In each ICMA region, there are three ICMA vice presidents. In the Southeast region, one vice president represents the northern group: Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The second vice president represents the southern group: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. The third vice president is a non-CEO position and is open to all qualified individuals in the region. There are other restrictions that may not allow Florida to run for the southern group or the non-CEO position:
- No state may succeed itself on the board.
- No state will be represented more than twice within a 10-year period, unless there are no other qualified candidates.
- Nominations shall be given preference to qualified candidates from states that have not been represented on the ICMA Board in the past five years.
This does not give Florida much opportunity to serve on the Board because 2/3 of FCCMA members also belong to ICMA, the FCCMA Board has been working on a proposed solution. FCCMA has asked ICMA to consider reviewing its current board makeup and to consider moving to a system where regional board seats are apportioned based on the size of the regional membership (similar to congress). Membership numbers would be generated at a date certain and would determine the number of seats that each region was granted. These seats would be locked into place for a set period of time until the process started over. This would address the fairness issue as larger regions would have more representation on the board. The Southeast region has the largest total number of members. Under this system, the Southeast would have four seats.
Mike Cernech, FCCMA Immediate Past President, and Jorge Gonzalez, former FCCMA District V Director, attended the last ICMA Board meeting to submit a proposal to increase Florida’s representation on the ICMA Board.
The chair of the ICMA membership committee made a motion to the full board to form a committee and study this matter which is the first step toward assigning the matter to a board committee for the formulation of a workplan. The workplan would be the formal study of the issue, engagement of membership and a formal resolution brought back for board action. This committee is called the Governance Subcommittee. The subcommittee will begin work in December.
If you have questions about this process, feel free to contact me, any Board member or staff.
