Cyndi Hench and Mark Redick resign after board refuses to boot David Voss and J.D. Webster for serial absences
By Gary Walker
Cyndi Hench says she resigned from the Neighborhood Council of Westchester-Playa because its members refuse to follow the rules
The Neighborhood Council of Westchester-Playa’s highest-ranking members have resigned abruptly over a disagreement among board members about whether to eject members who aren’t regularly showing up at meetings.
Board President Cyndi Hench and Vice President Mark Redick decided to quit the board after a contentious and nearly four-hour discussion about whether to remove members David Voss and J.D. Webster, longtime board members who haven’t attended any meetings in 2018.
(Editor’s Note: As of Friday, at least four additional council members have resigned due to the controversy, including David Oliver, Patricia Lyon, Garrett Smith and Kimberly Fox. Geoff Maleman says the issue has been mischaracterized and has posted a statement below to clarify his position.)
Neighborhood council bylaws allow members up to three unexcused absences (defined by whether the board president is notified in advance) before they are subject to automatic removal from the board. Hench said the city attorney’s office suggested she put the removals on the board agenda and take a vote.
Voss, an active critic of the Playa del Rey road diet last summer, hasn’t attended a meeting since November. Webster hasn’t attended a meeting since May 2017, according to board attendance records. A majority of board members refused to recognize cause for dismissal, however.
“I really saw the disproportionate difference between my views of the bylaws and how others on the board see them. I’m a rule-follower and I just really realized that this is not a group of people that need me,” Hench said the morning after the meeting. “I view unexcused absences as absolutely disrespectful to the board.”
Board secretary Geoff Maleman and area residential director Thomas Flintoft lobbied to keep Voss on the board, citing his lengthy experience and leadership role in the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Maleman suggested other members had missed more than three meetings in the past 15 months, but declined to name names. Flintoft said he hadn’t read the bylaws and considers them more suggestions than rules.
“The bylaws are more of a guideline. I don’t want this to be used as a ‘gotcha’ document,” Flintoft said.
Gibson Nyambura of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which oversees neighborhood council operations, interjected that the bylaws were indeed the governing rules for the council.
“I was stunned. I actually thought that there was more respect for the bylaws,” Hench said.
Redick was also taken aback.
“The Neighborhood Council of Westchester-Playa is no longer a council of neighborhood interest. It is a council of special interests,” he asserted.
Redick, one of the co-founders of the Del Rey Neighborhood Council and a former president of that council, announced his resignation the morning after the meeting. He cited board secretary Geoff Maleman and area residential director Thomas Flintoft as members who sought to obfuscate the interpretation of the bylaws and confuse other board members.
“Due to the egregious actions and the deliberately misleading statements by Mr. Maleman and Mr. Flintoft, I am effectively resigning from the board immediately,” Redick told The Argonaut. “My resignation isn’t out of frustration… it’s out of disgust.”
Experience and leadership role on the Planning and Land Use Committee?
If we’d listened to that experts advice four years ago when we were told that Legado’s 56ft. high proposed development for lower Playa del Rey was “by right”, there’d be 56ft., out of scale and character, buildings popping up all over lower Playa del Rey.
What kind of statement is “ bylaws are guidelines”?
I’d think it was uninformed were it not coming from a paid lobbyist sitting on the Neighborhood Council.
The funniest part of this is that Voss wrote the bylaws. And, you do realize that Maleman doesn’t even live in the district and Flintoff’ is a registered lobbyist.
You might remember that Voss also supported the movement of the north runway closer to PDR and supported that move speaking as a member of the neighborhood council to the LA City Council.
The truth is neighborhood councils have no teeth in LA. At the end of the day it’s just a mix of well minded citizens, know it alls and political wannabees arguing in a circular firing squad.
Would love to see all of the NC’s dissolved.
Just chiming in here to correct the MASSIVE mischaracterization of my position at Tuesday’s meeting in the Argonaut story, while outlining the real issue at hand. While some board members have chosen to resign en massé, THEY are the ones who were trying to unfairly and unethically apply the bylaws. For reference, here is the bylaws provision in question:
“Three (3) unexcused absences from duly-noticed Board meetings shall result in automatic removal.”
There is no provision for a 12-month window, a 15-month window an 18-month window or any other time period. In addition, this section of the bylaws does not address the concept of “consecutive” unexcused absences. We MUST go simply by what the bylaws state. Period. End of story. Any other interpretation means we are unfairly and unethically applying those bylaws. I believe the intent of this motion was to make sure David Voss was removed from the board. However, the motion was agendized without regard for others who might also be in violation of the bylaws.
