Board & Officer Documents

Bylaws Article 7 names the four required offices and their core duties in outline; this document expands each into a working position description a candidate can actually read before deciding to run.

President. Presides at all general membership, board, and executive committee meetings; serves as the Council's primary point of contact with the Chicago Park District (Park Supervisor/Area Manager) and as its public representative; signs contracts, checks, and filings the Board has authorized; is an ex officio, non-voting member of every standing committee except the Nominating Committee; ensures the Annual Board Calendar (3-16) is followed. Minimum expectations: attend at least 75% of regular meetings; complete CPD Volunteer Application and background check within the required post-election window (see 1-27); complete new-officer orientation (3-11) within 30 days of taking office.

Vice President. Assumes the President's duties in their absence, incapacity, or resignation; ordinarily chairs the Governance Committee; leads at least one standing initiative assigned by the Board each term so the role carries real substance beyond succession-in-waiting.

Treasurer. Has custody of and accounts for all Council funds; maintains the books required under Bylaws Article 17 and the Financial Policies & Internal Controls Manual (Phase 4); presents a Treasurer's Report at every regular meeting; coordinates the annual budget, bank reconciliations, and any required state/federal/CPD financial filings; is the primary bank-account signatory alongside at least one other authorized signer (never a sole signatory, per the Authorized Signer Register in Phase 4).

Secretary. Gives all required meeting notices; records, drafts, and circulates minutes for approval; maintains the PAC Binder and Corporate Records Book (Phase 5); processes CPD Officer Update filings (3-08) whenever officers change; is the default custodian of this Organization document library's version history.

Each description closes with a standard succession clause: "If this office becomes vacant, duties transfer per Bylaws Article 11 and the Vacancy Appointment / Special Election Packet (3-25) until a successor is elected or appointed."

Eligibility (real CPD requirement, not a Council preference): current CPD guidance states "Only Chicago residents shall serve as officers" — members residing outside Chicago participate as general members only (Bylaws Article 5). No person may hold office in more than one PAC at the same time unless the community votes to permit it and CPD approves the exception, and a Council member who is also a Chicago Park District employee at 63rd Street Beach may not hold office and may only be a non-voting member, and must disclose their CPD employment (Bylaws Articles 6–7).

Under Bylaws Article 8, the elected officers (plus any additional elected directors) constitute the statutory Board of Directors of the Illinois not-for-profit corporation once incorporated. This description exists because "PAC officer" and "Illinois corporate director" are not automatically the same role in every reader's mind, even though this Council structures them as the same people.

A director's duties are fiduciary, not merely administrative: the duty of care (exercise the diligence an ordinarily prudent person would in a like position — concretely, this means actually reading the Treasurer's Report before voting to approve the budget, not rubber-stamping it), the duty of loyalty (act in the Council's interest, not a personal or third party's — the reason the Conflict of Interest Policy and recusal record exist), and the duty of obedience (act within the Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, and applicable law, including CPD's own guidance where it controls per Bylaws Article 3). Directors approve the annual budget, authorize contracts above the Delegation of Authority Matrix's officer-approval threshold (Phase 2, document 2-36), and are legally accountable for the corporation's compliance filings (Illinois annual report, any federal exemption filing) even when a specific officer executed them — accountability doesn't stop at whoever signed the form.

Directors who are not also PAC officers (if the membership ever elects additional at-large directors) hold the same fiduciary duties without the day-to-day operational duties assigned to officers under 3-01, and are expected to attend board meetings, review financial reports before (not during) the meeting where they're presented, and disclose conflicts on the same annual and as-they-arise schedule as officers (3-12). A director who consistently fails to meet these expectations is subject to the same Removal / Recall Due-Process Procedure (3-27) as an officer, even though a non-officer director's removal doesn't also vacate an elected office.

New directors receive this description as part of new-officer orientation (3-11), not as a standalone document handed over separately — the fiduciary framing is meant to sit alongside, not instead of, the practical duties in 3-01. Where a specific board decision carries real fiduciary weight (approving a contract above the officer-approval threshold, accepting or declining a major gift, voting on a budget with a material deficit), the minutes should reflect that each director had the relevant materials in advance and had the opportunity to ask questions before voting — not just that a vote occurred. This is the record that would matter if a director's exercise of care were ever questioned after the fact, and it costs nothing to keep contemporaneously versus reconstructing it later from memory.

Signed once per year by every officer/director, so expectations are renewed rather than assumed to carry over silently term after term.

