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New Lawsuit Filed Against Sierra Club; Club Leaders Seek Fair ElectionNEWS RELEASE, March 3, 2004Susan Kaufman, Specialized Communications
NEWS
For immediate release While voters went to the polls yesterday in ten states, a group of Sierra Club members decided to go to court over unfair election practices in this year's Board of Directors election. In a last-ditch effort to force the Sierra Club to conduct a fair election of its Board of Directors and to provide equity for all candidates standing for election, veteran club leaders from Los Angeles (CA), San Francisco (CA), Brooklyn (NY), Eugene (OR), Santa Cruz (CA) and Escalante (UT) filed a new lawsuit today in San Francisco Superior Court. Their lawyer will be in court tomorrow, seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt the mailing of more than 700,000 ballots that include information that is prejudicial, fraudulent, biased and unfair to many of the 17 candidates running for five open board slots. Robert Roy van de Hoek, an Executive Committee member of Sierra Club California, an Executive Committee member from the nation's largest Sierra Club Chapter, Angeles (Los Angeles & Orange Counties) -- and also a candidate in this year's election -- has joined to file the lawsuit with: • Steve Bloom, an Executive Committee member from the San Francisco Bay Chapter who is also an expert in California ballot initiative law and the environmental community representative to the Alameda County Recycling Board; • Margaret Hays Young, an Executive Committee member of the New York City Group and several decades-long activist with Sierra Club; • Tim Hermach, former Conservation Chair and Newsletter Chair for the Many Rivers Group and currently a nationally-known forest advocate (Native Forest Council) from Eugene, Oregon; • Jean Brock, a Sierra Club member since 1972 who is former Chair of the Montana Chapter and former Chair of the Bitteroot-Mission Group, now a member of the Santa Cruz Group and Ventana Chapter; and • a couple from Escalante, Utah, Patrick Diehl and Tori Woodard, who challenged the Club's Board of Directors in the news media for not taking a stronger stance against the war in Iraq a year ago. Diehl and Woodard are both former Executive Committee members of the Club's Glen Canyon Group; Diehl was Secretary and Public Lands Grazing Co-Chair and Woodard was Conservation Chair and Nuclear Waste Chair. Today, under the group banner of "Club Members for an Honest Election," these seven Club members filed a legal complaint in protest of what they say is an election with highly unusual and extreme procedures being implemented that favor some candidates and harm others. "All we want is a fair and honest election, and that is not what the slim majority on the Board has created. Their unprecedented actions of including a biased and prejudicial statement in the ballot mailing and allowing fake candidates who ask members to vote for a particular slate of candidates prejudice the election results against me and at least five other candidates," stated van de Hoek, a biologist and former federal government whistle-blower. Van de Hoek is an immigrant born in The Netherlands and is, thus, particularly enamored with democracy and fairness, values that he says he learned were to be cherished when he went through the citizenship process required for permanent residency status. A similar lawsuit was filed several weeks ago by former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm and two other Sierra Club Board candidates. The suit was subsequently dropped when the Sierra Club filed a motion that under California's SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) provisions could conceivably have gotten the case thrown out of court and caused the plaintiffs to pay a big legal bill. The plaintiffs in this case are not worried if the organization tries a similar tactic with them. They say they are in this for the long-haul and are committed to bringing back fair and honest elections to the Sierra Club, a hallmark tradition of the venerable group. One of the reasons they are not worried about the potential for a repeat of the anti-SLAPP attempt is there is a new amendment to the SLAPP laws in California. The new amendment disallows the kind of motion the Sierra Club filed when the original lawsuit is in the public interest, as this fair-election lawsuit is. The plaintiffs also stress that their fundamental complaint about this election is the lack of equity for candidates, along with a heavy-handed campaign that the Board and staff are waging to insure the election of their favored five candidates. "Throughout the country, Sierra Club leaders have been encouraged to use official Club entities such as newsletters and email lists to propagandize for some Board candidates and against others. This behavior is a flagrant violation of the California Corporation code, which guides elections for nonprofit corporations in the state," explained Steve Bloom, a leader in the San Francisco Bay Chapter and an expert on California ballot initiative law. For Tori Woodard and Patrick Diehl, members of the Glen Canyon Group, this election debacle is similar to the dissatisfaction they and others around the country felt when the Board of Directors passed a very watered-down, nearly meaningless resolution on the Iraq war. Despite a very vocal outcry from the Sierra Club membership asking the Board to stand up against a war with devastating environmental consequences, the Board took their lead from Democracts in Congress many of whom in November, 2002, still supported the war. "This election is bringing out the schism in the Club between the centralized leadership, who want to keep power in their own hands and seem willing to abuse the democratic process to do so, and various grassroots factions who have followed the rules and are making an honest bid to win the election to make changes," explained Woodard. Destruction of national forests and other public lands is another key issue for the grassroots activist leaders who want a fair and honest electon and a level playing field for possible change in the Board leadership. Tim Hermach, a staunch supporter of saving what's left of our forests and rivers by ending all logging, mining, grazing & drilling on the nation's public lands, has supported some current Board members who remain in the minority. Although he says he has experienced the Club's dishonest electioneering before, this year has reached a new low. However, he sees hope for a change with the results of this election if it is conducted fairly. "While Carl Pope and others have convinced some people that this election is about a policy decision on immigration, the election is primarily about what kind of leaders, integrity and principles will form the majority on the Sierra Club Board after the results are in," said Hermach. "I'm not rooting for the ones who think we must operate under the current 'political reality,' but instead for the ones who think we can and will create our own political reality and organize the country as David Brower organized it for inspiring and successful campaigns like the one to save the Grand Canyon. Future generations of Americans deserve nothing less. Their lives may very well hang in the balance," continued Hermach. A hearing for the temporary restraining order has been scheduled for 11 am on Thursday, March 4, in San Francisco Superior Court (Room 301), the Honorable Judge James Warren, presiding. ------------ Copies of the complaint and the points & authorities for the temporary restraining order are available via fax upon request. Please email or call Steve Bloom to request them.
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