Diane's Trail

The message from USGenWeb National Coordinator Sherri Bradley announcing the Disciplinary Hearing for Diane Siniard was in our "Grievance Committee Confessions" post at
http://genwebstalkers.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html

Before we get to the continuation and results of this Hearing there are some items of note.

When we first heard of the Hearing it took us about two (2) minutes to verify the charge against Diane for violating the Grievance Committee oaths of confidentiality, was not valid. Quoting from the Grievance Procedures,

"Because grievances are considered personnel matters, all volunteers must state that they are willing to abide by strict confidentiality requirements. Volunteers must also state that they understand that violation of this confidentiality agreement will mean immediate expulsion from the Grievance Committee, and could result in determination of Member Not in Good Standing by the Advisory Board."

"Must state"? Where does that take place? The Grievance Committee has two lists, one archived for public business and one not archived for confidential business. "The confidential list may NOT be used for public business, or in an effort to avoid public disclosure," say the Procedures.

Advisory Board members must take a confidentiality oath if they want to be subscribed to the Board-Exec list (aka Sekrit Sandbox), their unarchived list for confidential business. They take the oath on the Board list, their archived list for public business.

Locating and examining the GC list for public business shows no evidence of any GC member having taken their oaths of confidentiality. This is something that Linda K Lewis should have done, before presenting her charge against Diane.

During the Hearing (link to that is below) NC Sherri admitted having no knowledge of Diane having taken the oaths because she was not the NC at the time the GC members should have taken the oaths. The previous NC, Tina Vickery, present during the Hearing, had no comments. At this point the hearing should have been halted until it was clearly established that Diane did, or did not, take the oath because the charge against her was for violating the oath.

But the hearing continued, and as you will see it is Diane who gets blamed for not taking the confidentiality oath, rather than the AB taking any responsibility for their sub-committee they are in charge of.

Diane became frustrated with the process and refused to continue. She was then unsubscribed from the hearing list. In the real world when a defendant refuses to participate in their hearing, they are not removed from the court room. Why not? Procedural Due Process gives defendants the right to be present during testimony. Diane did not request to be unsubscribed, her rights of Due Process were violated which in many legal cases has been grounds for dismissing the case and/or the charges.

A link to transcripts of Diane's hearing is at the end of this post.

Mary White


From: Diane Siniard
To: usgwconf-2@usgenweb.org
Cc: usgenweb-sw@rootsweb.com
Date: 8/2/2010 10:47:36 AM
Subject: [USGENWEB-SW] A Little Note

Due to careful consideration, long conversations with JAG, information that has been passed to me and various other things I will not be continuing with this hearing. This hearing has been a farce since the beginning.

1. I never did sign a confidentiality agreement for the Grievance Committee.

2. Thereby this hearing is breaking the rules of the USGWP and Sturgis and my rights as a member of the Project.

3. The mailing list is supposed to be un archived but in fact it is archived and I do have screen shots to prove this and that is another violation of the rules.

4. Nothing has been done about the proof I gave about Sherri and Tina breaking the rules and bylaws of this project prior to me being brought into this hearing.

5. I asked for something to be done about Sherri breaking the rules about the notification of the hearing and nothing was done which again violates Sturgis.

6. Whistleblowers are protected by law, therefore if you wish to continue with this JAG is prepared to have their lawyers in each state file suits against each of you for violating my rights.

7. JAG is also working on the copyright violations as is the FBI that Sherri and the AB allowed the NCGenWeb to violate of the US Copyright Laws Title 17. So, you might want to be prepared for some Federal charges to come your way as well as to the NCGenWeb Project from that as well because the copyright violations are continuing. They are still continuing to copy my sites up to and including new information that I am adding to my sites.

8. I hereby resign as a member of the USGWP effective immediately. I want no part of an organization that is full of lies, deceit, cover ups, sweeping things under the rug and protecting those that are in positions of power that break the most rules.

I will be letting anyone and everyone know that asks everything they want to know about this farce of a hearing up to and including copies of the screen shots of the archives of the unarchived mailing list so that future hearings that are held the CC's are aware of how low down and dirty the AB actually is.

