Western Region Executive Council Update


The APCO Executive Board will be discussing some revisions to the procedural manual. One of the more discussed issues with some language that has been suggested for section 6.1. Currently the executive boards meetings are open public meetings and the board is very committed to keeping those meetings and open forum. However there are times where the board would like to be able to go into closed session, and the current policy manual does not allow much leeway for going into closed session. The Executive Board is considering adding language that will allow them to go into closed session if needed for the “exchange of confidential or proprietary information”. The Western region executive Council members would like to see a better definition of what is confidential. We believe the current language would be too ambiguous and has the potential of changing each year. There is also a recommendation to change some language that provides for the executive board to assign board members to act as liaisons for certain committees, as needed. There was a lot of discussion about this topic and we have asked our directors to get more clarification from the executive board.

There was also some discussion about section 7.2 of the policy manual. There are several recommendations being considered for this section including language that would reconfigure the committee makeup for Executive Council Committees. The recommended language would change executive Council committees from five person committees to four-person committees. There was a lot of agreement among Western region that this clarification would be beneficial for the organization.

The Northern California Chapter brought up the issue of committee participation. There was a concern by some on the Northern California Chapter Board of Directors that chapter members participate in international committees but have very little interaction with the local chapter. The question we raised was should the local chapters he more involved in the selection process for committee participation. EC members were encouraged to bring this up to their local boards and provide feedback on our next conference call.

Some updates from other chapters:

  • Arizona – is getting ready for another chapter meeting and preparing for chapter elections. They continue preparing for the Western Regional Conference. They are also updating their chapter bylaws.
  • Nevada – preparing for Board Elections – they are trying to revitalize their chapter and feel confident about having an almost entirely new board in 2014. Also working on making some sort of strategic plan for the upcoming year.
  • Washington- just completed a board workshop and is preparing for a mid October training event
  • Wyoming- just completed a bylaw update as well.