May 2024 President’s Message
WOW! Thank you so much for your turnout at the Annual Meeting and the Community and Youth Expo on April 13, 2024! We are so grateful to our exhibitors, City Council President Pro-Tem James Tate, Community Liaison Lynn McNeal, State Representative Stephanie Young, Wayne County Commissioner Alisha Bell, to the staff at New St. Paul Tabernacle COGIC, our volunteers from outside Grandmont, law enforcement from Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, and to all of you for making it such a success! I was blown away by the turnout and so excited to see so many of you there. If you weren’t able to come, please know that we hope to have another community meeting this year to engage membership and you’re always welcome at monthly board meetings held on the first Saturday of the month at GRDC.
We voted to accept the changes to the by-laws and we elected a new set of board members for the 2024-2026 term. Congratulations to our newly elected board members: Yolanda Burnett, Alex Han-Voth, Danielle Jackson, Kavivi Muli, Diane Patterson, and Robert Patterson.
In total transparency, we had a tie for the first time and since there was no way to address this in the Bylaws, we decided to have both of the individuals who tied take a seat on the board.
This works out because usually, the board would appoint an 11th member. This way, the 11th member has been more democratically selected by you all. That being said, there are serious changes needed to both streamline the process and make it more modern for our elections process. Stay tuned for the proposed changes and another community meeting where we can come together to vote on these changes.
I am looking forward to the vibrant new additions to this board and all we can accomplish together for all of you!
In service,
Samantha