Signed within the same window as the Officer Acceptance of Office form (3-04) for a newly elected officer — the two are completed together, not on separate schedules — and re-signed by every returning officer at the start of each new term even if nothing in their personal circumstances has changed, so no officer is ever serving under an agreement more than a year old. A pattern of an officer falling short of a specific commitment in this agreement (chronic absence despite the 75% standard, a disclosed-but-unresolved conflict, a missed handover obligation) is first addressed informally by the President or Governance Committee chair; if it continues, it becomes a documented item feeding the Board Self-Assessment (3-18) and, if serious or repeated enough, grounds for the Removal / Recall Due-Process Procedure (3-27). The agreement itself carries no independent enforcement mechanism beyond those two paths — it exists to make expectations explicit and signed-off, not to create a separate disciplinary process.

Completed immediately following each election (see Election Minutes, 1-16) — this is the document that actually starts the clock on the CPD background-check window and the new-officer orientation checklist (3-11).

A short, separately signed corporate-law record distinct from 3-04 above — where Illinois corporate practice expects a director's consent to serve as its own document (rather than folded into the PAC's own officer-acceptance paperwork), this form fills that gap.

Filed in the Corporate Records Book (Phase 5) alongside the Initial Corporate Organizational Consent (1-25) or the relevant year's board-composition minutes — a permanent record, since Illinois corporate practice expects the minute book to show, at any point in the corporation's history, exactly who consented to serve as a director and when.

Executed before the director takes any board action, not retroactively after the fact — a person who attends and votes at a board meeting before signing this form has, in practical effect, already begun acting as a director, so the Secretary's standing instruction is to collect this consent at the same sitting where the election or appointment is finalized rather than treat it as paperwork to catch up on later. For a mid-term appointee filling a vacancy under the Vacancy Appointment / Special Election Packet (3-25), this consent is executed the same day as the Board's appointment resolution, not deferred to the next regular meeting.

This is the internal operations list — never confused with the Public Leadership Roster (3-07) below, which deliberately omits personal contact information. Access restricted to the Secretary and President; distributed to fellow officers only as needed for direct coordination, never posted publicly or shared with vendors/partners.

What actually gets published on the site's Board & Meetings page: current officer names, titles, term end dates, and a single shared Council contact channel (e.g., the Contact page form or a general email) — deliberately no personal phone numbers or home addresses. Updated within one week of any officer change and cross-checked against the CPD Officer Update Form (3-08) so the public page and CPD's own records never drift out of sync.

CPD's own official form for reporting officer changes — obtain the current version directly from CPD rather than improvising a substitute. Submitted every time an officer is elected, resigns, is removed, or a vacancy is filled, ordinarily within the same week as the Officer Transition Checklist (3-28) is completed. Filed alongside its submission confirmation in the PAC Binder.

Whichever form turns out to be correct, the Secretary's practice is the same: submit within the same week as the underlying change, keep a dated copy of exactly what was submitted (not just a note that it was sent), and retain any confirmation CPD provides — an email acknowledgment, a stamped copy, or a case number. If CPD provides no confirmation of receipt at all, the Secretary follows up in writing after 30 days rather than assuming silence means the filing was accepted; this follow-up is itself logged, since "we submitted it and never heard back" is not the same as "CPD has current officer records on file" if the question ever comes up during a dispute or a Gate 0 determination.

This is the same confidential status log described in Phase 1 (document 1-28), referenced here because it is fundamentally a board-operations record: it is what the President and Governance Committee check before letting an elected officer sign anything, chair a committee, or handle members' personal data. Tracks submission and clearance dates only — never the underlying background-check report contents — and flags any officer whose clearance has lapsed for immediate Governance Committee attention.

A standing reference manual, not a one-time onboarding email, so a new officer's first 90 days are guided rather than improvised. The manual is organized as seven modules, each short enough to read in one sitting, and is handed to every newly elected officer alongside the New Officer Orientation Checklist (3-11) so reading and doing happen together rather than reading now, forgetting later.

Module 1 — Who we are and aren't. Opens with the Council's advisory-only relationship to CPD (Bylaws Article 3): the Council cannot direct CPD staff, bind CPD to anything, or speak on CPD's behalf, and every officer needs to be able to explain that distinction to a member of the public within the first week of taking office. Covers the Gate 0 status in plain terms (63rd Street Beach sits inside Jackson Park, which already has a recognized Advisory Council; CPD has not yet confirmed whether a separate PAC here is possible) and walks through the full "Do Not Cross" boundary list from the Organization overview page with one concrete example per boundary, so it reads as real guidance rather than a warning label.

