Roosevelt Island Residents Association Censure Motion Against Common Council Member Frank Farance on Agenda For Wednesday's RIRA Meeting - Here's What The Motion Says

 Censure Image From MinnLawyer

As reported in post yesterday, the October 5, 2011 Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) meeting includes an agenda item to censure former RIRA President and current Planning Committee Chair Frank Farance. According to the Agenda item:

New Business (9:55) X B. Long- Resolution to censure F. Farance

What has Mr. Farance done that some members of the Common Council think deserves censure? Here's the explanation from the proposed RIRA Motion:

Motion to censure Common Council member Frank Farance

WHEREAS the RIRA Constitution states that Roosevelt Island residents “want to live together in harmony based on mutual respect and the voluntary sharing of certain responsibilities”, and

WHEREAS it is not in the best interests of the Common Council for deliberations to take place in a hostile and intimidating environment, and

WHEREAS Common Council member Frank Farance has engaged in conduct that is detrimental to the workings and deliberations of the Common Council in the following ways:

1.
Recklessly publicizing defamatory statements that impugn the personal and professional integrity of fellow members of the Common Council by making unfounded accusations of unethical conduct, fraud, and otherwise nefarious self-dealings without any evidence or basis of support for the truth of those accusations.
2.
Maliciously, and with defiant disregard, endangering the professional and public standing of fellow members of the Common Council in their individual and professional communities by recklessly publicizing such defamatory statements.
3.
Openly publicizing defamatory remarks in public forums denigrating the competence of
his fellow Common Council members in their professional lives.
4.
Attempting in his public e-mail communication to intimidate and bully fellow Common
Council members who disagree with him.
5.
Abusing his position as a Common Council Member by recklessly publicizing defamatory
statements and remarks impugning the integrity of non-Common Council members
of Subcommittees by making unfounded accusations of unethical conduct, fraud, and
otherwise nefarious self-dealings without any evidence or basis of support for the truth of said statements.
WHEREAS e-mails that Frank sent on September 25th, 2011, as well as his letter to the editor of the Main Street WIRE on August 27th, 2011 are just a few examples of this type of behavior, which has continued throughout his tenure on the Common Council,

THEREFORE, we hereby condemn the behavior of Frank Farance and censure him for the
above referenced conduct.

Here is a copy of Mr. Farance's letter to the Main Street WIRE editor and emails referenced in the resolution. In my opinion, one can disagree with some of the statements made by Mr. Farance in the letter and emails but they are not defamatory. Here's a general definition of defamation.

The whole idea of censuring Mr. Farance for publicly expressing his views on issues of concern to Roosevelt Island residents is ridiculous. Surely, there must be more important issues for RIRA to be discussing than trying to keep one member quiet. If a fellow RIRA member objects to statements made by Mr. Farance, the solution is not to censure him but to address the issues he raises and correct them, or just ignore him.

UPDATE 11:10 PM - RIRA Communications Chair Vini Fortuna clarifies the meaning of the censure motion.

Could you please update your post to make it clear that the motion it to "censure", not to "censor" Frank? That is being a big source of confusion:

to censure:
Express severe disapproval of (someone or something), typically in a formal statement

to censor:
Examine (a book, movie, etc.) officially and suppress unacceptable parts of it

People are reading the motion as if it was the second, but it's actually the first, and it's important to make that distinction. The way you presented the whole thing also made it look like the second, and the posting of the big red image of the word "censuré", meaning "censorship" in French was completely inappropriate.

UPDATE 10/11: As reported in this comment a few hours after the October RIRA meeting, the Censure Motion against Mr. Farance was approved by the RIRA Common Council by a vote of 12 in favor of the censure motion, 10 against and 4 abstaining.

Below is a video of the RIRA Common Council discussing the Censure Motion. Unfortunately, my camera battery ran out of power after approximately 36 minutes of the discussion and not all of the discussion is included in the video including Mr. Farance's response to the motion. About 80% of the discussion is included in the video.

Here's what happened. Some RIRA members in favor of the motion stated that they were personally hurt by, or objected to, what they believe (rightly or wrongly) are unfair and uncalled for communications by Mr. Farance and hoped that this Censure Motion would be a formal demonstration of RIRA's disapproval against Mr. Farance's actions.

Opponents of the resolution thought it unfair to censure Mr. Farance for his strong opinions and one RIRA member compared the motion to an angry mob with a torch directed at Mr. Farance. Another RIRA member questioned whether RIRA even had the authority in its bylaws, constitution or Robert's Rules to censure Mr. Farance.

After the RIRA members, other than Mr. Farance, who wished to speak on this issue did so, it was absolutely clear that Mr. Farance made no defamatory statements or accusations of fraud against anyone as charged in the motion.

Mr. Farance was the last RIRA Common Council Member to speak. He denied his statements were defamatory, said he did not violate any provisions of the RIRA Constitution or bylaws, asserted that the factual charges in the Censure Motion were unsubstantiated and that he is entitled to his opinions even if others disagree with him.

A majority of those RIRA members present did not vote for the Censure resolution. The final vote tally was 12 for Censure, 10 against and 4 abstentions. The Censure motion was approved because it received the most votes.

The Censure motion achieves no consequence against Mr. Farance other than its approval by a very divided RIRA.

Let's hope that now that this issue has been debated and acted upon, RIRA members can learn how to work together for the betterment of Roosevelt Island.

Here's the video. Make up your own mind.

You Tube Video of RIRA Censure Motion