Proposal for Occupy Chicago Spokes Council

[Mike]

The Direct Action Committee of Occupy Chicago proposes the formulation of a Spokes Council (SC) within Occupy Chicago.



1.Purpose and function of the SC: SC will internally coordinate both the various committees in Occupy Chicago as well as any other occupations that wish to participate. In order to qualify as a spoke, an occupation or committee must:


Make publicly available it’s purpose, procedures and contact info
Be approved by a ¾ majority of the existing Spokes Council of Chicago


2. Composition of SC: The SC will be comprised of one member of each committee as representative of the given committee, referred to as “Spoke.”



3. Duration of Spoke: The Spoke will serve on SC for meetings of the SC during the course of one week, or one week’s “worth” of meetings due to a lack of a standard meeting due to mitigating circumstances, including but not limited to a holiday. After having taken a turn serving as Spoke for one week, the given committee member will be able to serve as Spoke again, following the turns of any committee members who have had yet to serve and are both interested in and have signed up to do so.



4. Scheduling of SC: All SC meetings will be scheduled two weeks in advance. The schedule for SC will be posted in calendar format on the OC website and in hard format at the indoor site of OC.



5. Decision making within SC: All decisions on proposals will be made via a “super majority,” (2/3 of present Spokes or above). In the event that a Spoke thinks it is necessary to “block” a decision, that Spoke will be required to discuss the reasoning behind their block in order to resolve the issue and move towards a consensus, however, full (100%) consensus will be understood to be an ideal-and not a necessity- to pass the given proposal even if a block occurs. The scope of proposals to be decided upon within SC will be limited to those that had reached the given decision-making parameters as determined by the committee forwarding the proposal.



6. Autonomy of decisions within SC: The SC will be a group autonomous of the General Assembly in terms of issues discussed and/or decisions made. The decisions made by the committees that comprise the SC- i.e. all committees that comprise OC- will have equal weight to any decision made by the GA.

[Mike]

Someone has voiced a concern about the spokes council "doing away with" G.A. I would like to ensure everyone that this proposal does not suggest doing away with, or altering the G.A. in any way shape of form. The G.A. would still function as always. The spokes council would be held at a different time from the G.A. so everyone could attend, in their respective committees, and contribute to the discussion through communication with their spoke.

The spokes council is really constructed to make committees work together better. It enables all committees to work together, in real time, to plan, discuss, and come to decisions within a single meeting, rather than dragging out that process between weeks and weeks of meetings. This is especially important given the monumental tasks we must conquer, in little time, to prepare for events surrounding the summits in May.

A spokes council also engages other occupations in our community. Occupy the South Side, Occupy the North West Side, Occupy Rogers Park, or Occupy El Barrio may feel like Occupy Chicago doesn't represent the demographics of their communities, or the issues their neighborhoods face, and therefore is not able to help fighting those struggles. A spokes council would give each of these occupations a substantial roll in discussion and decision making, and have these issues more fairly represented among a group of mostly college educated young white people from the north side. I believe this is also important to tackle aggressively to build our bonds with communities across the city and form a stronger more unified movement approaching the summits in may.

A spokes council also gives other visiting occupations from outside Chicago, of which we are expecting dozens, to participate in discussions and planning in a more efficient way than our G.A. structure allows. A conversations that plugs in and organizes dozens of different visiting occupations in a constructive way, in one meeting, will be extremely difficult through G.A. format and much more manageable through a spokes council format, for structural and procedural reasons.

This proposal calls for a big step for Occupy Chicago. Those who drafted it did so because it is a big step that is needed. There are many out there who fear change and strike out against it before they understand it. I invite constructive questions and concerns to help build a successful model to fill holes that exist in our current procedure.


-Mike

[Mike]

So again, G.A.s will still work the same. There will be nothing that changes about G.A.s, by this proposal, at all. A spokes council will be a place for committees to come together to coordinate. Committees will be represented in the spokes council. Individuals will have the same power they always had in the G.A., and the power, in the spokes council, to contribute to decisions made within committees, that then make decisions among committees.

There's still a lot of assumption based fear bouncing around. Please ask specific questions before resorting to uninformed rhetoric. We want a free spread of information, not rumors.

[m_x]

So there are several problems with this proposal IMO. The two largest are that:

-The decision making powers are not clearly defined (what kind of issues with the SC deal with? Which will be left to the Ga?)

- There is no clause for the council to be dissolved.

I also am not sold on the necessity of a permanent spokes council within OC. I could see having a temporary one to handle an issue (like G8/Nato) or a particular component to OC (Finances) but this proposal seems fairly broad and does not clearly outline what the Spokes council will have power over.

