As noted in the debates on Item 7, controversy arose at the Business Meeting over the text of the current Constitution’s Article I, Section 6, with Joseph Lattin claiming that the text should read "a licensed independent accountant" rather than the published "an independent accountant"; the Presiding Officer was directed to consult the records and make the change if they so indicated. This report is the result of the Secretary’s investigations.
The text in question was given first passage at IguanaCon (1978) and ratified at Seacon (1979). According to Seacon Progress Report 3, the text passed at IguanaCon was "an independent certified public accountant"; this is in exact agreement with my own notes of the meetings and with published reports elsewhere. (The argument at IguanaCon was over removing the word "audited" from the original text.) At Seacon the text was amended before ratification; the question is how. Unfortunately I was not at Seacon. The Presiding Officer was Donald Eastlake and the Secretary was Rick Katze. Mr. Eastlake has no notes on the point, but he consulted Mr. Katze’s records before certifying the text (for the Noreascon II PR3 and Program Book) as "an independent accountant". However, Mr. Katze kept the record of the meeting on tape, never transcribed a written set of minutes, and believes that the tape has since been lost. There is thus no official record of the meeting’s actions, other than that subsequently published (and not challenged until this year).
I have consulted newszine reports on the Seacon Business Meeting. Locus 225: "A motion requiring a committee to have an accountant and to publish a financial statement was ratified, but the CPA requirement was struck." File 770 15 (report credited to Marty Massoglia): "That part of [the motion] requiring a con to retain a CPA to compile and review the con’s financial report was modified to merely an accountant, who will only ‘prepare’ the report." On the basis of the available evidence (and the disagreement among those who were there), I believe there is no justification for altering the published text.
[NOTE by Tim Illingworth, June 1998. Having put together a note of the 1979 Business Meeting based on Ben Yalow’s copy of the 1979 Main Meeting agenda, I can confirm that the Preliminary Business Meeting struck the relevant words from the motion before ratifying it. The motion stated, inter alia, "Each Convention Committee shall retain an independent certified public accountant", and the Preliminary Business Meeting deleted the words "certified public".]