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BPAC reviews bylaws rewrite: bans in‑absentia chair elections, tightens governing‑board attendance rules and proposes committee name change to ATAC
Summary
Staff presented a comprehensive bylaws rewrite to reflect administrative separation from the city, ban in‑absentia elections for chairs, change an attendance policy that tightens penalties for governing‑board absences and to rename BPAC to the Active Transportation Advisory Committee; the committee will consider a recommendation to the governing board in May.
NPO staff presented a comprehensive redraft of MPO bylaws intended to remove obsolete city references, codify executive‑committee responsibilities and adjust attendance and telephonic‑participation rules.
Andrew Ray said the draft removes references to the policy board (replaced with governing board), rewrites officer references to executive director where appropriate, and harmonizes vocabulary across sections. He said the draft contains an explicit ban on in‑absentia elections for chair and vice chair across governing and advisory committees to prevent someone from being named chair while absent.
“The reason for that is we had some experiences in the past where there’s been attempts to do that ... I wanted to explicitly bar that from happening for any of the committees,” Ray said. The draft also proposes a stricter attendance policy for the governing board: an excused vs. unexcused absence system and immediate removal for members who violate attendance rules, whereas advisory committees retain a more gradual voting‑rights loss and grace period.
Staff also included a provision allowing one member from each jurisdiction to participate telephonically with at least 24‑hour notice; the provision preserves in‑person participation as the default and limits telephonic voting at the jurisdiction level. The draft updates the name of this advisory body from BPAC to Active Transportation Advisory Committee (ATAC) and clarifies appointment steps and representative categories (pedestrian, bicycle, and jurisdictional seats).
The committee asked clarifying questions about executive‑committee roles, telephonic logistics and differences between governing‑board and advisory‑committee rules. Staff said the bylaws draft will be presented again in May for a BPAC recommendation to the governing board, and the governing board will consider final adoption at its June meeting.
