A history of the NYC ExCom's Dysfunction from 1990 to 2012

Environmentalists in New York City have a right to expect that the Sierra Club is a valuable resource and organizational platform for their efforts. However, they must be warned: because of long-standing patterns of dysfunction, hypocricy and cronyism, activists should avoid the SC NYC Group. Because the handful of volunteer officers-for-life who run that group dominate the Atlantic (New York State) Chapter, they are free to do as much or as little as they please, and ignore Sierra Club internal rules without accountability or fear of enforcement. Someday, if enough Sierra Club members and senior volunteer leaders get disgusted, the situation may change. For today, environmentalists and sustainability activists in NYC should avoid the Sierra Club.

Sierra Club’s NYC Group and the Atlantic Chapter
A history of dysfunction from 1990 to 2012
Dan Miner, volunteer, www.BeyondOilNYC.org

Some Sierra Club chapters and groups in large urban areas are amazingly dynamic. The Los Angeles Chapter is the oldest and largest chapter in the country, made up of 62 regional groups, activity sections and committees, with 46,000 members. That's a tough act for anyone to follow. For an example of a more modest success, look at Chicago. The Sierra Club Chicago Group has 8,500 members, who have networking and clean-up events, and actively campaign for the local, state and national candidates they endorse. In contrast, Sierra Club activities in NYC are about as far down the ladder of functionality as you can go.The NYC Group – dominated by a small clique of long time volunteers - do virtually nothing themselves, while controlling the use of the Sierra Club brand name in NYC. They do not organize activities on its own, and the committees they list are all inactive. The Group has had a contentious relationship with National at least since 1990, when the clique sued Sierra Club National to prevent its dissolution from violation of Club procedures. Prior to the last Mayoral election, this clique refused to endorse Mayor Bloomberg, which prevented either the Atlantic Chapter or the National Group from endorsing Mayor Bloomberg, despite his record of national leadership on urban sustainability. (The Atlantic Chapter is the New York State Chapter. The Chapter Executive Committee prefers to keep the anachronistic, confusing old name.)

The clique, led by Jim Lane and Ken Baer, includes Annie Wilson, Carl Arnold, Diane Buxbaum, Edgar Freud, Moisha Blechman, and Irene Van Slyke. Olive Freud, although removed from Club leadership positions, is certainly still involved. It used to include Margaret Young, who was also removed from Club leadership positions, and is no longer active. I’m not sure whether Frank Morris is a member of the clique or just an ally. Although nominally a member of the ExCom, Anasa Scott is not a member of the clique, and may not actually be active within the Group ExCom. The new ExCom Chair, Thelma Fellows, is not a member of the clique but will have little influence on the ExCom despite her title. She was certainly chosen by the ExCom as a figurehead to convey the impression of change within the Group.

I have volunteered to do more than my share to remedy this situation, serving on Sierra Club NYC Group’s executive committee, and as Group chair from 2008 – 2010. I got involved with the Club and the NYC Group around 2006. Since then, and almost certainly for many years before, the NYC Group has been minimally active. It has seemed to have the primary function of providing members of the clique with positions as Sierra Club volunteer officers for life. I and other Club members have observed over and over that new volunteers were discouraged by the chronic dysfunction of the clique. Active hostility to outsiders, innovation, and requests for accountability have been the standard pattern.

Here’s one example: Olive Freud was known for rambling diatribes within meetings, and would erupt into anger at minimal provocation. Conducting effective, sane meetings was virtually impossible, especially because her behavior was condoned by the rest of the clique. Olive verbally abused Margaret Bettencourt, an extremely skilled and energetic new volunteer, within an ExCom meeting, and Margaret left the group.

This led to a petition signed by a plurality of the ExCom to the National Board, which removed leadership privileges from Mrs. Freud. Reversing this sensible decision has since become a cause célèbre of the NYC Group and the Atlantic Chapter ExCom.

Efforts to re-energize the NYC Group with a change in leadership were blocked by the clique. In a recent series of elections for Group officers, members of the clique relied on fraud and libel, abundantly documented, to remove me and other would-be reformers from office. In my October 2010 complaint to National Club leaders, I listed the violations of Sierra Club rules and asked that the offenders be removed from office, as provided by Sierra Club Code of Conduct. The National Board had the opportunity to address the problem at its root, but instead chose to dismiss the complaint, issuing in November 2010, a stern letter of warning to Atlantic Chapter leaders. Predictably, this letter only convinced Atlantic Chapter leaders that they were beyond reach of National enforcement and censure.

Since then the underlying issue has not gone away. Members of the clique are in full control of the NYC Group, as well as substantial control of the New York State Chapter. Of the 30 members of the Atlantic Chapter ExCom, 7 are from the NYC Group.

Spring, 2012: The NYC Group ExCom continues to routinely disregards Sierra Club Standards of Conduct, and that the leaders of the Atlantic Chapter ExCom won’t even acknowledge this is a problem

Despite the election of Frank Morris and Thelma Fellows to the NYC ExCom, and the naming of Ms. Fellows to the position of Group Chair, the following correspondence will demonstrate that the culture of the ExCom remains the same. After working on solo volunteer projects during 2011, I recognized that renewing my organizing efforts through Sierra Club offered more opportunity to make a positive difference than working as an unaffiliated individual. I decided to put the past behind me. I proposed a program of conservation activities through the NYC Group ExCom, which as you recall, does not organize activities on its own. Nor does it have active committees. I offered to organize a series of community forums (see original at the bottom of this email) to increase participation in City sustainability programs – a stated goal of PlaNYC, the Bloomberg Administration’s long-term sustainability program – which would also lay the groundwork for subsequent events to promote the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign, not yet visible in NYC. I made it clear that I was uninterested in any Club office and that I did not want a visible role in the forums or their promotion, preferring to work behind the scenes.

(While I thought that using the Sierra Club name to bring together neighbors and civic leaders to discuss community sustainability would be a win for everyone involved. Jim Lane disagreed. In his December 8 email, he expresses his reluctance to have any NYC Group activity that would give even the appearance of Sierra Club support of PlaNYC. It seems to be the position of the NYC ExCom to snub PlaNYC - which does not advance the national Sierra Club’s relationship with its major fiscal sponsor.)

The ExCom showed a complete lack of interest in discussing the merits of my conservation event proposal, and responded in public emails with surprising personal negativity. I believe that the email exchanges with the NYC Group ExCom, copied here, demonstrate ongoing, flagrant and serious violations of multiple Standards of Conduct. I forwarded the correspondence to Jeff Bohner, Atlantic Chapter Chair and Jessica Helm, Atlantic Chapter Conservation Chair, asked three times for an official Chapter response, and received none.

To be realistic, it was probably not an option for Jeff and Jessica to take the question of inappropriate behavior by the entire NYC Group ExCom to the Chapter ExCom for review. Remember, of the 30 members of the Atlantic Chapter ExCom, 7 are from the NYC Group. It is politically impossible for any objective review of NYC Group action to take place at the Chapter level. Chapter leaders are clearly unable and unwilling to request any higher standards of behavior or performance from the NYC Group. NYC Group leaders are confident that they can do anything they wish with complete impunity.

Click here to read my original correspondence with NYC ExCom leaders.
Really. Shouldn't someone in Sierra Club leadership be embarrassed by all this?