Anime Twin Cities Board Meeting Minutes
April
9th, 2024
6:30 PM
Board Present - Alli Cassel, Alyssa Johnson, Christina Kramer, Bruce Levine, Chelsea “Buttons” Lieser, and Nick Nelson
Those who filled out the board meeting attendance form have been included below.
Public – Michael Koos(Koosman23), Samantha Cozort(samantha ), Ronald J Melanz(FairseasX), Seth Brown, Justin Paquette, Jason Bruner(DJLiquid86), Tori Winkelman(toriwink12), Andrina Moe, Jay Bottem(Will McCutrey), Tabitha Kostiuk , Morrigan(Morrigan Gallagher), puck, Jacob Warner, Amanda(Amanda Denzer), Kevin Ehrler(Kevin Ehrler), Hope Kronen(Hope K), JoLee , Allyse(Allyse), Dan Fitzgerald(Dan Fitzgerald), Thanh Truong(WhiteCharisma), Caena(Smedium), Sheri(sherickoos), Kaida(Mushroom Mayhem), Dawn (Morathi Mage), Angelis(Angelis Wood), Nick Nelson(zelfaldor), Jesus , Brittany(BrittanyBlue), Andrew Janssen, Liz(Amusedbookworm), Jeremiah Keohen(Jerry Keohen), Tjaden(Puddnutz), allen sanchez-capers, Mike(koosman23), Erick(Daysting), Zane, Sheri, Leng Yang, taylor h.(phantomlightnes), Leng Yang, Katherine(silvermoon442), Lori(La Fisc), Anthony LaBerge (Labantnet), Lucas Brown (MrRamrod91 or RuRuRamRod), Brittany Hecker, and Sky Dunn
If you would like to review the recording of the meeting it can be found here:
April 2024 ATC Board Meeting Recording
We created a google form, please fill it out if you want it to be tracked, and please put a greeting in chat so we can see your participation in the live stream. There is a little bit of lag in the livestream, between talking and what is seen. If we don’t respond right away it is because of the lag.
The agenda is live on the website, we ask that everyone be respectful of those in the chat and on the board, bullying will not be tolerated. Generally, our open session runs 30 minutes long, but we are willing to extend it to an hour if we do have a lot of questions. We ask that you don’t repeat questions if you don’t like the answer, or we cannot give specifics since we want to get through as many questions as possible.
Recap off cycle board actions and votes.
We did receive a request to review the ban list from someone that is on the ban list, so far, the actions we have taken is to go to storage locker and grab all our paperwork and get it scanned into our shared drive on google. As of this time we are waiting on research from the Anime Detour exec team, need some time for them to get back to us.
We did have to suspend two members from their positions on staff and the board until a third-party investigation is completed. It involves Troy MacDonald and Kristen Loth. Our legal counsel for Anime Twin Cities is Brian Gravely who works at Halverson Legal, we did set up an email address that will go directly to him, so if you have any questions, complaints or feedback the email is legal@animetwincities.org that is the only way to contact him outside of reaching out to members of the board. Only approved communication he gave of contact outside of the board.
Open Session (First 30 minutes, extended to an hour)
Q - How was suspension approved?
A Christina- We held an emergency meeting last night at the advice of our legal representation to go over our documentation and approve the suspension.
Q- Emergency meeting votes need to be ratified at an official board meeting per the bylaws.
A- Christina- I guess I thought talking about them was good enough, perhaps I was incorrect. Bruce – Actually to disregard that special meetings may be called by an executive officer which is the president these meetings you can only call in response to issues that affect the functionality of the ATC which in this regard per our legal representation took care of that problem so at the next regular board meeting which we have the actions of the special meeting shall be ratified by the board.
“Special meetings of the board of directors may be called by an executive officer. These meetings may only be called in response to issues that affect the functionality of ATC, unless specified otherwise. At the next regular board meeting, the actions of the special meeting shall be ratified by the board.”
Bruce- Motion to approve the special session held on April 8th.
Alli – Seconded.
Motion Passes
So the actions have been approved that is now a moot point.
We can not give the reasons for suspension since it is an active investigation, and we don’t want to hinder the process.
Bruce – Brittany I would hold your chats any further or else you will be censored. I would check your actions in chat since you are still an acting representative of the organization.
