The Epic, Pt. 84

The Potomac Conference constituency meeting took place on September 26, 2010. Per Potomac Conference procedure, the nominating committee had met several weeks in advance of the actual constituency meeting and so presumably had already decided on the candidates it wished to present. This did not mean that the presentation occurred promptly. There were six agenda items ahead of the first report of the nominating committee, including two special music presentations. It also included the president’s report, which was full of glowing testimonies.

By the time the first nominating committee report was presented—just before the lunch break—the delegates had heads full of the wondrous works of Elder Miller and stomachs fully empty. It was a situation ideally built for the speedy reelection of Elder Miller, which was what the nominating committee recommended. But then someone (not from Takoma Park, for the record) moved that the name be referred back to the nominating committee.

In a situation like that the chair of the meeting, which during nominating committee reports was the Columbia Union President Dave Weigley, has a certain amount of latitude in how he proceeds. The whole point of making a referral back to the nominating committee under the Adventist system of elections is to allow the referring party to present evidence of the candidate’s unfitness to hold the office to which they are nominated in a private way, rather than airing dirty laundry about the candidate before all the delegates. Once the referring party has had their say the nominating committee decides whether the charges brought against the candidate warrant a change in the nomination. When a meeting chair receives a motion for referral he can choose to accept it without a vote, call for a vote on it to see whether the motion has support from more than just one (maybe unbalanced) person before accepting the referral, or require that the motion receive the support of a majority vote in order to be accepted.

Elder Weigley decided to require the support of a majority vote. While it was within accepted policy to proceed as he did, we find it contradictory to the whole concept of making a referral because if a majority of the delegates were already familiar with the reasons for the candidate’s unfitness there would be no point to the referral—that informed majority could just vote the name down directly. Then there’s the fact that since discussion isn’t accepted on nominations there is no mechanism for informing a majority about the reasons for unfitness from the floor. The bottom line is that Elder Weigley chose the course of action most likely to squash the referral and thereby ensure Elder Miller’s reelection.

The motion for referral failed. The name was then voted on. It passed.

Later in the meeting when the nominating committee recommended that Dr. Ray Pichette continue in office the same thing happened. A motion was made for referral, Elder Weigley required it to pass a majority vote, and the referral vote failed. Dr. Pichette was also reelected.

Beyond the disappointing election results there was some interesting data presented at the constituency meeting which sheds light on the state of the conference. To begin with, a list of the incumbent elected officers of the Potomac Conference and their lengths of service there (which was available in the delegate packets) shows an 83.3% turnover rate since Elder Miller’s arrival. The delegate materials also included an assertion that nine churches within the conference had undergone consultant assessments. It did not list the nine churches. We find this curious because it would seem that the conference would want to be presenting these wonderful success stories of their bold program—unless, of course, their stories weren’t actually successes. In fact, the conference has been directly asked about the names of these nine churches and refused to provide them. We know that Takoma Park was one of them, obviously; we have heard through the grapevine of some others, but we don’t have all nine identified. (Readers, if you have further information on this point we would love to hear from you either in the comments or by email.)

Another interesting point to note is that while Pastor DeSilva continues to dismiss Takoma Park’s falling income as just part of a larger, conference-wide trend resulting from the poor economy, the report from the Vice President for Finance claimed an average annual tithe increase of 3.8%. The financial report also included in a list of accomplishments the statement that, “Church and school treasurers are now required to present audit results to entity boards.” We won’t begin to guess where the breakdown in this accomplishment is occurring, but we have never seen an audit report presented to the Takoma Park church board.

Next: Constriction

Religious