Every Dog Has His Day
Smoking Crack With the USGenWeb Advisory Board

The 2006-2007 session

"Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence."
---Johann Kaspar Lavater

1 September 2006: What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas New NC Scott “Scooter” Burow hits the ground running with his first order of business, which is to force the Board members to renew their pledge to never divulge their doings on the Board-Exec list. Most of his flock eagerly agree to the muzzle, but new Board member Paul Buckley refuses to agree to the gag order and goes so far to suggest that the list be closed. He immediately finds himself on Scooter’s bad list and is pressured from all sides to drink the kool-aid.

1 September 2006: No Rest For the Wicked Paul moves to recess for the holiday weekend. No one seconds the motion and it is declared dead after the holiday weekend has passed.

5 September 2006: Five days into the term, Scooter posts the agenda for September. Scooter also announces the resignation of Parliamentarian Josh Taylor. Scooter never bothers to replace Josh and conveniently serves as his own parliamentarian throughout his term as NC.

12 September 2006: Star Chamber The Board retires to the secret list to discuss a grievance from a former member of the NCGenWeb Project and the SC and three ASCs from that state. Paul Buckly, one of the ASCs, recuses himself from the proceedings. The CC loses.

15 September 2006: The Board reconfirms Donna Allen as Board Secretary after discussing her appointment for 10 days. It shortly becomes clear that Donna isn’t writing the minutes and when she disappears entirely a few months into the term, no one is surprised

16 September 2006: When The Cat’s Away Scooter gets a boo-boo and puts Mike Peterson in charge while he is indisposed. Mike immediately takes the reins of power and runs with them, trying to unilaterally amend a motion before the Board regarding the webmasters. The Board amuses itself with discussing Sturgis for a while before it moves to properly moves to amend the motion.

24 September 2006: The Board appoints Julie McGrew-Ayers as Webmaster and Mike Jarvis as her assistant after discussing their appointments for 6 days.

26 September 2006: Rules Are For The Little People Scooter begins his long tradition of ignoring Sturgis when it suits him to do so, by agreeing that although the Voter Fraud Committee ceased to exist when the prior Board term expired and there was no one to officially present the committee report to the Board, it would nevertheless remain on the agenda. He then routinely forgets to include it in two agendas.

26 September 2006: Fox, Henhouse The Board begins discussing giving Scooter sole rights to determine who gets to use the USGenWeb logo and for a few days the Board dissolves into infighting over the use of general consent and other parliamentary issues. Scooter tries to convince skeptical Board members that a motion that does not mention the Board at all implies Board oversight of NC authority.

1 October 2006: Love For Sale During the logo discussion it is revealed that several USGenWeb members (Linda Haas Davenport, Betsy Mills, Joy Fisher, etc.) are selling copies of their speeches made at the recent Federation of Genealogical Societies meeting, using the USGenWeb name to do so. The Project is much amused to observe Scooter’s wriggling around on this issue and he eventually decides by fiat that profiting off of USGenWeb is OK so long as you use the name and not the logo. He also, in a fit of pique over losing every single debating point in this conversation, put Tina “Your Wish Is My Command” Vickery back in charge of the DISCUSS list.

17 October 2006: Lego My Logo After a discussion spanning several weeks, the Board finally grants the NC permission to determine how the USGenWeb logo is used.

19 October 2006: Scooter tries another run around Sturgis by attempting to move a formal motion regarding standard operation procedures off of the formal list and into discussion on the informal list. Following howls of protest, he admits to being wrong and opens the motion for discussion on the formal list. The Board shortly decides to withdraw the motion anyways in favor of establishing a committee to review the Standard Operation Procedures.

22 October 2006 Possibly the worst minutes ever submitted in the history of the Board are posted for the September 2006 meeting. They are never fixed and remain a confusing and inaccurate embarrassment to this day.

2 November 2006: Taking His Own Sweet Time Two months into his term, Scooter finally starts working on a letter to solicit volunteers for the new Grievance Committee. The motion establishing this committee passed in August 2006 and Scooter himself had declared the new procedures in effect as of August 22, yet never managed to move this important piece of business to the top of the agenda. The solicitation goes out on November 3.

