Kansas City’s Hyde Park is a diverse neighborhood filled with neighbors of all ages, race, sexual orientation and socioeconomic standing.  The Hyde Park Neighborhood Association Board values and promotes this diversity and the conversations that are essential to develop understanding and neighborhood cohesion.  Divisive, mean and outrageous words or diatribes do nothing to promote this goal and have no place in the civil discourse required to resolve neighborhood issues.

With this goal in mind, the Board has established the following Code of Conduct that will be in place for all Board, General, Committee and ad hoc meetings.  All official newsletters, emails and social media posts will be crafted with these goals in mind. The Board will also ask the moderators and leads of the “unofficial” social media groups to apply the same Code of Conduct to the discussion that they moderate.

Hyde Park Neighborhood Association (HPNA) Code of Conduct

• All community members should conduct themselves in a professional and civil manner.
• All participants should treat others with  respect regardless of the other’s opinion, ethnicity, race, religion, religious  belief or non-belief, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, age, disability, marital status, income, homeowner status, renter status or political affiliation.
• Participants should not engage in or threaten to engage in any physical attack on any other individual.
• Participants should not use language that is threatening, obscene, or slanderous, including profanities, insults or other disparaging remarks or gestures directed toward other participants.
• Participants should promote and, if necessary, enforce a safe meeting environment. If participants are disruptive or violate the Code of Conduct, other participants should demand that the offending participant conduct  themselves in a respectful and orderly manner.
• Violators of the Code of Conduct may be asked to leave a meeting, event, or subject to removing a social media post
• Participants should be respectful when called in for problematic language or behavior, and be open to listening and learning. They should recognize that the impact of their words may be different from their intent.
• Participants should be constructive when addressing any problematic language or behavior, and proceed with the assumption that all participants care for one another and are open to resolving any harm their language or behavior may cause.
• Participants should not engage in “bullying” or harassment which is generally defined as follows:
  • “Bullying” is conduct that meets all of the following criteria:
    • Is reasonably perceived as being dehumanizing, intimidating, hostile, threatening, or otherwise likely to evoke fear of physical hand or emotional distress;
    • Is directed at one or more participants;
    • Is conveyed through physical, verbal, or technological means;
    • Substantially interferes with participation opportunities, benefits, or programs of one or more participants at sponsored activities or events;
    • Adversely affects the ability to participate in or benefit from the HPNA programs or activities by placing the participant in reasonable fear of physical harm or by causing emotional distress;
  • “Harassment” is conduct that meets all of the following criteria:
    • Is reasonably perceived as being dehumanizing, Intimidating, hostile, threatening, or otherwise likely to evoke fear of physical harm or emotional distress;
    • Is directed at one or more participant;
    • Is conveyed through physical, verbal, or technological means;
    • Substantially interferes with participation opportunities, benefits, or programs of one or more HPNA sponsored activities or events;
    • Adversely affects the ability to participate in or benefit from the HPNA programs or activities because the conduct, as reasonably perceived by the participant, is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive as to have this effect.

If you have questions or concerns about the Code of Conduct, please contact a HPNA board member.