Module 2 — Governance basics. The Bylaws' own structure article-by-article in summary form; how quorum and voting actually work in practice (a worked example: 14 voting members in good standing, quorum is the greater of 10 or 10%, so 10 members must be present); the committee structure and who chairs what; and a plain-English walk-through of the Delegation of Authority Matrix (Phase 2, 2-36) with two or three worked examples of purchases or commitments at different dollar thresholds, so a new Treasurer instantly knows whether a given expense needs Board approval or not.

Module 3 — Illinois nonprofit duties. The duty of care, loyalty, and obedience explained without legal jargon, plus concrete examples of what a conflict-of-interest disclosure actually looks like in practice (a board member's spouse owns a company being considered as an event vendor, for instance) and why the corporation and the PAC's elected offices are legally the same body once incorporated — a point new officers reliably find confusing.

Module 4 — Finance basics. How money actually moves from a donation or fundraiser through the bank account to a paid bill, in a simple flow diagram; who can approve what dollar amount without further sign-off; where the current budget and the last three Treasurer's Reports live; and the two-signature rule for every disbursement.

Module 5 — Meetings. The annual calendar, the 14-day standard notice and 48-hour emergency-meeting notice rules, how minutes get drafted/approved/published, and the recording-consent rule (no recording without advance notice and no objection).

Module 6 — Beach-specific issues. Stewardship boundaries in the dunes/natural area, the water-safety liaison role's hard limits (no lifeguard/rescue functions, ever), and the working relationship with the Jackson Park Advisory Council under the Inter-Council Coordination Protocol (G0-05), if adopted.

Module 7 — Records. Where the physical PAC Binder and the Digital Governance Repository (Phase 6) actually live, who has access to what, and how to request access if a new officer doesn't have it yet.

Reviewed and updated by the Governance Committee at least annually, and immediately after any bylaws amendment, CPD guidance change, or officer-transition lesson-learned significant enough to warrant a manual update.

Signed off by the Secretary once every item is complete, typically within 30 days of taking office.

Completed by every officer/director at the start of each term and immediately upon any material change — not just once at onboarding and forgotten.

The disclosure asks, at minimum: (1) business relationships with prospective vendors, contractors, or sponsors of the Council, including any ownership stake, board seat, or paid consulting relationship; (2) family relationships with other officers, staff, or vendors doing business with the Council; (3) any donor, grantor, or partner relationship that could create a real or perceived conflict, including gifts or favors above a nominal value received from anyone doing or seeking business with the Council; (4) any position, paid or volunteer, with an organization that could compete with or influence the Council's decisions (including, notably, any role with the Jackson Park Advisory Council or another nearby PAC); and (5) an open-ended "anything else a reasonable person would want to know" question, since a checklist can never anticipate every real conflict.

Reviewed by the Governance Committee within 30 days of collection; any disclosed conflict is logged and, where a specific vote or contract is affected, triggers a recusal recorded on the Conflict Recusal Record (3-13) at the actual meeting where the matter arises.

Most disclosures resolve with a recusal and nothing more — that is the normal, expected outcome and carries no stigma. A disclosure becomes something more serious in two situations: (1) the relationship is significant enough that recusal alone doesn't remove the conflict's influence (e.g., a Treasurer's immediate family member is the sole owner of the vendor being considered for a large contract) — here the Governance Committee can recommend the Board decline to proceed with that vendor/transaction entirely rather than merely noting the recusal; or (2) a conflict surfaces after the fact that was not disclosed when it should have been — this is treated as a Code of Conduct matter in its own right, referred to the Governance Committee for review and, if the non-disclosure was material and appears deliberate, considered as grounds under the Removal / Recall Due-Process Procedure (3-27). Completed disclosures are retained in the Corporate Records Book (Phase 5) for the officer's full tenure plus the standard retention period afterward, since a disclosure's absence years later is hard to distinguish from a disclosure that was simply never asked for.

Every recusal is recorded in the meeting minutes as a matter of course; this standalone log exists so a pattern of recurring conflicts (same person, same vendor, repeatedly) is visible to the Governance Committee without re-reading a year of minutes.

A one-page signed acknowledgment that the officer/director has received, read, and agrees to follow both the current CPD PAC Code of Conduct (1-02) and the Council's Supplemental Member Code of Conduct (Phase 5, 5-25). Signed annually and immediately upon any CPD revision to the underlying Code — the acknowledgment date and Code version are both recorded, since "I agreed to the Code" is only meaningful if it's clear which version.

Signed by anyone with access to membership applications, sign-in sheets, background-check status logs, or donor/financial records — not just officers. Commits the signer to: access this data only as needed for their role; never copy it to personal devices or unapproved cloud accounts; never share it outside the Council without authorization; and return or delete access immediately upon leaving their role (cross-referenced to the Digital Account & Credential Handover Record, 3-29).

