize that they would probably block the CCO from adopting positions that sound like they were written by the VBTA. In fact, opposition was spearheaded by a longtime Deaniac. Still, the changes passed by more than a 3:1 margin.

Articles on the changes have been published in each of the last three editions of the CCO's newsletter.

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