Here are some highlights from the Houston meeting:

(1) The board voted 9-1 for a uniform national elections model. That means no local autonomy. Obviously this does not rule out any local options or variations, but if a definition of two classes of membership is adopted, there cannot be a local model that has 18 subclasses of membership (see below).

(2) On Saturday, the Unity Caucus withdrew its Constituency Model in favor of Donna Gould's Hybrid Model. On Saturday night, Donna's model was modified to accept the board's agreed definition of membership -- listener-sponsors and volunteers -- and to drop its original definition of listener-members.

(3) The board decided to send to the five LABs two elections models to consider and make a decision on -- the KPFA model and the Gould Hybrid Model.

(4) The Hybrid model has eliminated the main features of the Constituency Model. Membership is defined as listener-sponsors and volunteers. There is no constituency voting. All members vote for all candidates. However, there ARE constituency candidates who must be nominated by members of the same constituencies. This implies that voters must register as members of constituencies (although Donna denied this when I asked about it at the mic).

This is a major issue that needs to be clarified before the proposal is sent to the LABs -- are voters required to register as members of constituencies in order to nominate members of constituencies?

If so, it would appear that the model is creating subclasses of membership -- classes which have special voting rights -- I assume nominating candidates would be considered a voting right.

It should also be noted that the Hybrid Model contains no geographic constituencies.

(5) The UC's entire Statement of Principles, Policies and Practices was rejected except for two items in the Preamble (a) and (j) which were merged as follows (this is my recollection):

"To implement Pacifica's purposes as stated in Section 2 above, the Foundation will maintain a non-commercial radio network that is committed to peace with social justice and that seeks to involve in its governance and operations individuals committed to this principle." (my paraphrasing).

Paul Surovell