Candidates for the Board of Directors
This page presents candidates who filed Declarations of Candidacy and statements by April 10, 2009. There were no declared “write in” candidates in this election.
Davis Food Co-op final election results, 6/15/2009
These results were accepted by the Co-op Board of Directors at their meeting of 6/15/2009. They vary in detail from those reported on 6/8, but the results are the same.
Directors elected to three year terms:
Desmond Jolly – 588 votes
Julie A. Cross (staff) – 467 votes
Sam Citron – 347 votes
Elected to one year terms as Alternate Directors*:
Kevin Wolf – 344 votes
Teddy Consolacion – 187 votes
Declared candidates also receiving votes:
Zach Norwood – 115 votes
Michael Simpson (staff) – 111 votes
*Director Darius Pazirandah has tendered his resignation, effective 7/1/09; at the 6/15 meeting, the Board voted to appoint Kevin Wolf to fulfill the one year remaining of Darius' term.
Candidates are presented on this page in the order in which they filed Declarations of Candidacy. They are presented on the Ballot in an order determined by random drawing.
530-756-7503
In the recent Davis Enterprise consumer opinion survey, the Davis Food Coop was surpassed only by Nugget Market as the Best Food Retailer in Davis. Clearly, the Coop is doing a lot of things right – meeting the needs of a diverse clientele for healthy, innovative and environmentally friendly products, as well as providing a healthy workplace culture for its staff and volunteers.
The recent redesign enables the Coop to remain competitive with other retail stores in Davis; it remains on the cutting edge of social change with its adoption of energy- saving technologies. But now that we have taken on obligations to finance the upgrade, we need to be conservative in our business practices so as to ensure that our Coop remains financially viable for decades to come. We have seen too many iconic institutions floundering, being “bailed out,” or simply going under because their “irrational exuberance” led them to take unwise risks.
My approach, as one of your Directors, will be to be a responsible steward of our resources, to keep a steady hand on the wheel so that we do not veer off into uncharted and possibly risky waters. My experience and training lend themselves to the responsibilities of a Director of the Coop. These include service on a variety of Boards, Commissions and Task forces, including:
President, Davis Community Television; Member, Yolo Welfare Reform Task Force; Trustee-
Davis Rural Land Trust; Board Member – Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture; Co-Chair – Roots of Change Council; Member—State Board of Food and Agriculture;
Trustee—Henry Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture; Vice Chair—USDA National Commission on Small Farms; Graduate Council –UC Davis; Chair—Graduate Group in Community
Development, UC Davis.
Additional qualifications include M.A. and Ph. D degrees in Economics, and a 40-year career of teaching, research and extension in Consumer and Agricultural Economics, including 11 years as Director of the UC Statewide Small Farm Program. As a Director, I will faithfully pursue the interests of the organization and give undivided allegiance to the organization’s mission. I am a long-term member of the Coop.
I’ve been a member of the Davis Food Co-op for fifteen years, an employee for fourteen, and a Director for six of those years.
During that time, I’ve attended about 140 Board meetings. While I could have done something else with all those hours, I can’t think of a hobby or volunteer job that would have better allowed me to serve my community. The Co-op is more than a grocery store to many of us – it’s an expression of our belief in the future, of our values, of our love of good food, and a home. It’s a center that deserves to be preserved and protected, and at the same time to evolve to accommodate our mutual changing needs. That’s worth quite a lot of my time!
It’s also a business, and one that calls out for careful management in these tough times. Any director elected this year needs to be willing to look carefully at financial decisions, from seemingly-simple “what shall we sell” policies to sweeping five-year plans. Balancing careful fiscal choices with our vision is a difficult, but doable, job. Over the next three years, our Board must be cautious, and careful to first look after what we have.
In this Election, you’re also voting on whether paid Staff of the Co-op should serve on the Board of Directors. As someone who has spent six years in that sometimes-awkward position, I obviously believe that they can, and should. While we have had one Staff Director during my time who was troublesome because of his attitude and employment, we’ve had a dozen or more Staff Directors who were wonderful – and probably that many NON-staff Directors who were just as troublesome as the one. Whether you vote for me or not, please vote “no” on Proposition 2.
The Members of the Davis Food Co-op have been kind enough to elect me twice to the Board. I hope that you’ll vote for me once again and allow me to continue that work for another three years.
As a member of the Davis Food Co-op Community, I declare my Candidacy for the DFC Board of Directors. It is with great respect for our democratic process and great humility that I take this step. As Director of Human Resources for our Co-op, my candidacy has a very narrow scope. It is my professional and personal opinion that Proposition 2 must be passed. Prop 2 would change our by-laws to prohibit me and other employees from serving as a Director on the DFC Board.
You may say that my candidacy goal represents a contradiction. It does not.
In my job, I have a responsibility to support the will of the DFC Board through my relation ship with the General Manager, the Board’s only employee. The General Manger’s responsibility is to understand the will of the DFC Board and establish organizational policies and procedures that comply with the will of the board. My job description establishes clear lines of my direct responsibility to the General Manager. Moreover, the GM job description establishes clear lines of direct responsibility to the DFC Board. When any employee sits as a Director on the DFC Board these clear lines of responsibility are blurred.
With responsibility comes accountability. If I am elected to the DFC Board, will I be accountable to the Membership or to the General Manager? If an Employee Director uses their position to support or oppose the General Manager are they to be rewarded or punished? Will other members of the community or staff seek favor from the Employee Director? Does the power and influence of an Employee Director change the standards of accountability for either an employee or director? These are some questions that are raised by the current by-laws.
While many of these questions are easily debated in our Co-op Community, there is one last augment that I will make; Employee Directors represent a clear and present liability to the Co-op based on current federal and state employment laws. The practice of allowing Employees to serve on the DFC Board should be ended.
