SVCA Appoints Board
- Susan Heavilin
- Sep 2
- 2 min read
The Sweetwater Valley Civic Association (SVCA) recently named their "new" board, although three of the four members have served on the board for decades.
An election was held on June 5, 2025. The slate of officers had been chosen and outgoing president Judy Tieber stated in her May 26, 2025 email to members: "We will no longer have nominations from the floor."
I was curious if this refusal of floor nominations had been added into their new bylaws. Felix Felix had taken the helm on that one. An eight-page document grew into 30 pages and reads more like a corporate tome. You might find it interesting to read The Sweetwater Valley Civic Association Adopted Bylaws.
Try as I might, I could not find any statement in the new bylaws declaring "no floor nominations" being allowed. That said, the parliamentary policy is usually to follow the latest edition of Robert's Rules of Order.
"If the bylaws are silent on the issue, the organization's adopted parliamentary authority, such as Robert's Rules of Order, dictates the procedure. Under Robert's Rules, nominations from the floor are normally in order and expected, even after a nominating committee has presented its slate." —Robert's Rules of Order
This disallowance of floor nominations is known as a self-perpetuating board. The same people are on the board year-after-year with no pathway for "outsiders" to run for a position.
I was told that less than 20 members attended the election meeting. It really didn't matter if you were voting or not because you could only vote the one board—they had hand-selected—into office.
This year's board consists of:
Felix Felix, President
Judy Tieber, Vice President
Steve Stonehouse, Treasurer
Liz Stonehouse, Secretary
All four of these board members also sit on the Sweetwater Community Planning Group Board (SCPG). Felix Felix is the President of the Sweetwater Valley Civic Association and the Chairman of the Sweetwater Community Planning Group. As such, he presides over both meetings.
In my opinion, this redundancy of board members cancels out the purpose of the Civic Association, or maybe even both organizations. There no longer exists a spark to bring new ideas in. It's just the "same old same old" with no ingenuity whatsoever.
Sweetwater Valley Civic Association members pose over 50 years ago at the Bonitafest Parade | Photo from the Bonita Museum & Cultural Center.
When I first joined SVCA, Michael Seiler was the president and did an amazing job. Meetings were actively attended with interesting topics and lively conversations. According to my club roster, we were over 100 strong.
Mike Seiler moved away from Bonita in about 2021.
SVCA has evolved into a species of Secret Society. Members are no longer given rosters or allowed to know who the other members are, that's only for the board to know now.
At last year's election, over 20 secret (nameless) absentee ballots were collected and used, even after the slate of officers had changed. The Nominating Committee was denied access to the roster and had no way to contact members to ask them to run for office. Then the election results were hidden and the election was cancelled until this year. But that's a story for another day.
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