I pointed out very clearly during the discussion of this item that several other people are also in violation of this section of the bylaws and need to be removed under this same provision. Some conveniently preferred to say the rule should be three CONSECUTIVE unexcused absences or institute some sort of timeline – 12 months, etc., but the bylaws do not have any of those qualifiers.
I continue to be baffled by those who have resigned based on “principle.” Does their “principle” mean unfairly implementing the bylaws? I truly feel like I am the only one who is trying to fairly apply the bylaws that are in black and white. Mark Redick is simply lying when he says I chose to “obfuscate the interpretation of the bylaws.” Please explain that to me. HE, in fact, is the one trying to interpret the bylaws in a way that supports his underlying goal – the removal of David Voss. I seem to be the only one who is going by the letter of the bylaws.
To me, this is so simple. Anyone with three unexcused absences is out. Period. No discussion. No interpretation. That is what the bylaws say, and that is what we should enforce. What Mr. Redick and others are advocating, however, is a narrowing of that bylaws provision to cast a net that ensnares only those they want to remove. It’s disingenuous, unethical and violates the very bylaws we are all supposed to enforce.
For me the choice is simple, either follow the bylaws and apply them to everyone (in which case we remove six people) or choose to ignore the bylaws provision and give everyone a pass. I would prefer the former, myself but I understand that a board seeking to avoid a massive exodus of members might vote to do the latter.
I am truly saddened that people like Mark Redick have chosen to throw away friendships that go back many, many years simply to pursue their own unethical efforts to remove a board member they dislike. I, for one, will choose my ethics over my friendships as painful as that may be.
All that is required by the Bylaws is that a Director notify the President that they cannot attend a scheduled meeting.
The absence then becomes excused. There is no period attached so that ANY three unexcused absences during a Director’s
term (between elections) count as unexcused. If someone doesn’t care enough about being on the Board that they can’t
send an e-mail, then removal is the right thing to do. They can always run for election again. note that unexcused absence is only
applicable if all meetings have been properly announced and all directors were notified well in advance (according to the Brown Act)
The Bylaws are supported as a legal requirement of a Nhbr. Council by LA ordinance,
but also by state law in regard to organized bodies. Note that by 2/3 vote a board can also remove a member who is unable to perform
their duties and that can used when ever there is a close call as to whether someone was excused or not.
I don’t live in the area, so even if a friend is involved in that area, this is just trying to be a neutral party.
It is sad that the “other” side was not contacted about this story. Per a member on the board, the bylaws do not have any qualifiers on the time frame in which to count the absences…generically stares 3 unexcused absences…it would be helpful for the “journalist” to actually include the bylaw wording in the story. It should also be noted that up to 8 board members may have not met the criteria of the bylaws. I wasn’t there and I would appreciate a story that included all sides of the story. Appearances are that the bylaws were not applied to the first person with 3 unexcused absences and this recent action is motivated in part by political / personal agendas.
“’The bylaws are more of a guideline. I don’t want this to be used as a ‘gotcha’ document,’ Flintoft said.”
Wow. While that “got myself” candor bodes well for stickiness of sunshine laws, that remark betrays the speaker’s ignorance about an elected official’s most fundamental pre-service homework task: “Read my rules.” Public service is clearly the wrong business for him.
While the oversight responsibility here lies with the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment in its handling of a body whose public funding isn’t doing its job, the City Attorney is not blameless: If the rule says “automatic,” removal is automatic. What could possibly motivate a highly-compensated City employee to advise elected officials who volunteer to follow the Brown Act to ignore a rule’s crystal-clear direction?
Then again, Neighborhood Councils exist because of longstanding, rationally developed mistrust of City Hall’s governance practices and procedures.
The “resign in disgust” factor is understandable but sad. While one or more grievances appear to be warranted by this fiasco, the test of DONE’s will to do its job will be whether it summons the courage to implement a Board reboot – the necessity for which, again, was partly triggered by the City Attorney’s apparent abuse of discretion.
I don’t know who wrote this story but it is not accurate i was there the discussion triggered by the motion to eject two board members was the last thing at the meeting and lasted about half hour not the four hours mentioned in the story. Earlier in the meeting there was a motion to approve some changes to the bylaws including a clarification to the criteria for non attendance. That motion passed in a way that the “adhoc” committee was authorized to revise the wording to state three absences in the prior 12 months. The motion to eject two people based on the current bylaws should have included as many as 6 so those that voted “no” really wanted the motion to be corrected to include all that fit the criteria or delay until the bylaws could be revised. either way the no vote was the “safe vote” had only two people been ejected one of those could have filed a grievance based on the bylaws not being applied equally.
As a stake holder in the room i believe the discussion on this issue in the meeting was healthy and brought out a lot of interesting points that could have resulted in amendments to the motion or the motion to be delayed.