The La Jolla Community Planning Association’s (LJCPA) bylaws subcommittee was able to iron out a few final wrinkles in the bylaws document Wednesday, Dec. 13, so that it can now be presented to community members and board members at a special meeting on Jan. 18, 2007.
In order to give residents and board members an adequate amount of time to review the document, the subcommittee voted to schedule a meeting in addition to its Jan. 4 monthly meeting.
The bylaws document has been a source of conflict for the last three months between board members and community members of the LJCPA. During an October meeting, many residents became aware of membership requirements outlined in the document that discredited them from being a part of the organization and therefore prevented them from casting a vote to revise the bylaws.
The committee changed membership requirements from a mandatory two meetings to one meeting per calendar year. Under the current bylaws, however, residents who have been attending meetings since January 2006 will not become a member and be able to vote until February 2007.
The subcommittee was worried this might pose a problem with many residents who want to vote on Jan. 18 and hopes to have the official membership list presented at the Jan. 4 meeting to resolve any conflicts ahead of time about membership and voting rights, according to Tim Golba, LJCPA president.
The 18-member bylaws subcommittee, which includes members from four other community organizations, has been working to revise the document since October. The LJCPA will review changes to the document and, if approved, it will go before the city.
The city, however, is in the process of revising the guidelines for community bylaws because of a recent discovery that each community planning committee is under the Brown Act, a provision that forces planning groups to provide proper public noticing of meetings.
An original April deadline for the completion of the bylaws for all planning groups had been set by the city, but it has since retracted that date and has yet to set a new one, according to Golba.
The revised bylaws document is vastly different than its predecessor and has been rewritten to reflect major changes, according to Golba. It is the hope of the subcommittee that the community and LJCPA board will accept the bylaws, especially after the inclusive team effort that was put forth to revise them, he said.
“It should be everything that everyone asks out of the bylaws,” Golba said.
For more information, visit www.ljcpa.org.