Y'all are a bunch of lying conniving power hungry punks that think everything belongs to you that is genealogical in nature. Well, I got another thing coming for you. It doesn't and mark my words. You will fail and this project will fail. You are not holier than thou, you are not all that and a bucket of peanuts, and each and every one of you with the exception of Colleen, David and Alice can kiss my Lilly white ass!

Diane Siniard
Now back to Trails to the Past where peace reigns supreme, friends have fun and genealogy is what it is supposed to be, fun and friends helping each other to provide the most genealogy possible for researchers!

=========================

From: Diane & Mike Siniard
To: USGenWeb.Us ALL List all@usgenweb.us
Date: 8/2/2010 12:48:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ALL] (no subject)

The AB brought me up on charges fro exposing Sherri and Tina for breaking the bylaws and rules of the USGWP. Instead of filing charges against Sherri and Tina they came after me. I sat through the first part of the hearing and watched as they pulled emails from mailing lists that other people had sent in to use as information against me, even when I didn't even reply to them. They even used simple conversations as information against me. Then they pulled information from the Florida hearing, which by the way was held after the Florida members had already been removed from the project and were again dragged into a hearing to be made MNIGS, which is against the project rules and sturgis because they were no longer members, and used that material against me. 90% of that material had information in it of Sherri interfering in GC business.

The person that brought the charges against me, Linda K Lewis was allowed to be in the hearing which is against Sturgis, and common law procedures, Sherri and Tina were both involved and they were the ones I had accused of breaking the rules which is against common law procedures, and it was 13 against 1. All 13 of them asking questions and producing so called evidence and proof against me and myself and my advisor who is moderated and not allowed to speak on the list, against all of them. No one stands a fair chance. To top all of that off, it is announced in the beginning it is an un archived mailing list, well guess what? I have tons of screen shots to prove that it is archived.

They constantly break rules, lie about it, cheat, they allowed NCGenWeb to copy my sites and are continuing to allow them to copy my sites which breaks US Copyright Laws Title 17. I also found out today from a trusted member of the election committee that the election was rigged in favor of Sherri and her little clique.

So, you tell me, if the project is in trouble or not? I got the hell out, several other people are in the process of leaving and I know a lot more that will be leaving soon as well. Time to get out while the getting is good before the new commandants take over on September 1st. It is going to become a dictatorship. They are already taking over the states one at a time....and getting rid of the good CC's. Mark my words...it is going to fail very soon.

Diane
_____________________________________
ALL@usgenweb.us Mail List
http://usgenweb.us/mailman/listinfo/all_usgenweb.us

=========================

From: Diane & Mike Siniard
To: Mary White
Date: 8/2/2010 8:19:10 PM
Subject: Re: Next Blog Post

Linda Blum Barton was my advisor but she was moderated and wasn't allowed to speak. They did all gang up on me and pounded me with questions and evidence all at once. Denise sent through a whole list I think it was like 13 or 14 questions, then Colleen sent in some and after that no one else sent any in besides Linda Lewis.

Sherri, AnnieG, Linda Lewis, Denise, etc all pounded the hell out of me with all this evidence of emails from mailing lists, hell they even sent in links to the blog...LOL they even stooped so low as to include my campaign page to use it against me. They pulled things from the Florida MNIGS hearings to use against me, and I wasn't even on the GC when that took place. It is just unreal the crap they tried to pull and use against me. Some of it I did manage to get thrown out and then Cyndie had this bright idea and told me if I had one more objection I would be violating the rules of the hearing. What a crock! So, then I was obviously screwed because I couldn't object to anything else they brought forth or said. I think she did that because I corrected her on an issue of Linda Lewis jumping all over David on the mailing list and her not saying or doing anything about it and it went on for 2 days and I was tired of seeing it in my inbox. So I quoted a bunch of sturgis rules about it to her and basically called her out on it with a point of order.

Then I demanded 15 days to prepare my defense after they were finished presenting their case because they had well over a month before they announced the hearing to prepare and she got all pissy about that. When I asked for it I quoted Sturgis and told her it was my right and common law procedures dictated that I be given the same amount of time to prepare my defense.

=========================

From: Cyndie
To: ncgeniehunter@yahoo.com
Cc: board-exec@rootsweb.com
Sent: Sun, August 22, 2010 7:23:17 AM
Subject: Disciplinary Hearing - Diane Siniard

The resolution of the disciplinary hearing against Diane Siniard.

