Board Appointment Process: A Letter from Board President, Faye Mack

From time to time one of the Co-op’s Board of Directors will resign from their seat before their term has ended. When a Director resigns, the Board has the option to appoint a Co-op Member to fill the vacant seat until the next annual Board election or to leave the seat vacant until that time. Recently, Board Member, Leah Soderquist, shared that she was moving to Massachusetts and would be resigning from her position. The Board decided to use this opportunity to appoint a new Director and further our efforts to diversify the Board.

The Co-op is committed to practices of justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion and the dismantling of white supremacy. As part of this commitment, the Board has been examining our existing election process for some time with this lens, recognizing the need for the Board to better reflect the diversity of our community. We know that one appointment doesn’t complete this work, but we did want to take advantage of this opportunity to take a step in the right direction.

Board Members along with John Tashiro, our General Manager, developed a short list of BIPOC Co-op Members who might be interested in serving on the Board. We drew from our own connections as well as reaching out to some of our Community Outreach Partners and other contacts seeking recommendations. From a series of conversations, we were able to identify and appoint a Co-op Member to serve on the Board of Directors for calendar year 2021. We also made many new connections in the community, and hope that those we connected with will consider running for the Board in the future as well.

We are thrilled to announce that Rubin Jennings is joining the Board! Rubin’s first Board meeting as a Board Member will be Monday, January 25th along with Meaghan Diffenderfer, who was elected to the Board this past fall.  For more information about joining a virtual Board meeting, e-mail Membership Manager, Patrick Tracy at ptracy@citymarket.coop.