Brittany – I am still allowed to post personal opinions like when they’re not included as a representative of the org. I can post and still say I’m not acting as a representative, I am acting as a member of the org. I don’t lose the rights as a member.
Christina- We had quorum for the meeting yesterday (Christina, Nick, Alli, Alyssa, Chelsea, and Bruce), it was a closed meeting, we do have minutes but due to sensitive nature they will not be released to the public since it is confidential.
One thing regarding emails that have popped up again and again. There are emails in our Eventeny system that is the email that you used when you signed up to be staff and all communications that have been sent out using Eventeny have gone out to those email addresses, Christina pulled a list of dept heads out of Eventeny assuming that was their preferred method of contact and sent emails to them not using the Eventeny system but still from her Anime Detour email, she does not see any issues with that. She also believes as the president of the ATC parent org, she should have access to emails in the Eventeny system how else can she email staff it is not something that the board president has to do very often but it is something that should be available and she has been told that the all staff distribution list has not been updated in a long time, and if that is the only thing she is able to use then she can’t actually reach the staff so she believes she should have access to Eventeny and no issue with her using emails that have been provided to Anime Detour for contact for staff.
Q- Why was Kristen a sitting board member not involved with this discussion?
A- Christina, the legal counsel advised us to hold a meeting to issue a suspension, including the member that is suspended wouldn’t make sense I did not believe that including the member who was being suspended would make sense.
Brittany - I don't currently see anything in the bylaws job description of the ATC president that indicates um access to the contact information of staff can you find the bylaws that says that you have access to that information or permits you versus um the belief of access Christina- Can you find something that says that I should not have access? Brittany- Data security and personal security based on the only people who should have access are the Staffing department and the executives of Anime Detour Christina - But the Anime Twin Cities board oversees Anime Detour staff all Anime Detour staff are technically Anime Twin Cities staff Brittany- that is not currently listed in your job description Bruce- Brittany, also in regards to the privacy policy as soon as you input your information it becomes public information that can be searchable via Eventeny because you can view the personal profile for each individual person on there. Their contact information is searchable that way and in retrospect… Brittany- only with the appropriate privileges given you actually can't see all of the information unless you have the appropriate privileges allowed and the privileges were temporarily allowed as a department head to access certain pieces of information so the issue is that her privileges should not have been allowed to search the information that was given Bruce – That is fine and going forward we will be initiating a policy to amend that procedure and we'll also be utilizing an updated staff distro which due to lack of updates by the Staffing Department we did not have access to therefore we use the Eventeny access to get a current list of current members who were the current department heads at this time to do said work since the other one is so far out of date and no work has been done by the Staffing Department that has been brought to our knowledge.
Buttons- I do just want to address the comment that has been made twice regarding um if nothing is found actionable will they be reinstated yes if nothing is found actionable against either one or both they would be reinstated but if something is found actionable, we will take the action that our legal counsel advises us to take.
Q- What about staff that were kicked out without being given reason or corrective actions per the bylaws
A- Buttons- Are you referring to kicked out of ATC or kicked out of detour because if you're speaking as detour staff that is something you would need to bring up with the executive team.
Christina - we are allowed to hold special sessions if it is required necessary for function. There are still three active members of the executive team.
Christina- I am seeing posts disappearing I'm not sure why they are disappearing Bruce – I removed someone that was being disruptive in regard to the chat that's all
Christina- okay someone is being disruptive I don't think they're asking questions.
Q- Is there are way to explain what is happening that would not break legal counsel rules you just need to ask the lawyer to give you?
A- Christina- Unfortunately the statement that came from the lawyer was at this time we cannot comment on the issues of the suspensions due to the investigation taking place we do not want to hinder or affect the process no we cannot discuss who brought the complaint.
Q- Why did you feel the need to send emails to certain individuals but not key individuals such as Vice chairs while the convention was still happening?
A- Christina- I sent emails after I got home I was still writing the post-con energy that we all had and I wasn't sure I would still have it Monday morning and I really wanted to be able to get reviews from the department heads I am also a department head of the merchandise team and wanted to get reviews of my peers I was very shortly later informed that I should have emailed the vice chairs so I emailed them as well within the hour.
