Originally Posted by woody14619

By the letter of the law, the current Council Chair (which is now me) must decide when to hold the next election, which must be within 6 months of the end of the last election.

Originally Posted by ysss

What if a council member feels that he is not capable or does not have public support to run his duties; is he permitted to step down in honor?

Originally Posted by Estel

Which is quite not precise, as "within 6 months" could also mean announcing new election tomorrow, to be held in month from announcement.

I think it's good idea to ask "Founding Fathers" about what they had in mind, while writing this "within 6 months", and write it more precisely on wiki - current form leaves too much chances of excluding interpretations.

As for Council running in parallel with Board of Directors, personally, I don't see reason for it, and I can't recall such option being proposed.

AFAIK, three options were discussed:

As expressed in my comment @ mailing list, I think option 2 is most sensible, while I dislike option 3 much, as one that could create bad blood (via extending cadence) and accusations of hijacking power.

Originally Posted by Jaffa

Imagine it as two houses of parliament/government. The "upper chamber" has longer terms, and so different duties, to the "lower chamber".

AIUI, the Board is responsible for (OTTOMH, YMMV, E&OE) some of the tasks Nokia were previously responsible for. Primarily, that means finding funding sources for maemo.org.

The Council would be responsible for representing the community to the Board, and - with six month terms - be more reactive and deal with less financial, more operational tasks.

You're probably right, there probably isn't a need for both governance structures - but I'd be wary of switching straight away.

Originally Posted by Jaffa

So I'd propose option 4:

4. Election for new Board when the community is happy with the proposed governance model. Councillors can stand, and next Council election can still happen as before (not later than 6 months from the last election) if it needs to.

Originally Posted by Jaffa

It is very precise. That is exactly what it means. It's it the Chair's duty to ensure an election happens not later than 6 months from the date of the election of the council.

This is why having a chair is important, and although it's usually been +/- a week or so, some of the delays last time were caused by not having a chair who was therefore responsible. (Obviously not having the requisite number of candidates was also a major reason, and one which is considered within the process).

I'm not sure what alternative interpretations there are, and cleaning up the text (technically) requires a referendum.

Originally Posted by Jaffa

I agree. I think going from a 6 month term to effectively an 18 month term would be viewed as hijacking, but that transition would affect the Council election, and therefore require a referendum IMHO.

Originally Posted by Estel

Alternative interpretation [bla bla]

/Estel

Originally Posted by Estel

Alternative interpretation - by current chair - is that chair can announce voting any any random time - for example, tomorrow (with voting starting after a month later), without any consultation with other Councilors, Community, or anyone.

I agree, that fixing this would require referendum. BTW, what do You think about sensible way it should be written, to avoid any abuse? IMO, "within 6 months, not earlier than after 5 months since last election" would do it.

Originally Posted by Estel

3. Auto transfer with extending cadence of Council/Board, to one matching Board cadence (proposed by Woody, IIRC).

Originally Posted by misterc

maybe we should do this referendum about re-election of said Council

Originally Posted by woody14619

[...]
I'm still having an internal debate on the merits of this idea.

Originally Posted by woody14619

Which is better to do when you see a shark: To attempt swim toward the shore with one leg weighted, hoping the weight will fall off as you swim? Or to take the time to remove the weight in hopes that you can then out-swim a now closer shark?

We're going to have an election before December regardless (be that now, or in the Sept to Nov time frame). Doing so now would be a huge distraction, but would prevent that happening mid-river in the fall. My gut tells me though that it would be too large of a distraction to deal with, and would destabilize the base we're now forming to continue this community past 2012.