San Diego Sierra Club faces suspension

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http://web.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jan/20/environment-sierra-club-suspension/

San Diego Sierra Club faces suspension
By Deborah Sullivan Brennan
4:18 p.m.Jan. 20, 2014Updated10:19 p.m.

The Sierra Club's national board will soon vote on whether to suspend the San Diego chapter for four years, a step taken only a handful of times since the environmental organization was founded in 1892.

In an undated letter to the chapter's roughly 12,000 members in San Diego and Imperial counties, the national officials said turmoil in the local executive committee has persisted despite several rounds of turnover. They also said the "ongoing conflicts and divisions"have caused members to complain to the organization's headquarters in San Francisco during the past 18 months, and that "key staff, volunteer leaders and activists have left the chapter amid factionalized strife and contention."

The national board has intervened repeatedly to deal with governance problems, including rescinding the chapter's authority to independently hire and manage staff, national president David Scott said in the letter. Yet the local executive committee's problems have reached a "critical point," Scott wrote.

In an interview Monday, he declined to elaborate on the San Diego chapter's troubles. More than a dozen people linked to the chapter, including several past or current members of the executive committee, also declined to offer details Monday except to say the crisis isn't related to financial problems.