Q- Joe's question if Troy and Kristen are permanently removed what is the plan for replacing these key figures?
A- Christina- They haven't been permanently removed yet there is no plan they're pending investigation.
Q- If reviews are done in June per your agenda here can you give us a layout plan on why a review Sunday?
A- Christina- I mean we didn't so okay on the agenda is basically a timeline for when we want to be completed with our reviews as the board. I wanted to use the department head reviews to help me write my review in my opinion the best time to get reviews from the department heads is right after con while the convention is still fresh in your mind, and you can remember everything that's all.
Q- Why do you feel the need to jump to such an extreme response instead of simply opening up a line of communication with the individual suspended?
A- Christina- well again our legal counsel advised us to suspend them so we followed the legal counsel's advice.
Q- Why was the deadline set to less than a week for the review submissions?
A- Christina- I felt that was plenty of time to submit a review it was 100% optional it wasn't something that I needed people to have to send I just asked for their assistance helping me craft my review.
Q- What is the plan to calmly notify Anime Twin Cities members of these decisions as all paying attendees have the right to access the information?
A- Christina- I believe after the investigation has been completed would be the best time to notify the Anime Twin Cities members because then we will actually know what's happening versus just communicating a suspension that doesn't really tell anyone anything.
Buttons - As far as who is investigating it is our lawyer we are not a part of the investigation at all we are in fact also subject to it we wanted a third party involved so there were no personal emotions or feelings in this.
Christina- And someone asked why wouldn't she send that to the department heads email, I wanted to address each email individually and include for my knowledge what department they were a head of because I can't remember everyone and what department everyone is in anymore.
Christina- Do I have a timeline for when the legal team will conclude their investigation?
A- Christina- Yes, their investigation will be concluded by our May board meeting on the 14th and that is when we will announce the results.
Christina - Question what is being investigated? As we have stated many times we are not able to comment on the issues of the suspensions due to the investigation taking place we do not want to hinder or affect the process uh we did state the name of the lawyer and what firm they were with at the beginning of the meeting but it is Brian Gravely at Halverson Legal we have set up an email address that will go directly to him we will not see these emails if you have any questions complaints or feedback that you wish to direct to him you can email him at legal@animetwincities.org please only use that email address as that is the only way he has approved this kind of communication
Christina - the ones that are under investigation will be working will be basically submitting their side of things to the lawyer Brian and working through him.
Christina- What wrongdoing? Again, we cannot address what wrongdoing it is, and can we go back to the issue with the email addresses? um so when I was gathering department head names and departments I was also getting their email addresses and just copying and pasting them like I said I figured the email address in their Eventeny is how they would want to be contacted. I now understand that a lot of people would prefer it not be that way it was only nine out of 27 emails that were not Anime Detour emails the rest of them were Anime Detour emails.
Q- Is there going to be a way to dispute what is being investigated?
A- Christina - I mean the investigation is being done by the third party so I guess if you have questions on how that is done you can reach out to him at legal@animetwincities.org
Q- How do we know these emails will not be seen?
A- Christina- Yes, Bruce is the one that set up the email yes he could go in and access it if he chose to he's not going to and neither are any of us that I don't know how else you would like us to do that but we are not going to access that email I don't want to see them they don't have anything to do with me.
Christina- The board spoke with legal and we were advised to have a meeting like he sent us an email advising us to have a meeting is that not a meeting with legal counsel? uh no he did not attend the meeting he advised us to have it and advised what actions to take.
Q- If you are all subject to the investigation why didn't you suspend yourselves?
A- Christina- well basically all of the emails that we have received and sent during this period have been provided to the lawyer and so we are also being investigated but we have not been accused of any wrongdoing so we are not suspended.
Q- I understand this lawyer was only retained to look over contracts?
A- Christina- that's not the case he is on retainer to help with pretty much all legal needs as they come.
Christina- well yes ATC set up the email but Bruce is the IT guy that actually pushed the buttons in the system with which to do it.
Bruce- With my background with 13 years close to 10 plus years in IT I know better of what to do and what not to do if you have any further accusations or issues, you can use the legal@animetwincities.org and if it is deemed necessary it will be changed.