7 November 2006: Going Through The Motions Scooter relinquished the Chair so that the Board could conduct a hearing regarding his conduct in the recently concluded NVGenWeb SC election. Scooter inadvertently posted a grievance regarding this to the public Board list but later had the post (and all associated posts) removed from the list archives. In a departure from precedent, Acting Chair Mike Peterson posts the entirety of the evidence to the public Board list. The Board then excuses itself to the secret list on 13 November. Paul Buckley immediately appeals this action and an odd thing becomes apparent. Mike Peterson, who is normally fairly inarticulate, suddenly becomes extremely proficient with words, particularly ones involving legalese. In fact, he sounds suspiciously like Scooter. Paul is ruled out of order and the Board goes on its merry way.

8 November 2006: The Hurrier I Go The Board begins to discuss the “urgent” bylaws amendment that has languished for three months while the Board diverted itself with other matters. This amendment would change the official procedures for grievances, and is a fine amendment, but not at all urgent. Attempting to declare it so is little more than an attempt to short-circuit the usual procedures and limit member input and involvement and several Project members point this out. Mike Peterson attempts to use the opportunity to add additional amendments to the bylaws regarding elections and special committees. The Board is distressed to discover it cannot do this and briefly considers rescinding Motion 06-14.

8 November 2006: Jackbooted Thug Over on the DISCUSS list, Scooter begins to publicly threaten Fred Smoot with disclosure of Fred’s private emails after Fred tells Tina she bores him. Apparently this is the new NC code of conduct.

18 November 2006: The Board emerges from the secret list to declare that it is entirely OK for one of its members to run a local state election and for the NC to count the votes.   

21 November 2006: All In The Family Alice Allen and Mike Peterson are announced as the sole members of the Standard Operating Procedures committee. Although the committee is supposed to meet and discuss the procedures on a public list, no more than three messages are ever posted to this list.

21 November 2006: The Board adjourns for the Thanksgiving holiday.

1 December 2006: Maggie The Cat The DISCUSS list erupts over the most recently purloined files appearing the Archives. Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman stands accused of copying an entire book transcribed by Debbie Axtman and posted to her AHGP/ALHN sites, and due to several obvious consistencies between the two versions, Maggie’s guilt is transparent.  The files disappear suddenly (although a placholder website remains online) and on December 3rd, Archives rep Cyndi Enfinger announces that the matter is taken care of.  No further action is taken and Maggie remains in all her USGenWeb positions.

4 December 2006: The Company You Keep The Board considers a new Election Committee slate and concern is raised that one of the candidates is a known associate of this author. The Board proceeds to publicly insult a volunteer based merely on the identity of a co-CC, although later they admit it would have been better if they insulted her in secret.   The slate is approved unchanged on 12 December.

14 December 2006: Due to extensive problems with the formal list, the Board moves all its correspondence to the informal list, which stopped archiving messages in October. The Board spends most of its time on this list discussing the grievance bylaws amendment.

15 December 2006 The Election Committee informs the Board and the Project that it is no longer welcome on the Indiana State University server and it has moved to a private server to space paid for by a “private donor.” The EC promised several wonderful things to come and closes down voter registration for months.

29 December 2006: Scooter announces that he has signed an agreement permitting the Election Committee to move its operations to Larry Stephens’ private server.

3 January 2007: Scooter posts his personal picks for the Grievance Committee. The slate is approved two weeks later on 19 January. The Committee promptly disappears and is not heard from again for months.  Their required public list does not open until well into the next Board term.

8 January 2007: Culling The Herd Following a short tiff with Greta Thompson and Scooter, Paul Buckley resigns. Scooter gets in a last dig before accepting his resignation.

12 January 2007: The Board directs the Standard Operating Procedures Committee to include membership in the Federation of Genealogical Societies in its work, and permits Scooter to renew the Project’s membership at will.