Adopted at the first board meeting of each term, laying out: the quarterly (minimum) regular meeting dates required by Bylaws Article 12; election timing; budget-adoption timing; the annual filing deadlines pulled from the Initial Annual Compliance Calendar (1-34) and the broader compliance dashboard on the Organization overview page; strategic-planning check-ins; and the annual policy/bylaw review cycle (Phase 2, document 2-40). One calendar, one place, rather than each officer tracking their own deadlines independently.

Maintained per meeting and rolled up quarterly; feeds the Board Self-Assessment (3-18) and, if the Bylaws set a good-standing attendance threshold, the Removal / Recall Due-Process Procedure (3-27) if a pattern of absence needs to be addressed formally rather than informally.

An annual, honestly-answered questionnaire, scored 1–5 per question (1 = needs real attention, 5 = strong) rather than a simple yes/no, so trends are visible year over year rather than a static pass/fail.

Five sections, each with 3-5 concrete questions: Engagement (Did I attend at least 75% of meetings this year? Did I read materials before, not during, meetings?); Compliance (Are my filings, background check, and conflict disclosure actually current right now, not "probably fine"?); Strategy (Did the Board spend meeting time on the Council's actual strategic priorities, or mostly on administrative housekeeping?); Finance (Do I actually understand the Treasurer's Reports I'm voting to approve, or am I trusting the Treasurer without independently following the numbers?); and Succession (Is there a credible next slate of candidates for my own office and at least one other, per the Board Recruitment & Succession Plan, 3-19?).

Individual responses are anonymized before the Governance Committee compiles a summary; results are discussed at a board retreat or dedicated agenda item, not filed silently — the point is course-correction, not paperwork, and any section scoring consistently low across the Board becomes a specific agenda item for the following quarter.

Distributed as a simple written or digital form (paper at a meeting, or a shared document each officer completes independently) rather than a group discussion, precisely so an officer can score the Board honestly without answering in front of the people the answers are about; the Governance Committee chair is the only person who sees individual responses before they're aggregated, and even the chair's own responses are anonymized in the compiled summary by whoever tallies it. The compiled results and the resulting follow-up agenda items are summarized, in aggregate form only, in the Board Self-Assessment Report that feeds the Annual Meeting Report (Phase 10, 10-19 and 10-27) — this is one of the few internal governance documents that surfaces, in summary form, to the broader membership and, where CPD's reporting expects evidence of active board governance, to CPD as well.

A living map of who the Council needs at the table versus who's actually there, reviewed annually before the Nominating Committee begins candidate outreach (3-20), so recruitment is proactive rather than "whoever happens to volunteer."

Constituency map. The plan tracks current Board representation against the beach's real constituencies and flags gaps in writing rather than leaving them to informal impression: longtime drummers and cultural-tradition participants; dune/environmental stewards; accessibility advocates and beach-wheelchair/accessible-walk users; youth and family program participants; nearby residents (including the Chicago-residency requirement's practical effect on who can hold office); and small-business/vendor voices from the beach's marketplace and events side. For each constituency, the plan records whether a current officer or director represents that voice, and if not, who the Nominating Committee should be actively recruiting from.

Recruitment pipeline. Three stages, tracked with names and dates rather than left informal: (1) Identify — ongoing, via volunteer sign-ups, event attendance, stewardship workday participation, and direct outreach at least 90 days before the annual election; (2) Cultivate — invite prospects to a committee, a workday, or a meeting as a non-voting guest before asking them to run for office, so a first-time candidate has already seen how the Council actually operates; (3) Nominate — hand off to the Nominating Committee's formal process (3-20) once a prospect is ready to be considered.

Term-limit and burnout watch. The plan also tracks how many consecutive terms each officer has served, flagging (without mandating turnover) any office held by the same person for more than three consecutive one-year terms, so the Board proactively discusses succession before a sudden, unplanned departure forces the issue.

The full plan is reviewed by the Board at least once a year, timed to land before the Nominating Committee's recruitment window opens under the Election Manual's day-count timeline (3-21) — reviewing it after recruitment has already started defeats the point. A flagged three-plus-term officer is not asked to step down automatically; the Governance Committee raises it as a direct, private conversation about whether continuing serves the officer and the Council, and documents the outcome (continuing with the Board's awareness, or beginning a transition) rather than letting the flag sit unaddressed year after year. The constituency map and the term-limit register both feed the Succession & Leadership Development Review the Council produces annually under Phase 10 (10-26), so this working document and that external-facing report stay consistent with each other rather than telling two different stories.

Establishes the Nominating Committee as an independent election administrator, not an extension of the sitting President's preferences.

