Dear Sir,
There comes a moment in the life of every institution when its leaders must decide whether they exist to preserve the organization entrusted to them — or merely to preserve themselves.
As a longtime supporter of the Lake Chapala Society and someone who has devoted many years to supporting civic and cultural institutions in Guadalajara, I write today with profound concern about the direction in which LCS is being taken by some of its current Board members.
Members did not elect directors to engage in endless quarrels over procedural trivialities while the institution deteriorates around them. Yet the most recent Board meeting was consumed by debates over whether comments should be erased from the minutes because of some technicalities; whether contracts are truly necessary in organizational affairs; whether audit recommendations ought to be followed at all; and whether members are secretly monitoring conversations in campus meeting rooms. Most astonishing of all, we now learn that a “debugging committee” is being formed.
One must ask: Is this truly what the membership envisioned when it entrusted these individuals with leadership?
Meanwhile, the deeper crisis confronting the organization remains largely unaddressed. The culture has become increasingly dysfunctional — marked less by collaboration, stewardship, and professionalism than by factionalism, personal grievances, and internal power struggles on the part of longtime Board members. Institutions are eroded when fear replaces trust, when ego replaces service, and when procedural theatrics replace meaningful governance.
The members deserve leadership focused on restoring professionalism, accountability, transparency, and mutual respect. They deserve a Board committed to solving problems rather than manufacturing distractions.
An organization cannot flourish when its leaders devote more energy to controlling dissent than to addressing institutional decline.
Those of us who care deeply about this institution do not seek conflict. We seek competence. We seek maturity. Above all, we seek leadership worthy of the confidence once placed in it.
Sofia Valdez Bustamante