19 January 2006: The Old College Try After more than a month’s worth of discussion on the informal list, Mike Peterson once again tries to get the so-called “urgent” bylaws amendment passed so that it can be shoved down the memberships’ throat. A wrench is thrown in the works when several Board wonder aloud why a six months old motion can in any way be considered “urgent.” Scooter expends considerable effort trying to make any definition of “urgent” fit this situation. After another week or so of discussion, and after discovering that there is no way the EC can hold a project-wide vote on the amendment in compliance with the bylaws, the motion is tabled. On their own, several states agree to sponsor the grievance amendment for the regular election cycle, and once the requisite number of sponsors are reached, the urgency of this amendment is forgotten and never mentioned again.   The fact that this violates Motion 06-14 is also never mentioned again.

31 January 2007: The Board appoints Freddie Spradlin to the empty SEMA SC seat.

10 February 2007: Over the Transom Being entirely unable to pass the proposed Fraudulent Registration Procedures, now months old, on their own merit, the Board slips them into the proposed Standard Operating Procedures.

10 February 2007: Fresh Meat: Following the abrupt dismissal of this author from the DISCUSS list (in violation of list rules), Alice Allen attempts to get the Board to discuss the issue. Scooter immediately rules her out of order, but Bettie lets slip that the Board is discussing the issue on the secret list. Although occasional allusions are made to mysterious communications from Root$web, the item never does make it onto the agenda. The ban continues for six months for no better reason than because Scooter owns the DISCUSS list and can do whatever he wants with it.

8 March 2007: The Board passes new Standing Rules and Special Rules and the SOP Committee is dismissed on 19 March.

19 March 2007: Not Missed Scooter finally admits that Board Secretary Donna Allen has missing for months and that he himself is writing up the minutes. Donna is never replaced and Scooter continues to chronicle the Board’s business, putting himself in the enviable position of not only making history but writing it.

23 March 2007: Mike Peterson jump starts a new discussion of revised CC guidelines. Apparently ignoring the extensive work already put into this topic by former NC Linda Haas Davenport, he starts fresh with a new set. The Board immediately sidetracks into a discussion of search engines, but then decides it has no authority to require them. The discussion continues sporadically through April and May, mostly on the informal list, but with occasional forays onto Board-L.

26 March 2007: Hatchet Job The Board once again pretends to go into Executive Session (as if it never left) to discuss the grievance between Charles Barnum and Karen Mitchell. This grievance, already ten months old when the Board finally gets around to dealing with it, is marked by incredible rancor on both sides, along with the public posting of all sorts of interesting rhetoric. A month later, the Board pretends to exit from Executive Session, and declares that both parties are to blame and that the SC should reconsider her actions.  Since they have no way to enforce this, once again the CC loses.

10 April 2007: Careful What You Wish For Daryl Lytton announces his new Project-wide search engine, USGenWeb-Search US. Tina Vickery, Ellen Pack, and several others attack Daryl mercilessly for his generosity and insist he remove their states from the search engine. Tina goes so far as to demand that the Board “do something”, but the Board, which has tacitly approved Daryl’s search engine for months, ignores her.

27 May 2007: Busy Work For Idle Hands The Board decides to remove the request to rescind Motion 02-12 from the agenda, where it had languished for over a year, preferring not to revisit that Motion’s numerous violations of Sturgis.

27 May 2007: Harebrained Mike Peterson graces the Board with another of his bizarre plans. This one involves something called the “County/Local Coordinator Facilitator Committee,” which would establish yet another committee, build a website, and impose more rules on the CC. The rest of the Board finds the idea patently ridiculous and votes it down on 8 June.

10 June 2007: Can’t Keep a Good Man Down Undaunted by his near-perfect track record of failed motions, Mike Peterson makes another one just as soon as the CC Facilitator Committee is shot down. This one involves a “fact finding group” that will look into financial issues for the Project. He has better luck with this one; the Board passes it on 23 June.   A call for volunteers does not go out until 21 July.

