My info:
Will have a statement ready sometime today. At risk of being a stick in the mud, I’m noticing that I’m the only candidate who lives east of IH35. Can we make a concerted effort in the next few days to reach out of potential additional Board members who may not be following this thread?
@cevangill lives east of IH-35 as well.
A notice of the upcoming election is going out to the membership this morning, and it will include an invitation to make more nominations.
Whoops, my bad
Excellent!
Mike Dahmus
I would like to also nominate Meghan Skornia for At-Large Board
Mine is below. If there’s too many from Hyde Park, Ricky might be the best choice because of the effort he’s put in so far. I’d still do anything to help and don’t have to be an official board member for that.
35 years old
Homeowner
Married with 1 kid. She’s 3.
Hyde Park, District 9
Short Term Rental Owner
Former Hyde Park Contact Team Chairman, current chairman of Friends of Hyde Park
Native American (Muskogee/Creek) - does being a minority help with diversity? =)
All, Hannah let me know that she appreciates the nomination for the board but already has too many other commitments. So I’ve withdrawn her name from the nominees.
To be clear you did not cause trouble, this actually makes the organization more robust. I’m glad you brought it up.
I prefer this method as well.
It was a pleasure meeting all of you at the Meet & Greet this evening, and hearing the candidates speak in person. The vibe was super! All of you are very good people. Good luck in the online election tomorrow morning!
Is what I have below correct for those trying to get as much district representation on the board as possible to see? I believe Alysha and Evan are the only renters? It’d be great to have renters well represented on the board.
With a bylaw change can we have more than 7 on the board? I’d really like to see probably about 10 or we could have someone selected to represent each district somehow.
Roger L. Cauvin (D9)
Alysha Haggerton (D9)
Cory Brown (D7)
Kristen Fox (D4)
Brendan Wittstruck (D9)
Pete Gilcrease (D9)
Courtney DeGinder (D7)
Frank Harren (D9)
Ricky Hennessy (D9)
Natalie Gauldin (D7)
Evan Gill (D1)
Mike Dahmus (D9)
I’m also a renter.
Will we be putting the bio stats on the election form? I think it’s a good idea if it’s doable–although we still need info from Courtney and Frank I believe.
I think too big a board too early is a mistake. Keep it simple.
Hi all, a bug unfortunately kept me from the happy hour last night. Here is my bio info for the elections:
Meghan Skornia
Associate, Code Studio
28-year old renter and ADU dweller
Swede Hill, District 1
Lives w/ partner and dog
I work on urban planning and zoning projects of all scales, my current work includes the Los Angeles zoning code rewrite (recode:LA), a form-based code for Chattanooga and the Asheville River Arts District, corridor zoning for Berry Street in Fort Worth and new residential floating zones for Encinitas, CA.
Like Meghan, I was unable to swing by last night. Here’s my profile:
My name is Cory Brown. I’m 39 years old, and a homeowner in the Midtown neighborhood (D7) with my wife and two dogs. I am a former Crestview NA Executive Committee member and a founding member of Midtown NA.
I am also an AURA member. I have mostly worked on the microunits ordinance that passed last year, and the granny flats proposal that I hope passes soon. Professionally I’m more concerned with marketing and strategy, but I did the graphic design for the AURA logo, and the AURA ADU City Report.
With Crestview NA and Midtown NA, I’ve been impressed by the amount of work a handful of motivated individuals can take on to make their neighborhood more welcoming and enjoyable.
The challenge in this election is that we have too many people on the ballot who would be great ambassadors for FAN, so there will be no losers, just those who are asked to wait their turn, & be great ambassadors for FAN in the interim.
I would ask that an early Board action be to consider slowly expanding the Board beyond the startup level of 7 dictated in the bylaws, but continue to have competitive elections.
The nice thing about being limited to 7 is it makes us think about what we consider most important, at this point. For me it is certain skills + experience + demonstrated commitment. Here is my voting criteria of groups I want represented, everyone’s will be different, & mine may change if I hear from others.
(1) Founders - all this in less than a year!!! You have got to be kidding me…
(2) CodeNEXT experts - a once in a generation chance to help positively shape policy.
(3) Leaders of Member NA’s - the design point says it moves up higher as we mature, then
(4) Geographic Representation (will be achieved)
(5) Renters - 56% of Austin, trying to have at least one should be higher on the list!
(6) Age distribution would be nice (20’s, 30’s…60’s), M/F, as well as ethnicity.
(7) Historic supporters - need to appreciate that perspective & find common ground.
None of this is “token”, but to try & make sure various voices are represented.
As the election ends October 7th @ 9:00 a.m.,and is subject to revision until that time, protocol would say we are in the early voting period, and the nominees still have time to “campaign”.
Related to (2), as CodeNEXT is so important to the mission, I would ask that Frank Harren & Meghan Elizabeth, who both appear to have either excellent experience &/or training applicable to that area discuss same, and how they would work together if only one can be fit on the board at this time.
Pete - related to (1) & (3) can you clarify who the founders & leaders of Member NA’s are on the ballot?
At this point I think everyone that’s been involved recently could be considered a founding member since everything is still so new, if we’re talking about FAN. Roger and Frank are probably the two most responsible for founding FAN from the beginning out of the people running for the board.
Cory is a founding member of Midtown. Ricky and I are on the board of Friends of Hyde Park. Natalie started and is responsible for organizing Friends of the Grove.
It’s definitely hard to pick out people based on diversity because everyone brings something different to the table!
All,
I am excited to share the results of our first Board election with everyone this morning. FAN was fortunate to have a slate of highly motivated and thoughtful candidates and we’d like to thank all the candidates–as well as voting membership at large–for their commitment to getting this organization up and running.
The voting period for the Board election ended this morning at 9 am and we’re proud to recognize the following people who have been elected:
Roger Cauvin (President)
Alysha Haggerton (Treasurer)
Cory Brown (Secretary)
Natalie Gauldin
Ricky Hennessy
Frank Harren
Kristen Fox
The complete results, including the full caucuses of our Member Neighborhoods and At-Large Membership, are posted to the website here: http://www.atxfriends.org/votes
Again, thanks to all who participated in this process.
Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to the FAN reps who tried to help me last week, but I was not able to vote. I did receive a notification from Helios that the election was over, but I never got the ID and password, though I’m told it was re-sent. I haven’t heard a reply to the email I sent FAN on 10/2 or yesterday, 10/7. I am not feeling good about the online voting at this point, if it is to be the only option. I think it would be more valuable as a form of absentee voting.
Chad, we’ve used Helios for a bunch of other votes, and have never had this problem. The problem is most likely due to you using your own email server. Rather than changing our entire voting system, I would suggest that you create an email account that you can use for Helios.