This resolution is hereby adopted, effective August 22, 2010.

The USGenWeb Advisory Board issues this finding in response to the charges brought against Ms. Diane Siniard.

Charges:
1) the sharing of private GC communications with parties involved in Grievance 2009-08-15 as demonstrated within the evidence submitted to the AB for the resulting disciplinary hearing against two FLGenWeb, Inc. members.
2) the posting of private GC communications to the archived SWSC list that included the name of a party to Grievance 2009-08-15.

Finding:
The Advisory Board finds that Diane Siniard, during the incident in question, was responsible for sharing and publically posting private communications related to Grievance 2009-08-15. Grievance Committee members are tasked to operate within the Grievance Procedures, which specifically state: "All discussion regarding the issues during the grievance process is to be considered privileged and private, and shall not be disclosed during or after the process by either the team or either party, except as allowed by these procedures."

Despite Ms Sinard's protest that she did not take an oath of confidentiality, it was her duty as Chair of the Grievance Committee to insure that all members of the GC not only took the oath of confidentiality but that each understood the terms of it and to make sure that all members abided by this oath. Her failure to comply was a major disservice to the USGenWeb Project.

Resulting Decision:

1.) Ms. Siniard shall not be recognized as a USGenWeb Project member (whether recognized as a XXGenWeb Project member or not) for a minimum of two years retroactive to her resignation of August 2, 2010; after that mandatory period, she must publically admit her wrongdoing and apologize to the members of this Project prior to being reinstated as a member of the USGenWeb project.

2.) Beginning August 2, 2012, should Ms. Siniard return as a member of the USGenWeb Project, Ms. Siniard shall be considered "on probation" within the USGenWeb Project for a period of five years. Diane may not run for, serve, hold, be appointed or elected to any position higher than the Local Coordinator level in any state or special project, or the national project prior to August 2, 2017.

Members voting to accept:
Sherri Bradley
Larry Flesher
Ann Allen Geoghagen
Dale Grimm
Jeff Kemp
Bill Oliver
Les Shockey
Pauli Smith
Tina Vickery
Denise Wells

Members voting to reject.
None

Members abstaining.
Alice Allen
Colleen Pustola
W. David Samuelsen

Sincerely,
Cyndie Enfinger, SP Rep., Disciplinary Hearing Chair

=========================

From: Diane Siniard
To:
Cyndie;dcaallen@pacifier.com;anniegms@gmail.com;lflesher@yahoo.com;pauli1028@msn.com;SEMACCrep@gmail.com;tsvickery@gmail.com;usgenwebnc@windstream.net;usgwsema@gmail.com;webmaster@cottonhills.com;wnoliver@sbcglobal.net;wvgenweb@wildblue.net;David Samuelson;Colleen;Daryl Lytton;Charles Barnum;Diane Mason-Kelly
Cc: board-exec@rootsweb.com
Sent: 8/22/2010 10:24:58 AM
Subject: Re: Disciplinary Hearing - Diane Siniard

In light of the AB continuing on with this Witch Hunt of a hearing in spite of many failures to follow Sturgis, no oaths being taken even when I was NOT the original chair when the oaths should have been taken, the mailing list being archived when it should have been an non-archived mailing list, etc. I have no alternative but to let the public know of these proceedings and how the AB handles their hearings. I will be providing the public with copies of the archived copies of the supposed non-archived mailing list, as well as the failure to follow Sturgis.

As for your supposed findings and discipline of me, y'all can all still kiss my lilly white ass, I wouldn't return to USGWP if it was the last genealogy project on earth even if you begged me to return! You are more interested in being power hungry, making a quick buck, and running the CC's into the ground as well as running the best ones off.

So, let's see just how long you can continue to do this before it all blows up in your faces!

Dale, libel me once more and you will regret your words! You are the one that asked for copies of everything in the beginning. Watch your back because they are going to come after you next. They are filing a disciplinary hearing against you next among other members of the AB. Mark my words. Facts are facts buddy.

Diane
http://trailstothepast.org/
Trails to the Past

Diane's Hearing Transcripts