The Community Center for the Performing Arts (CCPA) was founded with a publicly stated commitment to operate as a democratically governed community-controlled organization dedicated to preserving and operating the historic Woodmen of the World Hall (WOW Hall) as a community center with a focus on performing arts activities.

The founding membership promised our community to preserve the WOW Hall and provide affordable access to its use An important goal of the founding membership was to model the ability of our community to govern its own institutions, including its cultural institutions, through a direct membership-controlled form of democratic governance emphasizing the equality of all members of the community

The CCPA has striven to maintain that promise for 46 years until now. Without significant adjustments and refinement, the CCPA board’s proposal to replace the current bylaws has the potential to undo that promise and institute a much less democratic form of governance at the WOW Hall.

Unveiled only five weeks ago, the board’s wordy and complicated proposal eliminates the bylaw provisions which have enabled the CCPA membership to preserve the WOW Hall and keep it community owned. It transfers those powers to a small group of people, the majority of whom live outside Lane County. It also contains changes which could jeopardize the CCPA’s tax-exempt status and the WOW Hall’s “grandfathered” code status.

Please vote no on this proposal on Nov. 13 so that CCPA members can have sufficient opportunity to participate in a comprehensive and cognizant bylaw review before relinquishing their rights.

Jonathan Pincus

Eugene