It has been more than a month since VICC held a meeting. I attribute this to the fact that the USVI held its primary election last week, and that was distracting in multiple ways.

On August 9, VICC announced via the Source a series of five planned VICC committee meetings beginning on August 10. There was a striking discrepancy between 1) the five meeting dates printed in the Source, and 2) the eight meeting dates listed on the Zoom call, Which is the correct set of meeting dates?

When I attended the first meeting on August 10, which is the subject of this post, I was shocked to find out that unannounced prior meetings were also scheduled for July 22, July 27, and August 8. (See my comments from the chat below.) These apparently did not take place for one reason or another—but not because there was no public notice of them.

Much of the early meeting on Aug 10 concerned the use of the proprietary app for VICC delegates, available at: https://vicccompanion.lovable.app/auth. This allows delegates to exchange documents, comment, and vote behind a password-protected firewall.

One of the most interesting potential secret documents concerns the attendance of VICC delegates at VICC meetings. Should the public have timely access to this document? I think so.

Here is my participation in the chat.

J.H. Snider  5:39 PM
Why were the July 22, July 27, and August 8 meetings not publicly noticed? For example, I would have been very interested in watching the August 8 meeting of the Committee on Education and Public Information.

Imani Daniel 5:42 PM
Great questions! The August 8 meeting was cancelled in less than 25 hours.

Rudel Hodge’s verbal answer:

Some meetings had to be canceled due to a lack of a quorum or for other reasons.

J.H. Snider 6:07 PM
Given that VICC meeting agendas are not publicly disclosed and that this is a great burden on members of the public interested in specific articles in the proposed constitution, I’d appreciate being told at which meeting the Future Amendments article will be discussed. All VICC’s delegates have my email address, and I would be grateful to any delegate willing to share this agenda information with me. I recognize that you, the delegates, may not know currently any more than me when the Future Amendments article will next come up for discussion at a VICC meeting.

Imani Daniel 6:08 PM
Heard and understood! It falls under government structure, and will come up sooner than later when that committee reconvenes. I will do my best to keep you updated.

J.H. Snider 6:09 PM
Thank you!

J.H. Snider 6:34 PM
VICC delegates might be interested in the series of article-specific reports being issued by The Citizens Research Council of Michigan in preparation for Michigan’s Nov. 2026 referendum on whether to call a state constitutional convention (see https://crcmich.org/publications/2026con-con-2). It began issuing the reports in February 2026 and has been introducing a new article-specific report roughly every two weeks since then, with the last to be published this coming October.  I am not endorsing any content from this series of reports, which is Michigan-specific; I am just alerting you that The Citizens Research Council of Michigan is bipartisan and highly regarded among Michigan public policy experts. There was a time in American history when such state- and article-specific constitutional report series were common, but since the late 20th Century they have become rare.

J.H. Snider 7:25 PM
There is a striking discrepancy between 1) the five VICC meeting dates printed in the Source, and 2) the eight VICC meeting dates listed on the Zoom call. Which is the correct set of meeting dates?

Rudel Hodge's verbal answer:

"This will be addressed after."

Imani Daniel 7:27 PM
🙄
Agree chair hodge.

Postscript #1

At the August 12, 2026 VICC committee meeting, I had the following exchange via the chat room with Rudel Hodge about the schedule of future committee meetings:

J.H. Snider 6:12 PM
I have not heard back from Rudel Hodge concerning the discrepancy between the Source and Zoom list of upcoming VICC committee hearing dates and times. At the last meeting, I thought Delegate Hodge promised to promptly address that discrepancy in VICC’s public communications.

Rudel Hodge 6:12 PM
What discrepancies?

J.H. Snider 6:18 PM

Here is the Zoom public notice:  
 
The Committee of Human Rights will meet to review and address the recommendations made by the VICC Constitutional Advisor and Legal Counsel on May 16, 2026
Date & Time

• Aug 10, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 11, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 12, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 13, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 14, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 15, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 16, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 17, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 18, 2026 05:30 PM
• Aug 19, 2026 05:30 PM

Rudel Hodge 6:22 PM
Understood, the zoom link was not coded by myself but the meeting dates that are presented in the article is correct. MWF of this week and again Monday and Wednesday next week.

J.H. Snider 6:26 PM
Thank you for this  information.  Hopefully, this error will be corrected on future Zoom meeting  notices.
Rudel Hodge 6:22 PM
Understood, the zoom link was not coded by myself but the meeting dates that are presented in the article is correct. MWF of this week and again Monday and Wednesday next week.

J.H. Snider 6:26 PM
Thank you for this information.  Hopefully, this error will be corrected on future Zoom meeting  notices.

Postscript #2

A public notice for the Aug. 29, 2026 plenary session was printed in a public news media outlet. But no Zoom URL for the meeting was provided with the notice. Nor was any other notice provided to the general public. After I emailed VICC's Secretary requesting the Zoom URL and did not receive it, I emailed Delegate Hodge, cc'ing several citizens who had attended many previous VICC meetings but, like me, had not received the Zoom URL. This was only two days before the meeting. Delegate Hodge then immediately emailed us the Zoom link for the meeting.