Christina- question basically the lawyer advised us to set up an email to forward to his email so that is what we did.
Christina- um can we talk about the letter? I do not what that is referring to
Q- understanding that you cannot talk about the specifics how does this issue present such a threat that it constituted a closed meeting
A Christina- I am not sure how I would be able to answer that question without going into specifics I'm sorry I just do not know.
Christina- You can review the bylaws if you would like to look in, I believe um you can set up a petition for board members but then you do submit that petition to the board.
Q- Is this a breach of protocol or a criminal investigation?
A- Christina- Again, I can't comment on the issues of the suspension because of the investigation taking place.
Christina- I also received a call-to-action letter in my detour email and my personal email. I also received that call to action letter I do not know who it came from I did reply all to it um basically saying that I wasn't sure who this email was coming from and that they are welcome to come to the board meeting today but I know it seems like a lot of people were blind copied on that email so my reply all did not go to them because that's how blind copies work.
Christina- The letter from yesterday I don't know what letter we're talking about we're talking about the announcement of the suspension?
Bruce- I am going to move to motion that we table this at 7:15
Christina- Well we did say we would have an expanded session, we did say that we would allow for this to go on for an hour instead of just half an hour so it's been half an hour but it doesn't really seem like we're getting any questions we can answer but let me just try and get caught up.
Q- Christina- Question when did it change that board members could perform social media or IT duties
A- Christina- Bruce your microphone is now very loud your headset is mad at you um okay uh for a long time the board has been very short staffed, and all board members basically work together to get everything done that we can we do. Currently have a coordinator in charge of social media being Brittney.
Christina- Again I cannot comment on the reason for the suspension because there is an active investigation taking place.
Buttons - I'm sorry I don't know how to pronounce the first name so I'm just going to go with Sparrow um like we stated uh if it would be to the lawyer um I believe it was legal@animetwincities.org you can send it to that email with any concerns you have regarding accountability and the process for this matter.
Q- Why isn't the board being investigated?
Christina-A- I mean we're being included as part of this investigation just based off of our email communications with the people that are being investigated.
Q- I heard that bylaws had been rewritten outside of a regular board meeting?
A- Christina- Rewriting bylaws is something that takes a long time and it's not something that can be done during a board meeting it is something that would be presented during a board meeting however um I was hoping to actually have them prepared for this board meeting but due to everything else that has gone on we haven't been able to finish them so, we're working on that right now.
Christina- I do not know how to address you guys saying that our lawyer wouldn't be impartial I mean they follow the law that's what they do.
Q- Were all board members made aware and given time to attend the special meeting excluding Kristen.
A- Christina- Yes except for our Treasurer who doesn't generally attend meetings and hasn't been really involved in any of this discussion at all because that is just not how they operate. We can meet quorum without the treasurer.
Q– For Michele Jean is this investigation of a nature if we had less desirable manner with the chairman should we submit our experience?
A- Buttons- We would like you to submit your experience anyway uh whether you had a good experience or a bad experience that is yeah either good or bad if you would like to submit it please go ahead and submit it.
Q- Do removed members know why they're being investigated? I don't think we've answered yet
A- Christina- okay um we have not informed them of anything besides that they were suspended pending an investigation and that Brian the legal counsel will be reaching out with them to work with them on it
Buttons- Joe the legal@animetwincities.org is the only way that the lawyer has approved of so that is the only option that we have for any outside of the board parties to reach him.
Q- So why haven't they been informed?
A- Christina- Basically we followed the advice of the legal counsel for the steps that we took to perform the suspension which was emailing up them notifying that they were suspended and putting them in contact with Brian and then posting to the public and to the staff Discord as well as the All Staffing email list that suspension has taken place the temporary suspension has taken place
Buttons- uh Von I will go ahead and add that email to the general chat as you’ve requested.
Buttons- we do just also ask please keep in mind we are not the only clients of our attorney and if we do get responses from him stating that he is being harassed in any way and he asks us to shut down the forwarding email we will have to do so we do just ask that when you do email him you do be respectful please do not spam him if he does not get back to you uh again we are not his only clients he obviously has a life outside of his job so please just be patient and just keep in mind you may not be the only ones emailing him. But I did go ahead and add that email to the Discord.