Composition. Three to five voting members in good standing, appointed by the Board at least 60 days before the election meeting; members who are themselves standing for re-election that cycle should not chair the committee and, where the committee's size allows, should recuse from deliberating their own candidacy's eligibility. The committee elects its own chair from among its appointed members.

Scope. Candidate outreach in coordination with the Board Recruitment & Succession Plan (3-19); eligibility review of every nominee under the Candidate Eligibility Certification (3-22); ballot preparation (1-14); and administering the vote itself, including the Election Meeting Agenda (1-12) and the Ballot Custody / Security Procedure (3-24). The committee does not have authority to disqualify a candidate on grounds other than the Bylaws' actual eligibility criteria (Chicago residency for officer candidacy, good-standing membership, and any additional criteria the Board has adopted and published in advance) — personal or political disagreement with a candidate is never a valid disqualification.

Reporting. A written slate report to the full membership at least 14 days before the election meeting, alongside the required Election Notice (1-11), naming every certified candidate and the office each is seeking.

Sunset. The committee sunsets automatically after certifying that cycle's election results and is reconstituted, not automatically renewed, ahead of the next election cycle — it is not a standing permanent committee.

If the Board cannot appoint three eligible, willing members — a real risk in a small, all-volunteer PAC — the Board itself serves as an ad hoc Nominating Committee for that cycle only, with any Board member standing for re-election recusing from that committee's eligibility deliberations exactly as they would if seated on a smaller dedicated committee. This contingency is documented in the election record for that cycle so it reads as a known, adopted fallback rather than an unexplained departure from the normal structure. Internal committee deadlocks (an even-numbered committee split on a candidate's eligibility) are broken by the committee chair's vote; if the chair is the one recused, the matter goes to the full Board for resolution before the nomination window closes.

Consolidates every election-related document elsewhere in this library into one step-by-step procedure a Nominating Committee member can follow without having to hunt across phases, with an illustrative day-count timeline built backward from election day:

1. Day 0 (election day minus 90): Nominating Committee appointed by the Board (3-20); candidate recruitment begins per the Board Recruitment & Succession Plan (3-19).
2. Day minus 21: Nomination window opens; Nomination Record (1-13) begins tracking self-nominations and committee-solicited nominations, each with a signed Acceptance of Nomination.
3. Day minus 16: Nomination window closes; Candidate Eligibility Certification (3-22) completed for every nominee before any name is placed on a ballot.
4. Day minus 14 (the real CPD-required floor — never less): Election Notice issued (1-11) and posted at the park per current CPD notice requirements; Campaign Conduct Rules (3-23) distributed to every certified candidate; the written slate report (from 3-20) goes out to the membership.
5. Day minus 3 (virtual-meeting only): if the election meeting is held virtually, the agenda and prior meeting's minutes are made available per Bylaws Article 13's 3-day rule.
6. Day 0: Election Meeting Agenda (1-12) followed exactly; a confirmed Chicago Park District representative is present per current CPD requirements (1-17); ballots distributed only to confirmed eligible voters under the Ballot Custody / Security Procedure (3-24); votes counted immediately by at least two non-candidate members; results announced at the same meeting.
7. Day 0 + 1–7: Ballot Tally Sheet and Election Certification finalized (1-15); Election Minutes drafted (1-16); results submitted to CPD.
8. Day 0 + 7–30: Officer Acceptance forms signed (3-04); CPD Officer Update filed (3-08); New Officer Orientation begins (3-11).

Contested or unopposed races. Where a candidate or slate of candidates is unopposed, the Bylaws' amendment/voting provisions permit election by voice vote at the discretion of the presiding officer rather than a full written ballot, consistent with real comparator-PAC practice; any tie or plurality dispute is resolved by immediate runoff among the tied candidates after dropping the candidate with the fewest votes, per Bylaws Article 10.

Write-in candidates. Permitted for any office where no certified candidate exists or where a voter wishes to name someone other than a certified nominee, provided the write-in name corresponds to a member who would have met the Candidate Eligibility Certification's criteria (3-22) had they been nominated in time — a write-in vote for an ineligible person (a non-Chicago-resident write-in for an officer race, for instance) is void as to that office and noted as such on the Ballot Tally Sheet, not silently counted.

Virtual/electronic voting. Where the Board has adopted an electronic voting method under the Ballot Custody / Security Procedure (3-24), that method must be tested before the election meeting and must produce the same auditable record a paper ballot would — this Manual does not treat electronic voting as a lesser-scrutiny option, only a different mechanism for the same custody standard.

