Co-sponsored by the St. Mary's Parish Outreach Committee.
During the annual meeting at 11 AM on Saturday, April 12, 2008, at Trinity Church Parish Hall in St. Mary’s City, the membership will take up proposed amendments to the Association’s Bylaws. The intent of the changes is 1) to facilitate the holding of meetings via electronic means, 2) to more clearly define the proxy vote, and 3) to grant authority to the Board of Directors to make any future amendments to the Bylaws. Specific text of the amendments follows. The full text of the Bylaws, as they were originally written and currently stand, can be found on our web site or downloaded at:
http://www.smrwa.org/pdfdocs/By-Laws.pdf
Teleconference Meetings. Subject to the requirement of notice, members of the Board of Directors or of any committee thereof may participate in and hold a meeting by means of a conference telephone or similar communications equipment if all persons participating can hear each other at the same time, and participation in the meeting shall constitute presence in person at the meeting.
Electronic Mail Voting. As may occur from time to time and necessitated by urgency and time constraints, any action required to be taken at a meeting of the Board of Directors may be taken exclusively by electronic mail without an in-person meeting as long as the exact text to be considered and/or the exact phrasing of the motion to be considered is transmitted to the Directors; and that, all Directors are given a stated time period for transmission of their vote on such matter of at least 72 hours and not to exceed ten days from the time that the electronic mail requesting such action is transmitted. Quorum requirements for such electronic mail voting will be the President's reception of electronic mail votes from a majority of Directors.
Amendments. These Bylaws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of Directors present at a regular or special meeting provided that notice of the purpose and the text of the amendment has been stated in the notice of the meeting.
ANNUAL MEMBERS MEETING AGENDA ITEMS
11 am, Saturday, April 12
Trinity Church Parish Hall
- Welcome and brief overview of the past year's efforts
- Amendments to the Association's Bylaws
- Nominations to the Board of Directors for three-year terms
- Elections of Board of Directors
- Featured speaker Fred Tutman —
Environmental In-Justice: the root of our environmental problems
- Adjourment followed by buffet lunch
Riverkeeper to Speak on In-justice
Patuxent Riverkeeper Fred Tutman will be the featured speaker at the Association's Annual Members Meeting April 12th. This free event is co-sponsored by the St. Mary's Parish Outreach Committee. While we all know that, in the longterm, we will pay dearly for today's pollution, how many of of realize that some interest groups actually make money at our expense. In Tutman's words:
Natural resources are a form of wealth. Control of wealth is the core issue imbedded in environmental justice. Our economic system relies on unsustainable exploitation of the environment to create short term wealth for those with the most political power. The long term debt for such rapacious uses of the environment is usually transferred to the public or distributed among those who are economically underpowered. The environmental movement is heavily populated and controlled by people with an acute sense of environmental stewardship but who generally do not suffer the most severe environmental disparities. Our is a movement of property owners, well educated, well employed and empowered people. In fact demographically most of us look very much those running the pollution establishment!
Many of us are beneficiaries of the current economic system, or at least we rely on it. Because we are part of a pollution based system we often fail to see its causality and brutality on those who are the least able to defend ourselves against environmental injustice.
The fight for the poor and people of color is a very different environmental fight. It is less concerned with things like global warming and ideological causes (wind power, sustainability etc) but very involved the day to day struggle to obtain recognition of our specific neighborhood issues and to obtain decent or equivalent treatment by an establishments that wants to clean up the symptoms of a dysfunctional economic system but determined to leave the wealth structure intact (so we can get grants?).
Fred Tutman is a full time environmental advocate who serves as the Patuxent Riverkeeper. Previously, as a volunteer activist, Tutman has served as the President of the Conservation Federation of Maryland during the 1990’s (a National Wildlife Federation affiliate), helped found the Environmental Fund for MD, served as President of the Patuxent River Civic Association, served on the MD Department of Natural Resources “Outdoor Caucus” and as a Governor appointed State Patuxent River Commissioner. He currently coordinates an annual statewide cleanup of the Patuxent River. He studied law at the David A. Clarke School of Law and also spent over 25 years working in television, radio and multi-media communications. As an environmental and community activist, Tutman has been involved in a number of civic causes related to conservation of the region’s waterways and has been a frequent presence in zoning and planning causes aimed at preserving rural lands along the Patuxent River as well as preserving the culture and social framework of farming in and near the Patuxent River.
