Disappointing.

x2

Goodbye to any transparency from USAT.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

Do you know how many people voted?

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Dan Kennison

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i think it was 5601 votes cast. the info is on the USAT website.

Around 1% of USAT members - pretty demoralizing that people don't give a $hit!

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actually, there are about 114,000 adult annual members. so, not counting youth annuals (a much smaller number) this election represents about 5 percent of annual members, and is almost exactly twice the votes cast in the 2013 election, the last time there were en masse changes to the bylaws the members were asked to approve.

so, low turnout, but much higher than previously. in that prior election there were 3 proposals the board put forward, and they were carried by 87, 88 and 91 percent. the largest number of "no" votes for any of the proposals was 361. in this election there were over 2000 "no" votes.

this was not an election the board wanted to lose. there were 25 percent more "yes" votes cast in this election than were cast altogether in the last election.

there is an election every year. if the membership wants to have its own transparency bylaw back in there it needs signatures in a number not much greater than the total of the "no" votes cast in this election.

the result of this election was a fait accompli. when you have a ballot sent out with all the reasons to vote yes to a resolution, and no argument on the other side, it's going to take a lot to overcome the ballot proposal. still, this was about a 65/35 result, and if this many "no" votes had been registered in the last election, out of the total votes cast in the last election, the bylaw propsals would have been voted down by a 70/30 margin.

why were 65 percent more "yes" votes cast in this election than in the last election? i don't know. what i do know is that it's well within the reach of the membership to have its bylaws reflect the governance it truly wants. this won't be my first special initiative rodeo if that's the way the membership wants to go, and i don't mind helping. but it won't be me pumping all the air into the tires this time. you guys have to decide it's what you want to do.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Disappointing but not unexpected. This tells us that there aren't many USAT members vested in growing the sport, or interested in the sport enough to keep informed on what's going on. I guess most have become members to save money at race registrations?

Only 5000+ voted, and 65% voted to approve the bylaw changes? It's hard to not assume that great many voted without understanding the issue or knowing what was at stake. :/ (So just like any other election ever?)

right. but more than 2000 took the time to vote "no" after having heard only the sales pitch for "yes." what typically happens is that the proposals are presumed to be there for good reason, there is only the one argument, in favor, hence the yes vote. to have 2000 no votes cast is pretty good.

also, these bylaw changes barely passed. it takes a 60 percent vote to amend the bylaws, so there wasn't much room to spare.

there was an undercurrent to this election, a narrative not really explained to you all, which is that the general directors are tired of what they see as an attempt for the elites to pack the board with general director seats. i'm sympathetic to that argument.

however, the sunshine policy, doing away with that, that's gone a bit too far in my opinion. so, if you want transparency, there are more than enough "no" votes cast to trigger a member-initiated proposal, and now the members get to tell their own story on the ballot. honestly, i think it would be a trivial task to put that together. it's a petition signed by 1 percent of the annual membership total.

interestingly, you need to be 18 years old to vote, according to the bylaw changes members just voted in. it will be interesting to see whether that 1 percent is of the entire membership (roughly 145,000) or of adults only (roughly 115,000). either way, you're looking only at 1150 or 1450 signatures on a petition.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Yeah. But in the spectrum of civic and community engagement most people have a limit. There's politics at the federal, state, county, and city level to keep informed on. There's school governance. Homeowners associations. Work politics. Marriage. When the investment is like $50/year and there's no immediate effect on their own participation then it doesn't register enough to lift triathlon governance somwhere in the mix of all the other stuff.. And most people want to treat recreation as escape from politics.

Bless all the people who watch the watchers, though.

Could one go about getting those signatures digitally? IE, do you need actual ink on paper, or could you collect the signatures some other way?

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

i don't know. i think it would be interesting to ask. because the election is carried out digitally it seems like it would be appropriate.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Dan, the essence and impact of USA Triathlon’s “Sunshine Policy” is absolutely not being lost via the now approved Bylaw amendments. State, Federal, and USOC requirements mandate USAT (as a 501c3 and a National Governing Body) to report and post at least, if not more than what the past Sunshine Policy required. The two main mandates of the Sunshine Policy were the posting of Board Meeting Minutes, and the annual audited Financial Statement. That is the primary essence of the Sunshine Policy.

The USOC mandates more than the prior Sunshine Policy:

• posting on our website the current bylaws and other organic documents;
• posting on our website the IRS Form 990 for the three most recent years;
• posting on our website our audited financial statements for the three most recent years;
• be financially and operationally transparent and accountable to its members and to the corporation

Colorado law requires (among other things):

• Board minutes are required to be maintained and available to members, which we accomplish by posting them on our website.
• Maintaining and publishing “appropriate accounting records," which we also do by posting them on our website.

USA Triathlon will absolutely continue to publish our minutes, tax returns, and audited financials just like we have in the past - period.

The word “transparency” has risen to a new level of awareness and importance when it comes to public bodies … and rightfully so. Too much has taken place behind the scenes, including too much inappropriate conduct. Thus, transparency is critical to effective leadership and organizational trust and effectiveness. The Board of USA Triathlon is absolutely committed to this principle.


The fact is the change from the past Sunshine Policy wording was maybe taken too lightly, with zero dissension on the Board, as we know we are committed to this. This, and many of the other changes, were done with the primary purpose of becoming more current with “Best Practices,” as so much was written when we were significantly smaller, a much different organization, and even before we became part of the U.S. Olympic movement.


In conclusion, please rest assured we will continue to practice and exhibit transparency with Board happenings and our Federation’s finances … both because this is still mandated; but, more importantly, because it is the right thing to do.

Thanks for taking the time to respond Barry.

Could you just explain to us why, if the intent was not to water down the policy itself, why it was felt appropriate to water down the language in the policy?

In your response above you have been very specific about what information should and will be disclosed. Why not keep these specifics in the ByLaws? The new language says "a wide variety" of information will be disclosed. Surely you can see the weakness in that language and how the optics look bad, to say nothing of the optics of the large increase in "no" votes you received.


ETA: last question: so what is now not required to be disclosed under the new ByLaw compared to the previous, more specific, policy?

thanks for explaining this. speaking just for myself, i was about 60/40 on this, in favor of "no" and mostly it was because of process issues:

1. i feel that there should be the option of somebody writing a dissenting view;
2. this was a lot to put into one resolution; there probably should have been several, as has been the case in elections past;
3. i'd like to actually have the members vote on the real issue here, with a discussion of the real issue, which is the elites trying to pack the board;
4. if the sunshine policy didn't mandate something USOC bylaws and colorado law doesn't, there would have been no reason to get rid of it.

i'm sympathetic to most of what the board wants to achieve. but i think the board was pretty tone deaf in how it handled the election.

because i was 40 percent in favor of "yes" that should tell you that i agree with much of what the board was trying to achieve. i'm unsure at this point whether the way the board went about this election is reason enough to try to roll some of this back, and put into place some elements to urge these elections toward better fairness and transparency, such as:

1. proposals to change bylaws need to be separate and specific to each point;
2. either a dissenting view should be on the ballot, or no view should be on the ballot; it's unseemly to have the board's reason to vote yes on the ballot without a counterbalancing opinion;
3. a reasonable sunshine policy ought to be in the bylaws. regardless of what colorado or the USOC have in their bylaws or constitution, it's appropriate for our bylaws to reflect the membership's commitment to transparency. a proper sunshine policy shouldn't be anything the board feels is a problem, since it won't change the board's disclosure requirements.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

So with this passing does this mean the Elite's cannot stack the board now?

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I voted no, mainly because of that long babbling email from the head of USAT that was published on this forum telling me why I should vote yes.