15 June 2007: A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall Tina Vickery announces her candidacy for the NC position, and hands over the DISCUSS list to George Waller and Alice Allen. These moderators, however, are not permitted to resubscribe the members that Scooter has personally banned. Tina’s announcement kicks off one of the nastiest election seasons in memory.

20 June 2007: Out Of The Woodwork Six months after it was established, the Grievance Committee springs to life to notify the Board that its Chair has resigned and to solicit for volunteer mediators. A replacement member is approved by the Board on Jul 16.

27 June 2007: Smackdown Scooter reads the riot act to the DISCUSS list when the election rhetoric becomes too hot to handle and Root$web steps in and tell us to wipe our noses. Along with creating all sorts of draconian new rules and regulations, Scooter informs list members that DISCUSS will no longer be archived. Ironically, the archives finally disappear on July 4.

10 July 2007: Old Business The Board agrees to hear an appeal of Motion 02-12, although such an appeal is wildly inappropriate under Sturgis. On 19 July, the Board again pretended to go into executive session to handle the appeal, even though the motion itself touched on a purely procedural matter and did not require secrecy. Although Scooter pasted some mumbo-jumbo about disciplinary actions over this, the real reason for hiding away becomes obvious in late August.

17 July 2007: The Old College Try Mike tries once again to get his CC guidelines before the Board. The Board literally freaks out over this version (along with the rest of the Project) and they are withdrawn once again on July 21.

2 August 2007: The Board briefly begins discussion of another proposed urgent bylaws amendment, this one spurred by Jeff Scism, who has had a bee in his bonnet about copyright law for some time.   On 9 August a substantial majority of the Board determines that this matter was not urgent and the matter is referred to the Project discussion lists and to the states for possible sponsorship.

11 August 2007: Let Them Eat Cake  Greta proposes a strikingly harsh set of proposed mailing list rules, spurred by the recent debacle on the DISCUSS list.  The proposed rules are so draconian that most of the Project discussion lists erupt in anger and George Waller resigns as co-moderator of the DISCUSS list.  The motion is withdrawn 5 days later.

22 August 2007: Take That  The Board emerges from the secret list to announce that it has found that Motion 02-12 was passed in violation of Sturgis and that in order to rectify that situation, they wish to further violate Sturgis.  On 28 August the Board votes to amend Motion 02-12 by adding “Teresa Lindquist will be made a Member Not In Good Standing for a period of 10 years, retroactive to the initial date of Motion 02-12 on July 12, 2002.” No presentation of charges, hearing, or member vote, as required by Sturgis, precedes this additional disciplinary action. The Board publicly (and somewhat prematurely) congratulates itself on putting this long-standing blot on the Project’s reputation to rest.

27 August 2007: Biting The Hand That Feeds Us Following an outcry on every genealogy list and in creation, Scooter suddenly discovers that Ancestry.com has been spidering, caching, and selling access to USGenWeb websites. He assures the membership that the Board is “investigating the situation” and then requests that everyone stop talking about it. This is the last time he ever publicly mentions the issue.

24 August 2007: If It Weren’t For Bad Luck Tina Vickery wins the NC runoff election, thus ensuring another year of cruel and unusual punishment. A pervasive gloom settles over the land.

28 August 2007: Under The Wire In a desperate attempt to get his proposed CC guidelines passed before the end of the session, Mike Peterson once again introduces them to the formal Board list.   The Board does not discuss them, but much of the Project does, and not entirely kindly.  When it becomes obvious that the Board will not have time to complete a vote on this motion before it is adjourned, Scooter just suggests letting  it die. When it is pointed out that “letting it die” will force the incoming Board to take it up immediately, the motion is quickly withdrawn.  Scooter announces this and closes the 2006-2007 session in the same breath late in the evening on 31 August, forgoing the usual NC letter of fond farewell.

1 September 2007: End Of The World Outgoing and unlamented National Coordinator Scott "Scooter" Burow hands the keys, and the pants, to the kingdom over to The Wicked Witch of Wisconsin.

TO BE CONTINUED....