The Wandering Lion
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The bylaws for Gerber/Hart featured on this page are those that were downloaded from the Gerber/Hart Library website on 2012/03/22. Here is the original link to the pdf at the Gerber/Hart Library website.

So far as anyone I queried knows, these just appeared today or yesterday (2012/03/21 or 2012/03/22).

My local copy of the Gerber/Hart bylaws that I downloaded on 2012/03/22 is here.

 

Bylaws

Bylaws are one of the fundamental organizing instruments of organizations in general and corporations in particular. After some time of anxious waiting, Gerber/Hart Library has posted its bylaws for public examination. This is a welcome development.

General Comments

These are among the most carefully crafted bylaws I have ever seen for a nonprofit organization. The lawyer who did this is to be commended for carefully achieving his or her objectives while staying within the Illinois statutes that govern nonprofits.

There is no date on the bylaws, as though we are to assume that they have existed from time immemorial. I am more accustomed to seeing bylaws that have, besides the bylaws themselves,

I guess there is no actual requirement that this be provided but I for one would feel more confident of the authenticity of such documents if they contained these items.

One small point that seems to place these bylaws as relatively recent appears on page 3 section 7 "Vacancies." Notice that subtopic (c) has been converted by the word processor to the copyright symbol ©. This would suggest that these are relatively recently written bylaws since the propensity of word processors to make this kind of change to the input actually entered is relatively recent. I believe that MicroSoft Word began doing this in 2007.

One also has to wonder why it took so long for Gerber/Hart management to publish these bylaws. It has been several weeks since a request for the bylaws was made by Kate Sosin, a reporter for the Windy City Times. If this is indeed the current set of bylaws, it could be reasonably assumed that simply printing or emailing a copy could be accomplished in a matter of minutes. Writing such a document, of course, takes considerably longer.

Prominent Features of the Bylaws

Several prominent features of the bylaws are evident:

Are These Bylaws Real?

More precisely, have they been adopted in conformity with prior bylaws? That's a good question and in the absence of prior sets of bylaws it cannot be reasonably determined whether this current set is genuine or a recent fabrication. Further, other records of the corporation would have to be examined to make determinations about things like membership records, board minutes, board resolutions, elections to the board and so forth. A detailed financial accounting that extends over a period of years would also be welcome.

Assuming such records exist they can be examined by the class of individuals mentioned above including "members." The difficulty in becoming a member makes it highly unlikely that anyone perceived as hostile by the current board and officers will ever be allowed to see the corporate records short of obtaining a court order. I would like to be proven wrong on this final point.

Conclusion

This current set of bylaws as published by Gerber/Hart Library clearly place all power in the hands of a three-person board. Currently, one of those board members apparently lives out of state. The current board president exercises power, by many accounts, in a tyrannical and authoritarian manner. All of this is disquieting.

A couple of ideas present themselves:

Overall, this current revelation from Gerber/Hart in no way ameliorates the pressing problem of preparing a new home and moving in. I'm still waiting to see how the outcome of that exercise unfolds.