297-6136
I have been a member of DFC since 1989 when I arrived in Davis as a first year law student. My wife worked as a social worker at the other DFC, the Davis Free Clinic, which was just next door, and we would often meet in the funky used book room near the front door, as there was no café in those days. The fact that DFC was a co-operative was not especially meaningful to me, and like many students we foraged promiscuously from Lucky’s, IGA and wherever we could find cheaper food to fit our tight budgets. I still believe the Co-Op can be more relevant to our student population and those on limited budgets.
My greatest potential assets to the Board are probably my ability to think outside the box; my background and training as an economist that began with a solitary overland journey to India at the age of sixteen and that taught me among other things the universal value of economics as the arithmetic of survival; my experiences working in New York’s commodity markets; my academic training at Harvard, where I studied economic development with a focus on South Asia; and my financial and business experience from nearly forty years in investment analysis and management and in analyzing competitive landscapes while searching for sustainable competitive advantage. As an investor I have learned to ask penetrating questions and to hold management accountable. I am also a retired attorney.
If markets are conversations between suppliers, competitors, regulators, consumers and communities, then food markets are also conversations with the earth itself and our delicate and interconnected web of long-term relationships with other animals and plants. As we compete against strong and efficient competitors like Nugget, Costco and Trader Joe’s during a time of considerable economic uncertainty, we must carefully consider what makes the co-op fun, relevant, and distinctive and to enhance its vital place at the heart, soul and belly of the Davis community.
530-792-1930
Imagine if a US election was decided by California in exclusion of the rest of the United States—that is, if 35 million people (11%) decided the election for 265 million (88%). Would you call this election "democratic”? Imagine further that the US, for the past five years, received no citizen-initiated legislation and that the executive branch—the president and cabinet—enacted policy changes without oversight from the House and Senate. Would you call this arrangement “democratic”?
It’s doubtful anyone would answer “Yes,” and yet parallel situations have actually happened at the Co-op: During the last DFC election, roughly 1000 members (11%) decided the outcome for the remaining 8000 members (88%). And for the past five years, not a single membership initiative has been enacted at the Co-op, though many policy decisions have been decided exclusively by Co-op management, such as installing food bars, open freezers, etc.
The Co-op remains the best, most innovative grocery in Davis, and I believe the management is highly competent and act in good faith. Good intentions and competency, however, do not excuse, as I see it, adding permanent installations without majority membership approval, or allowing a de jure “democratic” board to represent a de facto membership minority.
If I’m elected, I will lobby for the following improvements:
• developing new infrastructure for membership engagement, such as drafting “how to” pamphlets for new members explaining the “democratic control” principle—e.g., how a Co-op remains de facto democratic and cooperative, how to gather votes for ballot initiatives, etc.
• make available by sign-up sheet “democratic control” education workshops
• expand membership “linkage” to include regular, open invitations to share concerns
• encourage the formation Food Ends oversight committees that promote healthful, sustainable, local, environmentally friendly foods
• adding an online forum for members for sharing opinions, articles, and conducting informal polls
A cooperative organization—if it’s truly Co-operative and not merely a Corporation with co-operative trappings—should occlude the possibility of an imbalance between executive and democratic influence. If I’m elected (even undemocratically) to serve on the board, I’ll try to improve DFC’s democracy.
Hello fellow Co-op members,
My name is Teddy Consolacion, and I want to represent you on the Co-op Board of Directors. I have been a shopper/member at the Co-op for 10 years, and I have appreciated the Co-op’s inclusiveness of diverse food choices represented in the variety of products available as well as the Co-op’s educational classes and literature. I value the Co-op’s cornerstone role in a healthful Davis community, and I am committed to furthering its success in our community.
As a volunteer for a nonprofit that brought farmers’ markets to impoverished inner-city neighborhoods, I am an advocate for the needs for all people to access healthy and nutritious food. In my own work as a researcher for a county department of public health, I value strengthening diverse communities through collaboration and cooperation as well as educating communities on health issues. As a potential board member, some of the skills I bring to the board include:
• development of surveys for members to voice their opinions and evaluate their experiences,
• successful collaborations on projects with diverse community stakeholders, and
• dedication to building healthy communities.
(530) 758-4211
I am a candidate in this election because I would like to continue using my skills and experience to help the DFC board advance our mission and ends and be the best it can be for all of who benefit from our success.
Last year I was elected first alternate on the Co-op board. Since then, I haven’t missed a board meeting or retreat. I think the best thing I have done is help us work well together. I have over 30 years of professional experience helping groups achieve consensus, and I live at N Street Cohousing, a consensus-based community.
If elected, I will do my best to continue helping the board work cooperatively and effectively.
One issue that caused some member concern last election was my desire to see the Co-op evaluate the opportunity for a satellite co-op in West Davis. At my urging, the board voted to meet with the owner. I attended that meeting and afterwards, recommended that the board not consider this location because the owner’s terms were too costly. I hope I proved to members who were afraid that I would unreasonably push a West Davis co-op, that I believe in seeking out information and opportunity, evaluating it fairly and being able to let go of ideas and proposals that aren’t feasible.
If elected I pledge to gain more training and expertise in Policy Governance (PG), the process by which the Co-op board makes decisions and oversees the General Manager’s work. The board made a good decision six years ago when it adopted this then unusual method of governance. It takes experience and training to be an effective board member in a policy governance model. Also, because PG experts almost universally do not want staff to serve on boards because they shouldn’t have oversight of their boss, the GM, I encourage you to support Prop. 2.
Please vote for me and allow me to continue using my experience and skill to help our board and Co-op.