Proposals How it Works Written on 11/23/2011 by LAGAFC in Process, Resources A concise guide to making proposals at the LA General Assembly

y and what to expect during the process. This is a working process, and we encourage participation in the Facilitation Committee which meets each day before the General Assembly at 5:30 pm at Sister Cities on 1st & Main St. REMINDER: GAs are now only held on MON-WED-FRI. SATURDAYS are special thematic GAs and will only hear emergency proposals. BACKGROUND At the Los Angeles General Assembly we make decisions collectively on a barely modified consensus basis. Proposals are required to be handed in to the Facilitation Committee 24-hours in advance of a possible slot on the GA Agenda. All upcoming proposals will be made available on-site at the Welcome Tent and online at this website, in order to solicit feedback ahead of time and to allow people to familiarize themselves with upcoming proposals in the spirit of openness, transparency and collective wisdom. As of 12/08/2011 there is a quorum rule in effect. This number of minimum assembled persons for each night can be found here. The quorum is arrived at by averaging the attendance of the previous 7 days, and without this minimum number, no proposals can be consented to. MAKING A PROPOSAL Please use this FORM to make your proposals. Include a clear, WHAT, WHY and HOW you are going to implement it if passed. This format is designed to make it as clear as possible exactly what the proposal intends to accomplish. You can email your proposal to olafacilitation@gmail.com, bring it to the Welcome Tent or to the Facilitation Committee meeting at 5:30 pm on the north steps of City Hall. You must also make clear whether your proposal is a Public Statement of Occupy LA, or an Action/Rule. The Facilitation Committee will vet your proposal strictly on the basis of whether it meets the requirements set by the GA, requiring the proposer to have a clear WHAT, WHY and HOW and a distinction on whether it is a Public Statement or an Action/Rule. The Facilitation Committee may also direct you to committees or affinity groups who may have a stake in your proposal so that it may come to the GA with more peoples ideas considered. This by no means implies you can not make the proposal as an individual if you wish to go forward. GA PROPOSAL PROCESS & CONSENSUS The Los Angeles GA urges autonomous action in all things that is not an explicit statement of our collective will or draw from our collective funds. We make decisions on a consensus basis for all Public Statements. For Actions or Rules we have a modified consensus process in place. Briefly, if after failing to reach consensus at 2 General Assemblies, with reworking of the proposals in between considering all concerns, proposals will be eligible for a 90% modified consensus at its 3rd hearing. The exact process is located here in detail. After the presentation of a proposal at the General Assembly, questions on clarity will be taken from the Assembly. We cant decide on a proposal if we dont know exactly what it is. A temperature check will then be taken, testing for consensus. If there are no hard blocks, and mostly agreement, we have reached consensus. If there are concerns in the Assembly, stacks will be opened to hear them, with room for reformulation by, or more explanation from, the proposer(s). After going through concerns, another test for consensus will be made. If we still havent reached consensus, the GA may move into breakout groups of 10-15 people to discuss in a horizontal manner, what changes may be necessary to the proposal to gain consensus. Anyone with major concerns or hard blocks is invited to form a breakout group with the proposer(s) to attempt to work through those issues. The discussions of these breakout groups should be relayed back to the General Assembly as a whole in order to promote transparency. Another test for consensus, or temperature check will be made after these report-backs. At this point, it is up to the proposers to either withdraw their proposal in order to rework the idea based on the groups concerns, either in a new working group or by themselves, or to test for consensus again after hearing another round of concerns.