We want you to know what’s happening and have a chance to give your input!

Plan to attend – by Zoom – either Thursday, September 30, at 7 pm MDT or Saturday, October 2, at 10 am MDT.  Register by emailing MDD Vice President, Rhoda Whitney at rwhitney41@gmail.com.

Important decisions about how the Mountain Desert District wants to participate in the regionalization of the Pacific Western Regions are being discussed. These meetings are being held in advance of the MDD Business Meeting planned for Saturday, October 23 at 10 am.

Mountain Desert District Board of Trustees – current ideas on regionalization 

Regionalization was voted in at General Assembly in 2014, but has never been fully implemented in the Pacific Western Region (PWR). The Boards of the four districts of the PWR have been meeting together for almost two years now, working to support each other, align our goals, and find the vision of what full implementation should look like.

The Mountain Desert District (MDD) Board has spent a considerable amount of time and energy – both in coordination with the other district boards, and separately – on what the path to regionalization should look like, and what we think the end goal should be. 

There were, and are, many reasons for regionalization. The main reasons are:

  • Eliminating redundancies,
  • More chances to collaborate,
  • Ability for staff to specialize.

At this point in time, it appears inevitable that in the near future the districts will no longer exist as separate, legal entities, at least in their current form. The positive reasons for this are the same as they were for regionalization in the first place, plus the fact that lay leadership within the districts has become strained over the past several years. As well, it seems clear that that the UUA intends to operate through regions, not districts. Maybe it is time to embrace this and work together to move forward.

MDD has an additional responsibility that the other districts of the PWR do not – we are the fiscal agent for PWR, and PWR only exists as a “doing business as” entity under the MDD. Therefore, the Board recognizes that we cannot responsibly decide to dissolve the district until there is either another entity to contain the PWR or the PWR can exist on its own. 

A possible path forward would be for the MDD to expand its geographic boundaries and change the makeup of its board to include directors from all of the current districts, change its name to Pacific Western Region, and have the other three districts combine with the “new” PWR. At that time, the new board could decide to turn over governance to the UUA and dissolve as a board, or possibly continue at least on a trial basis. This would greatly reduce the number of board members needed from the region, reducing the strain on volunteers.