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Statement from Kern-Kaweah Chapter, Sierra Club
By Stephen Montgomery, Chapter Chair
February 5, 2022
At today’s regular business meeting of the chapter’s executive committee, we voted unanimously to endorse four petition candidates; Aaron Mair, Kathryn Bartholomew, Michael Dorsey, and Maya Khosla. It is the view of our ExCom that the Club culture is drifting away from the founders’ vision of a bottom up volunteer organization. While it’s true that we need and use professional expertise, the direction of how that expertise should best be used be held by the board. That board must reflect the values we hold dear, the values of volunteerism and member-up management, not top down “do what you’re told” directives from an upper management.
We also take a dim view of the efforts of some to erase portions of our history and founders citing non-Club related notions they espoused. In the case of Muir citing a statement he made early in life as proof he was a racist is disingenuous in that we must always allow for redemption. While the elder Joseph LeConte died holding to the racist beliefs he had inculcated into him in his youth growing up on a slave holding plantation, the views of Muir, on the other hand saw a different path and grew away from such beliefs.
Here is the statement of the four people we are endorsing. Note that among them is Aaron Mair who spoke to the chapter a few years ago at one of our banquets. The others are clear in their support of not only candidate Mair but of simultaneously and improperly censured board member Chad Hanson.
More information can be had here: https://grassrootschoice.weebly.com
- Stephen Montgomery, Chair, Sierra Club Kern-Kaweah Chapter
At today’s regular business meeting of the chapter’s executive committee, we voted unanimously to endorse four petition candidates; Aaron Mair, Kathryn Bartholomew, Michael Dorsey, and Maya Khosla. It is the view of our ExCom that the Club culture is drifting away from the founders’ vision of a bottom up volunteer organization. While it’s true that we need and use professional expertise, the direction of how that expertise should best be used be held by the board. That board must reflect the values we hold dear, the values of volunteerism and member-up management, not top down “do what you’re told” directives from an upper management.
We also take a dim view of the efforts of some to erase portions of our history and founders citing non-Club related notions they espoused. In the case of Muir citing a statement he made early in life as proof he was a racist is disingenuous in that we must always allow for redemption. While the elder Joseph LeConte died holding to the racist beliefs he had inculcated into him in his youth growing up on a slave holding plantation, the views of Muir, on the other hand saw a different path and grew away from such beliefs.
Here is the statement of the four people we are endorsing. Note that among them is Aaron Mair who spoke to the chapter a few years ago at one of our banquets. The others are clear in their support of not only candidate Mair but of simultaneously and improperly censured board member Chad Hanson.
More information can be had here: https://grassrootschoice.weebly.com
- Stephen Montgomery, Chair, Sierra Club Kern-Kaweah Chapter