After-election review. Within 30 days of any election, the outgoing Nominating Committee documents what worked and what didn't — timeline slippage, notice problems, turnout, any disputed step — in a short written note attached to the Election Minutes (1-16). This note is the first thing the next cycle's Nominating Committee reads, and is the mechanism by which this Manual itself gets updated rather than silently drifting from actual practice.

Updated any time CPD's notice/attendance rules change, or after any election where the After-Election review surfaces a process gap.

Completed and certified before a candidate's name is placed on the Official Ballot (1-14) — resolving eligibility questions before an election, rather than after results are already announced, is what keeps a contested race from becoming a governance crisis.

Adopted before any contested election and distributed to every certified candidate alongside the slate report.

Prohibited conduct: using Council funds, the Council's email list, website, or social media accounts to promote one candidate's campaign over another's; using the confidential Board & Officer Contact Roster or the internal membership contact list (distinct from the Public Leadership Roster, 3-07) for campaign outreach without each contact's opt-in consent; harassment, intimidation, or personal attacks directed at another candidate or their family; and knowingly false statements about another candidate's eligibility, record, or positions, or about the Council's own affairs made to sway the vote.

Permitted conduct, stated explicitly so candidates aren't left guessing: a candidate statement of reasonable length included in the slate report; direct, respectful conversations with fellow members at Council meetings and events; and factual clarification of a candidate's own record if misrepresented by another party.

Enforcement. A complaint about campaign conduct is filed in writing with the Governance Committee, which reviews it on an expedited basis (target: within 5 days, given election timelines are short) and can, at most, disqualify a candidate under the Candidate Eligibility Certification process (3-22) or refer serious conduct to the Removal / Recall Due-Process Procedure (3-27) if the candidate already holds another office — the Governance Committee cannot itself declare an election result or overturn a vote already certified.

Response scaled to severity, not one-size-fits-all. A first, minor violation (an over-eager social post using a personal rather than institutional account, quickly corrected when raised) typically resolves with a private written note from the Governance Committee and a correction, not a disqualification proceeding. A repeated violation after that note, or a single serious one (using Council funds or the confidential contact roster, direct harassment of another candidate), moves to the formal review described above. During the election meeting itself, the presiding officer retains independent authority to address conduct occurring in real time — cutting off a personal attack during floor discussion, for instance — without waiting for the Governance Committee's separate process to convene.

Covers the physical/digital chain of custody for ballots from printing through final CPD filing.

Before the meeting: ballots are printed or generated only by the Nominating Committee, from the certified candidate list (3-22) only, and stored in a locked location (a locked cabinet or the PAC Binder's secure supplement) accessible only to the Committee chair and one other Committee member until the election meeting.

At the meeting: ballots are distributed only to attendees matched against the sign-in/eligibility list, one per confirmed eligible voter; for a virtual or hybrid election meeting, the Board's adopted electronic-voting method must produce an equivalent auditable record (who voted, that each voter voted once, and the vote tally) before it may be used in place of paper ballots.

Counting: immediately after voting closes, by at least two people who are not themselves candidates in that election and ideally not officers seeking re-election in that same cycle; a Ballot Tally Sheet is completed on the spot (1-15), read aloud, and results announced at the same meeting; ties and runoffs are resolved by immediate runoff among tied candidates per Bylaws Article 10.

Final custody — per real PAC practice, not internal Council retention: after counting, all ballots are placed in an envelope and presented to the CPD representative present at the election (1-17) for the Park District's own filing. This is a deliberate departure from how the Council handles most of its other records (which it retains itself under the Records Retention Policy, Phase 5) — ballots specifically go to CPD, and the Council keeps only the Tally Sheet and Election Minutes as its own record of the outcome.

Discrepancies and recounts. If the number of ballots counted does not match the number distributed against the sign-in/eligibility list, the discrepancy is noted on the Tally Sheet before results are announced, and the count is redone once before proceeding — a mismatch is resolved on the spot, not footnoted and ignored. Any certified candidate may request a recount of their own race, in writing, within 48 hours of results being announced; a requested recount is conducted by the original two counters plus one additional member who did not participate in the first count, using the same ballots (or the electronic system's own audit log, for an electronic election), and its result is final. A recount does not restart the 14-day CPD notice clock or delay the seating of officers whose races are not in dispute.

A ready-to-use packet for the two paths Bylaws Article 11 allows for a mid-term vacancy.

Decision worksheet. The Board answers three questions to choose a path: (1) How much of the term remains — if fewer than 90 days remain until the next regular election, appointment is strongly preferred over a special election given the administrative cost of running a full election for a few months' service; (2) Is there an available, eligible, willing candidate the Board can appoint by resolution — if not, a special election is the only real option regardless of time remaining; (3) Does the vacancy affect a financial-signatory office (Treasurer) — if so, interim signatory authority should be resolved immediately regardless of which path is chosen, since bank access cannot wait for a full election cycle.

