UUA Presidential Election
UPDATE
(June 27, 2009 - Salt Lake
City, Utah) - Rev. Peter
Morales, senior
minister of Jefferson
Unitarian Church in Golden,
Colorado, today was
elected to be the
eighth president of the
Unitarian Universalist
Association of
Congregations (UUA) at the
Association's General Assembly
in Salt Lake City.
Morales received a total of
2061 votes, 1020 of which were
cast as
absentee ballots. His
opponent, Rev. Dr. Laurel
Hallman, formerly senior
minister of the First
Unitarian Church of Dallas,
Texas, received a
total of 1481 votes,
827 of which were absentee
ballots. Morales'
margin of victory was
580 votes.
Speaking of
his aspirations for Unitarian
Universalism, Rev. Morales
said, "I want to grow
our faith, to reach all those
people who are
looking for
non-dogmatic, liberal
religious community. I look
forward to
working with partners
in many other progressive and
justice-seeking
religious groups. There
are tremendous issues that
we'll be facing in
the coming years and
we're going to need one
another."
Rev.
Morales, the first Latino
leader of the UUA, will be
installed in a
ceremony which
concludes the General
Assembly, at 6:30 PM (MDT) on
Sunday, June 28. Rev.
Morales will succeed Rev.
William G. Sinkford who
has served two
four-year terms as President
of the UUA.
|
UUA Presidential Election Congregational
Poll
First
Unitarian voting
members had through June 10 to express
their preference for either of the two
candidates vying for election as the
next president of the Unitarian
Universalist Association. Members
could also indicate that they had no
preference for either candidate.
Our
five delegates
representing First Unitarian Church of
Omaha were directed at the Annual
Meeting to take this result into
consideration when voting their ballots.
Official
results from the congregational poll are:
67 voting
members submitted a ballot
46 were
turned in at the annual meeting May 17
Here is the
breakdown:
-
Peter
Morales.....32
votes
-
Laurel
Hallman.....9
votes
-
No
Preference....26
votes
Member
delegate absentee ballots will be turned
into Boston to be received by June 17.
Donna Neff will hand in her vote at
General Assembly on
June 27 as will Rev. Kate Rohde
who has a ministerial ballot.
A few
members included comments about the
candidates on their preferential ballots
or sent them separately.
From those
who expressed a preference for Rev. Dr.
Laurel Hallman:
From those
who expressed a preference for Rev.
Peter Morales:
-
Although I
voted Sunday on the pink slip for the
next President of the UUA, I want to
add another comment after reading more
of the materials on each candidate.
Laurel Hallman seems wonderful,
and I loved the devotional workbook
which she developed. We used it during
the recent Soul-Full
Thursdays workshop. However,
Peter Morales seems more accessible,
has a more diverse background, and may
be just the person the UUA needs to
attract people who have never heard of
Unitarians or who never thought they
would fit into our cool, intellectual
congregations. It is great to have 2
such desirable candidates to choose
from, but for the next term, I would
love to see the UUA take a turn toward
the population of the United States as
it will be in the next decade. I think
Morales would do an excellent job at
leading us in that direction.
Updated
June 28, 2009 gae
