[Community Rights Network] Fwd: Further Introduction...

[Patricia Norris]

Hi Caitlin,

I looked back after my last communication with Tim to see exactly what 
you had said about Scott and his new attitude and willingness to 
learn...."I now think he would be a beneficial member of our internal 
teams."
I remembered the gist, but not the wording.

Now, to your whole message here, I say _Amen to this message_. As usual, 
you are very clear with your facts about the course of events and your 
recommendations about future handling of disputes.  I think direct, 
respectful interviewing of the participants would have done much to 
resolve things sooner, without all the drama and misunderstandings.

Patricia Norris


> Scott may have introduced himself to Shannon and Peter but he was 
> given a specific request by me to not attend our final day of 
> Democracy School for the following reasons that I don't think Shannon 
> or Peter were aware of:
>
> Several days before the third day of Democracy School, Scott sent an 
> email to the whole group advising that we abandon our rights-based 
> ordinance and instead focus on supporting an anti-fracking ordinance 
> the County Supervisors were working on. This made it clear that Scott 
> did not understand what a rights-based ordinance was despite his 
> education and experience. I emailed Scott directly at that time and 
> explained this as the reason for the Cienfuegos prerequisite, that 
> rights-based ordinances are completely different from regular 
> ordinances and that one needed to learn about this before attending 
> the last day of Democracy School. He responded with his resume 
> informing me that he had plenty of education and did not need to 
> attend Cienfuegos or the educational portion of DS. Based on this 
> response and his attitude at that time I understood that he was not 
> qualified to attend our third day of Democracy School and for good 
> reason.
>
> DS was exclusionary in the same way an advanced chemistry class is 
> exclusionary, requiring prerequisites. The reasons to hold to this 
> standard, as set by CELDF and Shannon from the beginning, (and 
> probably learned from the experiences of many Democracy Schools and 
> ordinance craftings) were important and reasonable, so that all 
> involved were on the same page, moving forward with an advanced 
> understanding.
>
> Even though Scott attended our last day of DS, in spite of my request 
> which was of concern to me, in the last few days I have been emailing 
> Scott the links to articles and videos that Paul Cienfuegos has been 
> sending us. Scott has been receptive and responding with ideas that 
> show he has taken the time to absorb the new information. Based on 
> Scott's new attitude and willingness to learn I now think he would be 
> a beneficial member of our internal teams.
>
> In the future, it is critical, to my mind, that each side of a dispute 
> be interviewed directly in a respectful and unbiased manner so as to 
> be able to provide a reasonably accurate and fair analysis and 
> resolution. This was not done in this case.
>
> Caitlin Alexander
>
>
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