Path A — Board appointment: a short-form nomination (any Board member may nominate an eligible member), a Board vote recorded in the minutes, and immediate completion of the Officer Acceptance form (3-04) and CPD Officer Update filing (3-08) — per current CPD guidance, a new Registration Form must be submitted to CPD immediately after any vacancy is filled.

Path B — special election: follows the same Election Manual sequence (3-21) compressed to whatever timeline the vacancy allows, with the 14-day CPD notice minimum still applying regardless of urgency. Worked example: a vacancy discovered on day 0 with the 14-day CPD notice floor as the only hard constraint compresses to roughly notice and slate confirmation by day 14, the special election meeting on day 15-21, and officer seating within a week after that — materially faster than the full 90-day cycle in the Election Manual, but never faster than the notice floor allows.

Interim signatory authority. Where the vacancy affects the Treasurer's office specifically, the Board passes a short interim-signer resolution at the same meeting the vacancy is acknowledged — naming the President or another current officer as a temporary second signatory alongside the remaining authorized signer — so no period exists where the Council's accounts have only one active signer. This interim authority is explicitly time-limited to "until the vacancy is filled per Path A or B above" and is documented in the minutes and the Authorized Signer Register (Phase 4), not left as a standing, undocumented arrangement.

A dated, written resignation is what actually triggers the CPD Officer Update filing (3-08), removal from bank signatory authority, and the credential handover (3-29) — an informal verbal resignation or a quiet stop in attendance should always be converted to this written record before treating the seat as vacant.

Removal of an elected officer is serious and should never happen informally or by a snap vote at the end of an unrelated meeting.

Step 1 — Written notice. A removal proceeding begins only with a written notice of the specific grounds (material breach of the Code of Conduct, repeated unexcused absence, breach of fiduciary duty, or another cause specified in the Bylaws), delivered to the officer at least 10 days before any vote, and naming the meeting at which the vote will occur.

Step 2 — Opportunity to respond. The officer may respond in writing before the meeting and/or address the body deciding the matter (Board or general membership, per Bylaws Article 11) directly before the vote — the officer is not required to leave the room for this step, only for the deliberation and vote itself if a conflict-of-interest recusal applies.

Step 3 — The vote. A two-thirds vote of voting members present at a meeting called specifically for that purpose, per Bylaws Article 11 — not a simple majority, and not a vote folded into general new-business at a regular meeting without the required advance notice.

Step 4 — If removal is upheld. Immediate escalation into the standard transition process: CPD Officer Update filed the same week (3-08), credential handover completed within 5 business days (3-29), and the vacancy filled per the Vacancy Appointment / Special Election Packet (3-25).

Underlying complaint. Any complaint that triggered the removal proceeding is also logged through the Complaint Intake, Response & Escalation Procedure (Phase 5) so there is one coherent record of the underlying issue rather than two competing files — the removal vote and the complaint record should reference each other by date.

No further internal appeal. Once the vote is taken and certified in the minutes, this procedure provides no additional internal appeal beyond the process already completed — a removed officer who disputes the outcome has the same recourse any member would (raising it as a complaint through Phase 5, or, if they believe the vote itself was procedurally defective, requesting the Governance Committee review whether Step 1-3 were actually followed). Removal from an office is distinct from expulsion from membership entirely: unless the underlying conduct also triggers separate membership-termination provisions under the Bylaws, a removed officer retains ordinary member rights and may run for office again in a future election, subject to the same eligibility rules as any other candidate.

The full record — written notice, any response received, the vote tally, and the resulting transition — is retained permanently in the Corporate Records Book (Phase 5), cross-referenced to the Complaint Case File (5-47) where one exists, since a removal is exactly the kind of event that may resurface years later in a membership dispute, a CPD inquiry, or simply as institutional memory the next Governance Committee needs.

One checklist per office, because a Treasurer's handover looks nothing like a Secretary's handover. Most transition failures aren't dramatic — they're an informal "I'll send that over when I get a chance" that quietly never happens, leaving the incoming officer to rebuild access and context from scratch weeks into their term. Each checklist below exists so a handover is a defined, checkable task list with a joint sign-off at the end, not a good-faith intention.

President: transfer of the CPD liaison relationship (introduce the incoming President to the Park Supervisor/Area Manager directly, don't just email an update); any signature authority on contracts or the Council's institutional email; committee-chair appointment records; and a briefing on any open CPD correspondence or pending capital/fundraising conversations.

