USCJ Northern California Region

Merger of the Northern California and Pacific Northwest Regions

Under mandate from the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Northern California and Pacific Northwest Regions are being merged. The objective of this merger is to achieve better economies of scale, to improve the quality of services provided to affiliated congregations, to reduce redundancies in operational budgets, and to facilitate the transformation of USCJ into a more decentralized and responsive organization.

The merger process began early last year with a series of meetings of the lay leadership of both regions in consultation with USCJ staff. We have approved a joint operational budget for the new fiscal year (July 2009 – June 2010) and have recruited and hired Morey Schapira of Sunnyvale, CA as our first regional Executive Director. The “heart” of the merger implementation is the adoption of Bylaws for the new merged region. These proposed Bylaws are hereby presented to you now for review and comment. The period for comment (and potential revision of the proposed Bylaws) begins immediately and will conclude on September 30, 2009. On that date the respective Boards of Directors of the two regions will meet to adopt the draft Bylaws. According to existing Bylaws of our (predecessor) region, voting privileges are extended to officers and other members of the Executive Board as well as officers of USCJ residing in the region and representatives of affiliated congregations in good standing. All persons with voting privileges are encouraged to review the proposed Bylaws, submit comments and questions to the Merger Committee, and participate in the meeting on September 30 at which a vote on the proposed Bylaws will take place.

The draft Bylaws may be viewed and downloaded here.

Questions and comments may be submitted to Merger Committee co-chairs Frank Kurtz (Frank@FamilyKurtz.net) for Northern California or Howie Sniderman (HSniderman@WittenLaw.com) for Pacific Northwest.

Salient features of the merger include:

  • The merged region will be named “Northern Pacific Region” and will include all of the territory and congregations currently in the Northern California and Pacific Northwest Regions. There are 36 affiliated congregations in the region.
     
  • The headquarters of the region will be in the San Francisco Bay Area.
     
  • The Board of Directors (similar in structure and representation to the description above) will meet at least once per year. Every other year this meeting will coincide with a regional biennial event. In alternate years a special region-wide event (such as a Shabbaton or retreat) may provide the opportunity for such a meeting.
     
  • The Executive Board will meet at least four times per year, with at least one meeting called for in-person participation. We plan to use communications technology to afford full participation in these meetings without requiring members to travel.
     
  • From September 2009 until November 2010 the officers of the region will be appointees of the Presidents of the predecessor regions, following recommendations from an ad hoc nominating committee. The first biennial meeting of the region in November 2010 will coincide with the election of officers by the Board of Directors of the Northern Pacific Region.
     
  • The merger will specifically not impact the existing regional organization of USY and Kadima, which will continue to operate as New Frontier and Pinwheel Regions.
     
  • Programming may take into account the geographic aggregations within the region in order to maximize participation by members of affiliated congregations.

    As the merger process has gone forward, some important issues have been identified for future follow-up and action. These issues are mentioned here as an acknowledgment, even though they are outside the purview of the Merger Committee. They will be addressed when the new Executive Board takes office:

  • The governance of the region should reflect the diversity of geographic area, gender, congregation size, and other factors that are of significance to our membership.
     
  • Participation in the governance of the region should not depend on the ability to pay for travel and accommodations to attend meetings. A special subvention should be requested of the USCJ Council of Regional Presidents and/or additional budgetary allocation to cover these projected costs.
     
  • The representation of the region to governing bodies of USCJ should be maintained so as not to eliminate the roles of those who have participated until now in the central organization.
     
  • The region may decide to establish policy regarding the level of Jewish observance and financial support of those nominated to office on the Executive Board.

    Merger Committee co-chairs Frank Kurtz for Northern California and Howie Sniderman for Pacific Northwest


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