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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us October 14, 2005 OSF considering change to membership powers Internal debate, vote spurred by longtime watchdog Philip Lang By Jennifer Squires Ashland Daily Tidings The 19,548 members of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival will be asked to decide the future structure of the non-profit organization. The members, the majority of whom do not live in the Ashland area, will determine if they want to retain their power to review changes to the festival’s bylaws and articles of incorporation, attend annual meetings and vote for the organization’s board of directors. To retain those rights — under state law — members must allow other members access to their contact information, a privacy issue now raised for the first time in the history of the festival because long-time OSF member Philip Lang requested the membership database in late August. Lang, who had been critical of the festival in the past and won a lawsuit in 1999 to obtain OSF financial records, wants to contact other members because his attempts to add agenda items to the annual meeting have been stymied for three years, he believes. “This is not Philip vs. the Oregon Shakespeare Festival,” Lang said. “This is an organizational issue.” The vote-by-mail referendum will be sent out to the festival membership within a week, according to OSF executive director Paul Nicholson. The voting will occur between Oct. 28 and Nov. 28. “It’s not because he’s asking for the list,” Nicholson said. “He’s the catalyst for the discussion.” Members will decide if they want to retain their voting rights or relinquish all control to the board of directors. “What happened when I alerted the board to this, the board became very concerned about this,” Nicholson said. “It’s not about Mr. Lang. There are issues about members’ privacy. The board is very concerned about releasing the names at this stage.” OSF is a 501(c)3 non-profit and, according to the Oregon Revised Statute that governs such organizations, the member list is accessible by any member for meeting purposes. However, the statute sets strict guidelines for when and to whom a member database can be released. That access is limited to members only for the purpose of communicating with other members about concerns related to the organization’s annual meeting and can only be granted from when the meeting is announced up to the day of the meeting. Lang believes this language in the ordinance already provides adequate privacy protection. Do members care? Between 300 and 750 members, or less than 5 percent of the organization, vote by proxy on candidates proposed for the board at the annual meeting every March. Fewer than 100 attend the meeting. Still, Lang believes even apathetic voters will be reluctant to give up their control. “I’m hoping they will have a stunning defeat,” Lang said. The structure members will vote on would retain a membership base but remove any legislative power from that group. “Our membership program continues and they’re still called members, its just that from a legal point-of-view they do not have a right to vote for the board of directors,” Nicholson said. Lang’s concern is that giving all control to the board of directors, many of whom do not live in the area, will jeopardize the community’s say in OSF matters. “They have a distant board,” Lang said. “They have no connection to Ashland.” But Nicholson believes member privacy is the issue at hand and something people will want to preserve over the annual vote. “The whole membership program has changed dramatically over the last 25 years,” Nicholson said, explaining the organization had 2,500 members in 1980 and people had more of a personal ownership in the festival. “Over the years that has dissipated.” This erosion of personal ownership is exactly what concerns Lang. “I love the festival,” Lang said. “I do not like the direction it’s going in.” Southern Oregon, including Jackson, Josephine, Klamath and Curry counties, accounts for 13 percent of OSF’s membership, according Mallory Pierce, the festival’s membership coordinator. Approximately one-third of members are from Oregon, 47 percent are Californians and 13 percent are from Washington. The festival leadership has offered to mail a letter from Lang advocating a “no” vote to members with the ballot, so long as Lang drops his request for the database. He has said he will not waive his right to the membership list “because I’ve been flummoxed and lied to,” he said. Lang plans to meet with Ashland Mayor John Morrison today to discuss the issue and bring the topic to the Ashland City Council on Tuesday evening. Staff writer Jennifer Squires can be reached at 482-3456 x 3019 or [email protected]. 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