Truth or Fiction? You decide.

CincyPACk's Unified Statement:

"Since 2009, CincyPAC has always offered a weighted endorsement process, with membership receiving the largest percentage of the determination. The organization does not allow membership to be the sole deciding factor in the endorsement process as a safeguard to ensure the process cannot be manipulated by an organized effort. We operate as a PAC with established core values, and endorse candidates who represent the YP voice and interest."

CincyPACk's 2009 Endosement:

www.facebook.com

"The candidates for Cincinnati Mayor, City Council and School Board have met with us, have given us information related to their platforms and have interviewed and answered our questions. Now it is time for you to weigh in and tell us what you think. The board of directors has voted and created a slate of suggested endorsements based upon interviews and questionnaire responses, but the final endorsement decision is yours. We ask that you vote by 5pm on Thursday, August 20th. Feel free to review all of the candidates' responses to our CincyPAC questionnaire (read their responses) before making your decision....

Remember, the final word is yours. Please vote today (only one vote per person)."

Response to the remaining board members CincyPACk

A board cannot be considered non-partisan if most of its board members donate to and volunteer for a specific candidate’s political campaign. This bias could be overcome if the endorsement decision was not weighted so heavily in favor of the board. The biased board members cast a vote with a 20% weight and the questionnaire is scored by the board with a 35% weight (of which 6% is based solely on whether the board member liked the candidate). So, 55% of the endorsement is determined by an unelected, self-perpetuating, biased board.

The board meeting took place at the beginning of this year, in which we voted to have the board rate the questionnaire and vote on the candidates in order to make a recommendation to the membership. The membership would then take into consideration the recommendation from the board and vote on the endorsement. It was agreed that the membership vote would count 100% even if they voted for someone the board did not recommend. In order to have members that were committed to CincyPAC’s core values, it was determined that we would enforce a membership fee of $25. Anyone could join regardless of age or residence. The process was decidedly different from past years.

The statement from the board would have you believe that the 45% was determined in advance, but that vote took place on September 20, 2011, AFTER the questionnaires were sent to and received from the candidates, AFTER the candidates were interviewed, AFTER the questionnaires were scored, and AFTER knowing who became members, just moments before the recommendation was sent to the members.

Board Resignation

Fellow Young Professionals -

In resigning from the CincyPAC Board, I thought you should be aware of the actions of the remaining board members that are designed to drown out the voices of you, the dues-paying members of the organization. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who was appointed to the bench by President Woodrow Wilson, once famously stated, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant.” With that in mind, I feel that I must shed light on the blatantly undemocratic, and highly partisan actions of the CincyPAC Board.

CincyPAC has always prided itself on being a member-driven organization. CincyPAC exists for the sole purpose of giving a voice to its members on issues that affect our city. That is why I so vigorously worked to recruit new members to bolster the dwindling numbers. I strongly believed that Young Professionals needed a sounding board for their thoughts and ideas. I looked forward to the endorsement process and hearing what the membership had to say on the candidates and issues on the ballot this year. 

I was horribly disappointed, though, with how the process evolved. The originally agreed upon process in which dues paying members like you had a 100% say in the PACs endorsement eroded, thanks to petty partisan politicking by several board members, many of whom have pledged their support to specific candidates. I am sad to report that the membership vote in the endorsement process will count for a paltry and inadequate 45% of the overall endorsement score that is used to choose CincyPAC endorsed candidates. In other words, an unelected Board of 12 has decided that they know better than you, and will weight their vote in the process more heavily. I was even more disappointed when a board member suggested that we keep our algorithm secret from our membership and the candidates seeking the endorsement. Even more discouraging was the suggestion that we count the votes first, and once the results were known by the board, the weight of the members vote could be changed to influence the final result.  Does this sound like a fair, non-partisan, open, and transparent process?

Not only were you mislead into thinking your vote actually counted, the candidates who interviewed for the CincyPAC endorsement were lied to about how the endorsements would be decided. How can any group expect to attain a significant and ongoing presence to shape the debate in our city when they lie to the very people they hope to influence?  I fear that the actions of the board have permanently damaged CincyPACs credibility with the leaders of our community.  Who in the future will agree to sit for an endorsement interview knowing that they were lied to about the process and the results are rigged to achieve a specific outcome?

My advice to you as a member is simple. If you really want your voice to be heard, your $25, along with your time and effort, is better spent elsewhere. Bright, enterprising Young Professionals are more than capable of making decisions for themselves on political candidates and issues. There is no need for your opinions to be filtered through an unelected board who sees themselves as intellectually and politically superior to the very people who they seek to lead. This kind of elitist attitude has no place in Young Professional circles, and only serves to weaken the advancement of our common goals. 

Republican? Democrat? Charterite? Something else? Donate directly to the candidate of your choice. Volunteer your time directly to ballot issues that you support. These are much better and more effective ways of making your voice heard than allowing your voice to be muffled by a self-perpetuating, Soviet-style group of ruling elites.  

Sincerely,

Aja Roberto