*** SECOND DRAFT *** Apr. 1991 THE MERGER RAILROADING AT THROOP by David S. Lawyer (Throop member) On Jan. 20, 1991 the votes for merger were counted. While 70% of the Throop vote's were for merger only 62% of Neighborhood's votes favored merger. Since Neighborhood required a 75% plurality for merger to pass, merger was defeated. It has been claimed that the merger process at Throop was democratic, but the process was actually a travesty of democracy in violation of the fifth UU principle "the use of the democratic process within our congregations ..." While the voting was done democratically (although one may challenge this and claim that a 2/3 vote should have been required as this seemed to be the intent of the by-laws) the debate on the merger resolution was inadequate. Democracy in the full sense of the word requires full and exhaustive debate and understanding of the issues by all persons voting. This was far from the situation at Throop. The merger resolution was presented to the congregation at a meeting on Dec. 9, 1990. While some debate had occurred prior to the appearance of this resolution, many possible arguments against it were not presented. Furthermore, many of the people who voted on the merger resolution were not present when such debate occurred or failed to read over what debate was published in the "Tidings". A preliminary resolution was passed out on Nov. 27, 1990 but the final resolution appeared in the Dec. 17 "Tidings". Once a resolution is released, then the time has come to start full debate of it. This didn't happen at Throop and there was no further debate of any consequence until Jan. 13, l991 a week after the first draft of this "railroading" paper was circulated. Unfortunately, this debate was too little and too late. It was only attended by a small number of people during the afternoon. Furthermore, by that time many persons had already voted by mailing in ballots to the church. Some of the arguments against merger which were not adequately presented (except possibly in my handouts which few people actually read) are: 1. Two churches with somewhat different types of people in them and different programs will attract more people than a single merged church since it gives people a choice of which church to attend. 2. The new church (located at Neighborhood) makes Throop Church surplus property and it would loose its property tax exemption. It thus might thus be sold at too low of a value in a depressed property market. 3. The economies of scale claimed for a larger merged church don't really exist in organizations which interactively deal with people. 4. The more UU churches in an area, the shorter the distance people need to travel to get to one, saving both time and non-renewable fuel resources. It also makes it more feasible to walk or bicycle to church. 5. Throop gets about $80,000 a year from rental income (a subsidy of about $1000 per active member). Merging would loose most of this advantage for Throop members. 6. The committees to plan the merged church program would likely work out a compromise program and not an innovative one that Throop alone could develop for itself with no merger. 7. Without merger, Throop and Neighborhood could have many joint activities which would be announced (including via mail) to both congregations. 8. Merger is not a marriage as cliamed by its proponents since there can be no divorce once merged. Merger is more like a suicide pack for Throop Church. 9. With the long term trend towards more liberal religious beliefs, and the possibility of greatly improving the Sunday services and activities at Throop, real opportunities exist for growth at Throop. 10. Many other organizations meet at Throop Church such as Alcoholic Anonymous and the Pacific Southwest District of UUA. Merger would likely deprive these organizations of a convenient (and low cost) meeting place. A major fault in the merger process was the "engagement" fiasco. It was verbally claimed that the merger resolution being voted on was merely an engagement (to be married ?? see above) and that there would be a final vote before merger actually took place. However the actual resolution contained no such provision. I pointed this out in church but others claimed otherwise. Finally, when the ballots for the merger were mailed out, a cover letter was enclosed which stated that a final vote would indeed be held (and would require a 2/3 majority). This was really tantamount to modifying the resolution just at the time that voting on it started. This took wind out of one of my arguments against the resolution. Since one could mail in their ballot immediately after receiving this letter, there was no way to debate this "modified" (some would say "clarified") resolution. Another major flaw in the merger process was that ballots were mailed out to all members but no arguments regarding the merger were enclosed. Many of the people who received these ballots seldom attend church. Some do not even read the "Tidings") and were poorly informed on the arguments regarding merger. Thus there was likely a fair number of votes cast by people who were uninformed on the situation. The by-laws of the church make no mention of merger. They do however specify a 2/3 vote required for selling property. Nowhere in the by-laws are mail-in ballots allowed. Decisions are to be made in open congregation meetings where full debate is permitted prior to the vote. No such meeting was ever held. Thus the merger procedure violated the spirit (but not the letter) of the by-laws. Since state laws permits (unless the by-laws require otherwise) both a simple majority vote and absentee ballots the procedures followed were probably legal. But one way to solve this dilemma would have been to modify the by-laws well in advance of the merger vote to cover the case of merger. I circulated a petition regarding this. At the request of the minister I stopped circulating the petition so that at a special board meeting on Dec. 30, 1990 the minister could ask the board to reverse their decision on only requiring a simple majority vote (and require a 2/3 vote). The board rejected the ministers proposal. By the time I finally did obtain the required number of signatures for my petition, it was too late. I was not very energetic in continuing to circulate this petition since by this time I realized that the merger resolution would probably fail to obtain the 75% plurality needed to pass at Neighborhood. At the end of the above mentioned board meeting, it was decided not to tell the congregation what transpired (see above) and thus no mention of this topic may be found in the minutes of that meeting. The minutes of the next board meeting on Jan. 6 claim that I expressed my objections to the merger while in fact I presented no arguments against the merger at this meeting. Full democracy should imply full and accuracte disclosure of board proceedings. I believe that if the merger process at Throop had been more democratic, the merger resolution would have also failed here. Had the merger passed, the minister would have received a promotion (with a lot of cash from the proceeds of selling Throop to help pay his salary if needed). Thus, I think it represented a conflict of interest for our minister (and Neighborhood's assistant minister) to support the merger resolution the way they did. They even invited the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Bill Schulz, to come here. He put in a few words favorable to merger at a Joint Service at Neighborhood Church on Jan. 6. Even a song our minister selected to be sung in church tended to support merger: "As tranquil streams that meet and merge ... Our kindred fellowships unite". I think that all of this was wrong. Throop Church now needs to realize that the merger was probably not really such a good idea after all and make sure that the travesty of democracy which took place here never happens again. But an excessive amount of time should not be spent crying over spilled milk. The main effort now should be to plan innovative programs to attract more members to Throop.