P.O. Box 795
Berkeley, CA 94701
October 30, 1986
Members of the TNS Executive Committee and Others:
We are faced at this time with the necessity of taking
action, without further delay, to resolve the current crisis in
the affairs of the society, either among ourselves or by submitting
the whole business to a vote of the membership.
I agree with Patrick Hill's proposal to make the correspondence
of the Executive Committee available to the membership, but
I believe that, in order to insure informed decision-making in
the future guidance of the society, our constituents must have
access to the complete set of information regarding the disputes
which have so sharply divided the Committee.
Therefore, I propose that the Triple Nine Society publish
and send to all members a complete transcript of all Executive
Committee correspondence from Barry Kington's letter of March
31, 1986, in which he first raises the question of the legitimacy of
Anne Paradise's TNS membership.
Exacerbating our personal difficulties with one another has
been the ambiguity and mechanical failure of the rules we operate
under. Therefore, I propose that we elect, in the next election,
members of a Constitutional Revisions Committee to draw up a
new system of operating mechanics for the society.
I propose that petitions to this end be published in Vidya.
Now, decisions like this will be made in the future, and it
seems that the question of who decides which petitions will be
published (and thus have some practical opportunity of gaining
sufficient signatures to force an election) is not clear.
Perhaps it should take a smaller petition to publish a petition,
or any three constitutional officers.
Officers of the society need to be more representative of
the membership. One way to insure this is to put their jobs in
jeopardy more frequently. I was appalled when a two-year
term of office was nearly put into effect in TNS. I think the
term of office should be six months, with a restriction that no
officer may at any time have served more than two out of the
last five years as an elected officer, two out of five years as
an appointive officer, or three out of five years as either an
elective or appointive officer.
Sincerely,
Kevin Langdon