[pHinkasaurus]

i think this proposal is great. the committees need to start coordinating efforts better, especially in the face of such a daunting organizational task as the chicago spring. it sounds like the SC model will go along way in creating a functioning organism, comprised of individual functioning cells. occupy chicago will come alive for the spring!

some questions and comments:

can the SC overrule the GA? or vice versa?
can either amend or somehow alter proposals passed by the other body?

i would also like to second the friendly amendment to include a sunset clause, or at least the option to revisit the SC in june/july, to see if we want to keep using it. i think we'll find that it is a wonderful addition.

and can we have a report/summary of the SC meetings added to the GA agenda? and maybe vice versa as well? i think each body, while composed of members of OC that may attend both meetings, should be well informed about the ongoing's of the other.

[Sugar]

I posted this earlier but it does not seem to have worked. Posting again.

Is this being presented by DAC? I ask because this front page post came from within the DAC and was put on the DAC forum.
If it is being done on behalf of DAC, where are the minutes from those meetings? When was this hashed out? I ask because many here are confused and asking for clarifications.

I have a few friendly amendments and some clarifying questions

Friendly Amendments
- Since this is such a major change, and this thing is one big experiment, I think that proposing a test run for a month would make sense. It would allow for OC to evaluate if it is helping, not helping, making worse, or other pos/ neg effects that were unexpected before making such a large change.

- Since you would like it to carry the same weight at GA, then the voting should also be at 90% to mirror GA voting standards.

Clarifying Questions
- What kind of proposals would and would not be appropriate to have at SC vs. GA? Does Sect decide?
- Why did you chose a super majority of 75% vs. 90%?
- I understand this as a form of communication and coordination, however, why not allow this "body" to recommend to GA for vote vs. voting separate of GA?
- What if GA and SC have conflicting votes passed?
- If something does not pass GA, and the presenters do not want to go through the process required to bring it back up for a vote, can they bring it to SC? Or would the same rules apply?
- Is there something in place to allow those not on committees or other local occupations to participate?
- Since this is a form of representative democracy vs direct, do the people representing committees or groups have time to take stuff back before they are required to vote on it or does voting only come from the 1 person representing that particular SC?

[Dormaphaea]

While I'm unable to participate in GA's and have been unable to attend a single committee meeting due to consistent scheduling conflicts (oh well) I have to say I like where this is going.

I think Sugar raises some good points as far as process and clarification, but the idea that there's an element of representative democracy afoot as well as tightening up the strategic and tactical planning arms of the movement, there's a lot to be said for getting something like this underway.

Speaking as a fringe observer, I think you're on to something here. Question: Is this only open to committee representation, or could this also include representation from the neighborhood occupations?

[Ella Mae]

Yes, the proposal says one of the main purposes of the council is to bring in neighborhood voices. That part I really like about it!

I third Sugar's questions, and would also ask: when, as in how often, would the SC take place? How often would the GA then take place? Also what if more than one member (a non "spoke") wants to attend the spokes council?

[Mark]

Reverting to representative democracy is not, IMO, a change for the better but an abandonment of a basic, founding principle of OWS and OC. Democracy is difficult and requires patience and there are always those who, for a variety of reasons, don't want to be bothered with it. None of those reasons, I think, are really legitimate. To say that GAs will not be altered by the proposal doesn't with genuineness address the concerns of those who are wary of it. The GAs can, of course, continue as they had before but will they be meaningful? That is, will the GA have its authority?
If a spokes council structure is necessary it must exist or not, be implemented or terminated, entirely at the pleasure of the GA. If that is not clearly stated the resulting confusion would undermine that authority as much as if it were explicitly written out of the systemic structure.

[Mike]

These are all good questions, and they shed light on some clarification to be done to the proposal.

The power of the Spokes Council is not something that this proposal creates. The potential power of a spokes council already exists, in the autonomous power of the committees which would be participating in the Spokes Council. Secretariat has the freedom to experiment with different processes and to decide what does and doesn't make it onto the agenda; Social Media has the freedom of selecting and formulating what content to disseminate under the name of the movement; Members of press assume our voice to the media; Social Media have the freedom to select and formulate content to disseminate under the name of our movement.

This fragmented power that has long existed, in O.C. A spokes council does not create any new power structures. It facilitates coordination among these different autonomous bodies, the lack of which continues to deprive our movement of it's full potential.

The concept of the spokes council is not for committees, or neighborhood occupations, to "send a representative." Instead, it is a time and place for committees and neighborhood occupations to incorporate in their regular schedule of meetings. These groups would be present, and be able to contribute, during meetings. Think about a sliced pie, like the pieces in trivial pursuit. Each committee would be present, at the crust of each piece. They would each have a rotating "spoke" that would communicate with the "spokes" of other committees at the point of the pie piece. When discussion was called for, there would be a break out period, when the spoke would return to their committees, at the crust, and discuss their position. At the end of the break out session, the spoke would return to the center, with an informed voice of their group.

Because a large turnout is ideal, SC would not meet as often as G.A. The meeting schedule would need to be determined by the SC, but I'm guessing it would best function meeting in 1 week intervals or so.

I hope this helps with some of your questions. If I missed any, please let me know, as I have to run out the door to prepare for tonight's D.A.

Cheers,
Mike