The (Potential) Solutions
Last Summer, the BSC requested a full legal-compliance review of our Bylaws from our lawyer, Brad Caftel. His legal opinion highlighted many areas of noncompliance, which were confirmed by a second legal opinion requested by IACom in Fall 2014 from NEO Law Group.
IACom then began work on several different Board structure proposals that addressed both legal compliance and governance issues to more holistically create alternative channels for member input and engagement.
After garnering member input/feedback from a General Membership Meeting (GMM) on February 2, 2015, and receiving more legal clarification to shore up the viability of ideas from the GMM, IACom threw its energies into producing a proposal specifically-tailored to remedy the legally-compliance concerns in our current Bylaws.
The opportunity to institute a broad restructuring of organizational governance has been saved for future generations of co-opers. Our proposal, below, is instead designed to address the most pressing legal concerns contained in our current Bylaws, while still preserving as much member autonomy as possible within the constraints of the law.
IACom’s proposal contains major and minor edits to the current BSC Bylaws, which are first summarized--then included in full detail--in the document below (click here to view it separately as a Google Doc).
The (Potential) Solutions
QUICK RECAP OF 'The Problem':
In Summer 2014, the BSC became aware of legal compliance issues with our Bylaws. Bylaws are a basic, fundamental, and overarching legal document used to define organizational and governance structures for business associations like the B.S.C. We are required to comply with the California Corporations Code; as such, our currently non-compliant Bylaws could potentially jeopardize crucial aspects of our operations, such as our tax exempted status (which allows us to offer below-market rates).
