[S]hould everything we say or decide to do as an organization be subjected to a lengthy vote process?
Now that statement is a bit of hyperbole and a straw man. No one said “everything we say or decide to do” should be subjected to a lengthy vote process. The established practice of prior boards, and what was even emphasized during the last board elections, was that the convention (not in the by-laws) is for the board to make a lot of important strategic and operational decisions but to submit public policy positions to a vote of the membership.
The funny thing is that being “efficient” in the case of this particular resolutions means the board, in a top-down fashion, quite clearly deviating from the will of the membership on at least one point.
Let’s take each of the items in this proposed resolution that the board is presumptuously deciding without a vote of the membership.
- Occupancy limits. The lengthiest debate (142 messages) with the most divergent views on this forum was on occupancy limits. It proposed supporting lifting occupancy limits (or letting stringent ones lapse.). The discussion ended, tellingly, with a different resolution altogether that did not even mention occupancy limits. There is definitely no mandate from members on occupancy limits whatsoever, and there is no issue of “efficiency” in coming to that or any other conclusion.
- Short-term rentals.This one is easy. The membership has voted to oppose restrictions on short-term rentals. It is by no means “inefficient” for leaders of the organization to point this fact out and note how timely it would be to suspend those restrictions.
- Multifamily housing supply. The membership is currently voting on a CodeNEXT resolution that would call for “small apartment complexes . . . throughout all neighborhoods.” Someone could have brought such a resolution to a vote long ago, setting the stage for a situation similar to short-term rentals, where leaders of the organization could point to that vote and note how timely it would be to suspend restrictions on multi-family housing. So the “efficiency” issue is an illusion. The real issue was failure to be pro-active on a position that you and I might argue FAN should have taken long ago.
As for Jim Crow laws and drinking fountains, you stole that analogy from me 
. In the case of picking and choosing where different forms of housing are allowed, and therefore where different kinds of people are welcome, the analogy demonstrates an important point, in my opinion. But reasonable people who are not segregationists can certainly disagree about short-term rentals, what the appropriate limits on occupancy may be (if any), and whether specific targets for multifamily housing are wise.