Agenda for 01-02-2024

Meeting Location

Meeting was Called to Order At: 7:30

https://i3detroit.org/hangout and at i3Detroit

Hybrid Meeting Etiquette

Be excellent.
Attendance and voting can be found in the #meetings slack channel.
Please show up early if you are concerned about your audio.
If there is no one waiting to speak feel free to do so at the next opportunity.
If there is someone waiting to speak, please say that you are raising your hand in the google call chat. (This will be demonstrated)
Please refrain from other side conversations, these can be distracting for the rest of the meeting and make it difficult for the chair to keep track of what's going on.
If you're in the space remember that having a single person speaking at a time is helpful for those attending online.

Introductions

Experienced Members

Discussion from experienced members.

New Members & Guests

Discussion from experienced members.

Show and Tell

none

Old Business

n/a

Outstanding Action Items

Minutes approval tabled.

New Business

Transparency Discussion

An open discussion of our current practices that many of us consider to not be transparent in our conflict resolution system, in the name of privacy. Often what is called privacy is actually secrecy. The discussion is intended to clarify what the membership wants.

- The need for privacy for those who bring accusations, seems to be in conflict with our desire to approach the parties in a conflict. Member Advocates cannot mediate a conflict toward resolution, without disclosing materially-relevant facts.

- Often both parties in a conflict regard themselves as the victim and fear retaliation from each other, so each party wants the other party to be disciplined without transparency as to what the offense was and who brought the complaint.

- Parties can request that the conflict resolution process not proceed with investigation to determine the facts, claiming that to do so would violate privacy. That's not privacy, it's secrecy.

- Many members wish to know what standards the Board has applied and where they draw the line, in order to rest assured that they fall well within that standard. They feel anxiety since they don't know because discussions are private. That's not privacy, it's secrecy.

- Lots of complaints all spill out at one time from over a long period, in which the complainants didn't want to bring formal action when the offense originally occurred. Sometimes this is a missed opportunity for early repairs.

1. Recommendation for discussion: Member Advocates should always ask a person bringing a complaint whether they are willing to be identified as bringing a complaint. If they are not, a Member Advocate should always ask, if multiple people also bring complaints against the same person in the future, would they be willing to be identified together? And if so, what is the number of future people it would take?

2. Recommendation for discussion: Leadership at i3Detroit have a responsibility to bring conflicts to a resolution, even if everyone involved would rather the organization stay out of it and let them continue fighting. Unresolved conflict poisons the atmosphere which we all rely on, so we all have the right to ask them to resolve it. If the parties can't resolve it, and won't let the leadership intervene, then the parties involved are unsuitable to be members in good standing of i3Detroit.