Vice President: Governance Committee chair transition (or reassignment); any standing initiative the outgoing VP was leading, with a written status note so it doesn't stall.

Treasurer: bank signatory paperwork updated with the bank directly (this can take days — start it before the outgoing Treasurer's last day, not after); accounting software/ledger access transferred; the current Chart of Accounts, most recent bank reconciliation, and outstanding-bills list handed over; any grant-reporting deadlines flagged; tax filing status (990-series, IL AG registration if applicable) briefed.

Secretary: physical PAC Binder custody transferred; Digital Governance Repository admin access transferred; the meeting-notice distribution list and posting-location list handed over; any in-progress minutes or unfiled CPD Officer Update forms completed before handover, not left half-done.

Shared items, every office: digital credential transfer (3-29); CPD Officer Update filed (3-08); open action items transferred with status notes, not just a file dump; outstanding contracts/vendor relationships flagged to the incoming officer by name; and a joint sign-off from both outgoing and incoming officer confirming the handover is complete — not just started — with the Secretary countersigning as record-keeper.

Every institutional account should be created under a Council-controlled email/identity from day one specifically so this handover is a password reset, not a rebuild — see the Digital Access / Credential Management Policy in Phase 5 for the underlying "institution, not the individual, owns the account" rule this record enforces.

Elected-officer succession is covered above; this document covers everyone else the Council actually depends on — committee chairs, the volunteer coordinator, a long-serving stewardship lead — whose sudden departure could stall real work even though no election is required to replace them.

Register, maintained by the Governance Committee, one row per key role: role name; current person; how long they've held it; a one-line description of what would break if they left tomorrow (e.g., "only person who knows the Instagram login and the sponsor-contact list"); an identified backup or apprentice, if one exists; and where the underlying institutional knowledge is documented — ideally in the Phase 6 Knowledge Transfer / Institutional Memory Manual rather than solely in that person's head or personal notes.

Annual practice: at least once a year, each key-role holder is asked directly to walk a potential backup through their role for at least one real task (a stewardship workday, a social post, a sponsor call) rather than just describing it in the abstract — documented succession plans that were never actually exercised tend to fail exactly when they're needed.

This is the Council's practical answer to its own "bus factor" — how many people would need to disappear at once before a given function simply stops. Where that number is one for a role that matters (exactly the situation this register is built to catch), the Governance Committee treats closing that gap as a real priority, not a someday item. The underlying institutional knowledge captured through this annual walkthrough is what actually populates the Knowledge Transfer / Institutional Memory Manual (Phase 6, 6-37) — this register identifies who holds undocumented knowledge and how urgently it needs capturing; the Manual is where that knowledge actually gets written down.

Reviewed at least annually and before any major fundraising campaign or contract.

Indemnification review. Confirms whether the Articles of Incorporation and/or Bylaws include a standard Illinois not-for-profit indemnification provision protecting directors/officers who act in good faith within their authority and without gross negligence or willful misconduct — and if not yet incorporated, flags this for inclusion in the Articles (Phase 1, 1-22) before filing.

D&O insurance decision. Weighs whether directors-and-officers (D&O) liability insurance is warranted given the Council's actual activity level: a small, all-volunteer, pre-fundraising PAC has a materially different risk profile than one running a signature annual event with paid vendors and sponsorship contracts. The memo records the specific factors considered (current fundraising volume, whether the Council has entered contracts, event/crowd size, employment of any staff) and the resulting decision, revisited annually as those factors change — see the Insurance Register in Phase 4 for the actual policy tracking once coverage is obtained.

What CPD's own framework does and doesn't cover. Documents, in writing, what CPD's own volunteer/PAC framework already covers (if anything specific is confirmed) versus what it does not, so the Council isn't relying on an assumed safety net that doesn't actually exist. "We probably have some coverage through CPD" is not itself a risk-management plan — this memo exists so the answer is confirmed, not assumed.

If the review finds a real gap — no confirmed CPD coverage, no indemnification provision, and an activity level that has outgrown "small, all-volunteer" — the memo doesn't stop at flagging the problem. It records a concrete next step with an owner and a target date: typically, the Treasurer obtaining D&O quotes from at least two carriers within 30 days, and the Governance Committee separately confirming whether the Bylaws or Articles need an indemnification amendment (Phase 2, Bylaws amendment procedure) before the next Board meeting. Until either gap is closed, the memo's most recent version is treated as a known, Board-acknowledged risk rather than a settled question — cross-referenced to the Annual Risk Assessment (Phase 10, 10-17) so it doesn't quietly drop off the Council's radar between annual reviews.