Mind-boggling how Maviglio continues to think that if he repeats his illogical contortions enough, they'll become true. The Election Code, which purports to give the Policy Committee the right to vet proposed measures for referendum, cannot be used to change the pre-existing Bylaws, which permit members to propose measures by submitting signatures. The Bylaws section refers to the Election Code regarding only the "procedures" governing the holding of elections. Maviglio and his minions are trying to pretend they can simply write a new rule and use it to circumvent the bylaws. Sorry, that's cheating. Bylaws can be amended only by a vote of the members.

I'll ignore the latest batch of Maviglio's pathetic, ugly and untrue personal swipes in favor of focusing on the core issue: No matter how many hundreds of times he says it, the bylaws neither require -- nor allow -- the board to vet initiatives submitted by the sufficient number of members. Don't like that? Fine, amend the bylaws, but that requires a vote of members. You can't just ignore the rules because they're inconvenient. Confused? It's deliberate. Read the bylaws and see my previous comment. Moreover, its disingenuous to say the process (as Maviglio misrepresents it) "has been in place for many, many years." According to the board, there hasn't been a member petition initiative in decades, if ever. How sad that what could have been a constructive community debate leading to greater knowledge on a subject of great concern to many members degenerated into this ugly shouting match because Maviglio and the board majority wouldn't let it proceed according to the rules and continue to undermine fairness in the election process. Please help start the co-op back on the road to responsible governance. Vote for Cody Potter and Susan Bush for the board, and vote no on Measure 2.

Please note: As the Sac. Press report says, the issue isn't the board imposing a boycott on all members, but 1) denying them their right to learn about the issue under the longstanding policy that was jettisoned at first sign of pressure from the "criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism" crowd; then 2) denying the right of members to call for a vote on the issue, violating the bylaws that require it to do so when 100+ signatures are submitted. The board powers that be will try to confuse you by saying the "Election Code" allows them to ignore this clause of the bylaws, but that's nonsense. It would be like a government agency thinking it can ignore/violate the U.S. Constitution by writing a regulation that contradicts it.

Hmmmm. "TruthSquad" person (afraid to use her or his real name?), author of maybe half the Press comments attacking the co-op democracy campaign, seems a bit challenged in elementary arithmetic. The original pro-boycott petition had some 200 member signatures, I believe. Did the "10 people" each use 20 different names? Then there are the many more of us who got involved only later, some of whom would not have supported the boycott at all but are appalled by the board's squelching of member rights, violation of the bylaws, blatant subversion of the election process ... and the board president's vicious and false personal attacks on board critics.

Steve Maviglio is deliberately misstating the truth he knows full well, because we have corresponded ad nauseum on the subject. I have been a co-op member since 1985, when I moved to Sacramento, 1986 latest. All that time I was part of a household membership, the norm for most families. By chance, the other household member had the ---01 number, mine was ----02, meaning that she could vote, I couldn't. I believe in one person, one vote (does Steve have a problem with that?) and in my upset about the current board's mismanagement, it became more urgent for me to exercise that right, so I paid the bucks and became an individual member. For Maviglio to even bring that up, let alone use it as his lead argument in responding to a serious violation of election fair play, speaks for itself. As for his obfuscation of the facts regarding the ballot arguments against Measure 2 themselves, nothing can change the fact that the board chose to publish a phony one that actually supports it. Anyone can see through that.