Bruce- to answer the question regard to moderation I'm the one running the stream I have been given permission to mute any users that are deemed as being disruptive and that is all I am doing.
Buttons- Joe to answer your question that is how he asked us to set it up so we are just following what he has stated he is comfortable with. If you would like to ask him why he chose the forwarded email please feel free to do so.
Christina- Okay so those of you saying you didn't hear Bruce basically he is only removing chats from people deeming to be disruptive and not helping move on this conversation with constructive questions
Buttons- Von just to kind of elaborate we're not stating that we'll cut it off if he is stating that um if we don't like the emails we don't see them unless he deems it necessary for us to see the content of it this is honestly just if it is getting to the point of harassment um that is the only reason we would cut it off is if he is informing us that he is being harassed that is it um like I said that guideline for um Von I'm not sure if your question is as far as emails being disruptive um that would be completely up to the lawyer if he is deeming them disruptive or if he is deeming them harassing and he is getting an overwhelming amount of harassment and asks for us to shut off the forwarding email that is when we would do so I do hope that answered that question. So again, he would not share who sent the email he would only share the content if he deemed it necessary for us to look at um otherwise, we are not going to see anything regarding the emails
Buttons- As far as we feel about how we handled it I can't speak to the um as far as like the department head emails. I feel as far as we are trying to be as transparent as we can. We know previous board iterations kept a lot of things very quiet. We wanted to be as transparent as we could be we just that that's about all I've got. We're doing our best, we're all human.
Q- Are the current active vice chairs of Anime Detour able to hold the future scheduled meeting on April 27th?
A- Christina- As far as I am aware yes um the vice chairs did mention to us how they thought they should proceed and we did offer our assistance as board members to help them run the meeting and anything else they needed help with I haven't heard anything back on if they want our help or not but we did throw it out there that we're able to help if needed
Buttons- As far as t-shirts I know there was jokes in the Discord that's not anything that we know anything about so I'm sorry we can't I have no idea.
Q- How do you feel about you how you handle the situation?
A- Christina- well like I said I still think that using the emails from Eventeny is fine because that is how all other communications from the Eventeny has been sent to people but if I could change it I would have used the Anime Detour email addresses it is just because this has been a never ending argument since it happened um but I just put them all into a spreadsheet and then copied and pasted as I was sending my emails.
Buttons - Yes we can confirm for the record that any member of Anime Detour that opposes these measures will not face any retaliation provided they maintain a sense of decorum obviously if people start getting personal attacky and they start getting out of hand then we will have to take measures as provided under our code of conduct but as long as everyone is being respectful there's going to be no retaliation we understand that there's a lot of feelings in this we understand that you guys may not agree and that is fine we accept that we understand that no one is going to be retaliated against.
Q- Why would any of this be public knowledge?
A- Christina- I feel it would be very difficult to suspend the chair and a vice chair and have them stop with staff duties until the investigation was completed and then not tell anybody about it I do not think that would be the right way to go about things it's something that needed to be communicated and we did it to the best of our ability.
Buttons- Von yes if you um if you want us to send out an official email that is something we definitely can do that no one will be removed because of this again provided that they maintain decorum um obviously if people start to harass and bully that is going to be a different conversation but if you would like that sent out in an email that is something we can definitely do.
Buttons- Yes attendance in this meeting does count towards voting privileges.
Bruce
Motion to close further discussion on the topic
Alli- seconded
All in favor
Motion passes
We are closing open session and moving on with agenda
For the Notarized statement from the lawyer, we can reach out and ask him about it.
Planned Discussions from scheduled visiting parties/ATC Partners
Coordinator Updates
15 Minute Break (If the preceding topics take little time, the board may vote to skip this)- skipped
Vote to skip, seconded motion
Motion passes.
Current Month Board Topics
With that that is all we have.
Buttons - There was a question on where you can send questions that was not answered you could send to atcboard@animetwincities.org or again if you don’t want to ask us you can send to legal@animetwincities.com please be cordial do not spam, and if you ask for details you will likely not get them.
Motion to adjourn as of 7:26pm
Seconded
Motion Passes
Please contact atcboard@animetwincities.org or atc_secretary@animetwincities.org if you would like to be added to the agenda for discussion items.