Let’s talk about Power: If this is Our Co-op, How should we handle questions of Money, Power, Accountability & Labor Rights? What do You want? What questions and concerns about governance at Mariposa Food Co-op do you bring to the table? How possible actually is it to work within the current System to build collective power, or can the System truly be reformed? Let’s discuss and explore these issues together…
According to the Mariposa Administration:
Mariposa is governed, in part, by an elected Board of Delegates. Elected by Mariposa Member-owners, the Board oversees and evaluates management, reports on the state of the Co-op, oversees bylaws changes, and approves the budget. The Board uses the Policy Governance model, designed in major part to allow for accountability within the organization as a whole while emphasizing innovative leadership to support our overarching mission.
Board meetings are open to all Member-owners and occur on the first Tuesday of every month from 6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Mariposa encourages all Member-owners to participate in the elections to help us shape the future of our food co-op. All Board members serve a three year term and Board elections occur annually during the month of March. Any Member-owner can run for the Board and represent the interests, values, and vision for the future of our Co-op community. Elections happen in March every year and all Member-owners are encouraged to get involved!
From: https://mariposa.coop/governance
What though is this “Policy Governance” describing and should it be changed? Is simple reform of this system even enough? Can we create fundamental change at Mariposa by changing these rules, with origins in the controversial “Columinate” network of business consultants and before that with John Carver’s trademarked model of Board/CEO management structuring? This model is not without its critics and stands in contradiction to more grassroots community power models of participatory decision-making that directly include larger bodies of people. Columinate, through its Cooperative Board Leadership Development (CBLD) Program advertises rates of $5,000 and up for retreats such as those which our Mariposa Board members are typically required to participate in as part of the current system. For this reason and others, greater disclosure is very important. Join us to explore all the issues concerned and begin the discussion of the very important topic of how we can fundamentally change the system put into place when current CEO Aj Hess was consolidating their power back in 2016. Articles such as Consumer Grocery Co-op Consolidation by Filiberto Nolasco Gomez or WHY DO COOPS HATE UNIONS? by Marianne Garneau contain representative critiques of the corporate models sold to co-ops by Columinate. We can do much, much better than this.
This is part 4 of the series, “No Power Without Accountability“, concerned with transparency and participatory power at Mariposa Food Co-op.