At the end of the October 25, 2005, Harvest Co-op Markets' Annual Members' Meeting, in Central Square, the Board-of-Directors candidates gave brief statements--one of whom, Shakti, spoke about Community. To quote from her printed statement: "Given the capitalist nature of the modern world, I believe that co-ops are especially important because they provide an alternative way of organizing in order to meet our individual and community needs." Now, in her spoken statement, she again addressed our common needs in Community. I turned to Louis, a friend whom I see every year at the Members Meeting, and said, "Oh no! She used the C-word! She cannot win, now! She's finished--she's toast!"

The final 2005 Board-election vote tally was as follows (with 371 valid, & 31 invalid, ballots):

We Co-op Members have no way of knowing whether these Board elections (run in-house) are rigged to keep visionaries off the Board--but, I would've been Stunned had Shakti won a seat. Even with the question of fraud aside, voting-members would consider her "too flaky"--either way, the sad fact is that nobody with even the remotest clue can end up on the Board.

Jessie Myszka 326

3 year term (reelected)

Sujatha Byravan 322

2 year term (reelected)

John Mascia 260

2 year term

Karin Emry 173

1 year term (reelected)

Matthew Altman 148

Shakti 112

I believe that the "winning" candidates, rather than being elected, are simply selected--and selected on the basis of obvious criteria.

I considered only one of the candidates, Shakti, to be truly qualified for Board service, by the criteria of the key evolutionary direction--community nurturing--towards which the Co-op must grow to survive. Because this true qualification is misunderstood and therefore feared by the current and former managers at the wheel, I predicted correctly that this candidate would certainly "lose"--i.e., be weeded out.

But curious as to why the other candidate "lost", I went back to Matthew Altman's written statement; and in hindsight it seems clear why this candidate, too, would be unselected. He'd written, "I hope to help Harvest remain vital by staying true to its principles of cooperation and truly conscientious food choices, and not selling out as one finds in surrounding big business natural food stores."

Because Harvest is culturally and therefor functionally not a "co-operative," but actually a "collective," the Co-operative Principles are not seen as a blueprint for success (which they actually are) but as an irrelevant and alien agenda. So Matthew, the only candidate to invoke the Co-operative Principles, is marked as someone "with an agenda." Any social agenda is seen as dangerous to the Collective--but its co-operative pretense renders the Collective especially vulnerable to an agenda based on Cooperative Principles.

By cautioning against "selling out [like the] surrounding big business natural food stores," Matthew confirms that he expects something more of the Co-op than existence for its own sake--but, the Collective/managerial aspiration is precisely to join this aforementioned club of "big business natural food stores."

Examining the election-results further, some general patterns are also entirely predictable. One is that the incumbents are invariably re-(s)elected, thus preserving the status-quo. Another is low member-participation: 402 ballots were submitted, roughly 10 percent of the membership. 90 percent of Members voted for no-one. Is 90 percent non-participation considered a problem? No, an asset--indication of member support and confidence in the Collective (in disregard, however, of non-growth-of-sales-to-Members evidence to the contrary).

Also interesting, is the usual high percentage of "invalid" ballots, 31 out of a total of 402. One in thirteen ballots wasn't counted.

But, let's consider even just those 371 "valid" ballots. Only about 60 members ever attend the annual Members Meetings--about 20 percent of the number of members who voted. Thus, 80 percent of those 371 voters only had a few printed sentences and a photograph of each candidate to go by. Members have no way of verifying any claims to experience or expertise made by candidates in their written statements--and have no opportunity to hear the candidates debate the issues facing the Co-op. (At this year's meeting, even the traditional, brief Q&A following candidates' spoken statements, was canceled.)

Let's examine the self-espoused qualifications which all the "winning" candidates' statements have in common (I'll summarize):

• "Been Here"--they've served on boards of other organizations
• "Done This"--they have professional resumes in the business world
• "Keep Going"--their focus is on operations

And let's see what's conspicuously missing from all their statements:

• Setting Policy -- though the Board's job is to establish Co-op policies, none of them mention it--so don't expect them to do it.
• Member-Ownership -- neither do they mention that the Board's responsibility is to advance specifically the interests of the Members--so don't expect that either.

My conclusions as to the actual qualifications for Board service, and also how these supposed qualifications are really counter-indicated, are as follows:

• Free Consultants -- By choosing directors with business/organizational/professional experience, the Co-op hopes to make use of their expertise without paying for it. However, if they actually had professional expertise, they'd be selling it in the marketplace, with no time for donating it. The fact is, they're building resumes which will create the impression of gained expertise--and now are adding the Co-op Board to their credentials, to further their careers--and have little real expertise to contribute.
• No Direction -- By choosing Directors with no pre-held agendas, the Co-op ensures that its leadership will consider only the situation at hand--and will provide no future direction for the Collective--so that the management-class can direct the Collective for its own purpose: existence for its own sake...thus dooming it to failure.

Joshua Laskin