After a year’s lapse of membership, yesterday I pulled up the form to look at re-upping in USAT. My interest cooled significantly this morning when I read Dan’s article on the elections. Man, I hate funding those kinds of shenanigans, but I also dislike “not funding” the sport. How do the rest of you look at this?
I look at it from a purely economic standpoint. If I am going to do three or more USAT sanctioned races per year, then it is cheaper and/or easier for me to pay the annual fee one time vice three one-day fees.
I am a cynic by nature, and the cynical side of me wants to say that USAT is a joke. However, I cannot completely make that statement because I have a good friend who crashed badly in a race about three years ago and nearly died. His insurance wouldn’t pick up the tab, but the USAT insurance did and paid nearly all of his bills, which were quite large.
So USAT isn’t a complete joke, only partly a joke. I am a health educator full time and part-time journalist (and former newspaper editor), and reading Dan’s article had me licking my journalistic chops. There is so much to that story, much more than is being told. I would love to know the nuts and bolts to what is going on. It would make great copy I’m sure.
I don’t like the election process at all. It reeks. The process does matter, and this one is way out of whack. I don’t like that my money is funding this stuff, either, but I have to be a member to participate in races. So I renew my membership every year.
Maybe USAT as a whole isn’t a joke, but the election process is. Kind of makes me wonder what else is going on.
RP
“My interest cooled significantly this morning when I read Dan’s article on the elections.”
man, i need to go back and figure out what went wrong. yours is precisely the opposite reaction i was hoping for.
here’s a hint. re-up. you’ll be glad you did (and so will i). i’ll explain in due time.
<<man, i need to go back and figure out what went wrong. yours is precisely the opposite reaction i was hoping for. >>
I think people are getting fatigued from all of the scammin’ going on in society today. Look at Tyco/Kozlowski, Enron & Arthur Anderson, the list goes on. Is 272 million dollars not enough to get by on? WTF? I live in a trailer park, $40.000 a year looks like fat city to me. Scams and rip-offs are a way of life and quite honestly, I’m not suprised that there is shenannigans going on in the boardroom of USAT.
Whatever gets you paid…
Brett
Dan,
By what process are the By-laws of USAT amended?
Would you be willing to place a petition somewhere on Slowtwitch that requests an amendment of the By-laws?
Posters could sign the petition using their USAT membership number and name. The existing log in system should do a respectable job of certifying “signatures”.
The petition statement should be directed at removing mechanisms by which any member can inappropriately influence either the nominations or elections. And an independent firm, one with NO conflict of interest, should be designated to certify the election results.
The leaders that I would like to have running USAT would welcome such changes. Otherwise, the election is shame. If my dues is supporting a corporation with appointed executives, I don’t want that corporation pretending it is a democratic institution.
Bill
After all the crap people on this forum were giving about how it is my duty to vote as a triathlete and USAT member, and how most triathletes don’t care, etc, etc, I did my due diligence, researched, even posted here asking for opinions and recommendations. I made up my mind, and I voted for the people whom I thought best served the direction and focus that I think would be most beneficial to triathlon. In short, not the incumbents.
So color me doubly depressed that on top of none of my candidates winning, your story makes it perfectly clear that the entire system is corrupt.
But it was an excellent story, and I thank you for posting it. When ‘we’ finally figure out how to oust ‘them’, the surprised, confused look of the mighty falling will be rewarding indeed. There really is nothing like a corrupt person in a position of power trying to figure out how you managed to dethrone them. It’s quite breathtaking, really.
astonishing. This is almost as good as the Diebold voting machines that expose their software on the web, and don’t maintain a paper trail, thereby ensuring that election results can be manipulated at will by the unscrupulous. (These machines are coming soon to a voting booth near you, and just as in the USAT elections, no-one cares enough to stop it…)
Ahem. Sorry, getting off the hobbyhorse now.
Back on thread, the fact that less than 4000 of USAT’s membership bothered to vote at all makes stopping this kind of election manipulation more important, not less. I’m not happy that my USAT dollars are going to support people with such fine contempt for the democratic process.
Don’t believe everything Dan writes, and don’t assume there was corruption in the election.
"By what process are the By-laws of USAT amended?’
hold your fire. i’m going to ask you to trust me on this. you won’t have to wait long.
I’m curious what part of the article you take issue with. Are you saying that ballots were not printed and votes solicited prior to publishing of the platforms? How about candidates directly soliciting and collecting ballots? Did the lawyer not give that opinion on what should be the process of the election? Did USAT not ignore that advice?
It doesn’t take overt corruption to influence an election. If you know none of the candidates and the RD is soliciting your vote as part of the registration process of the race you are getting ready to do who are you going to vote for? When my wife and I voted we were directly solicited by a candidate, however it also happened to be the candidate I planned on voting for and we sat for almost a half hour talking about what we thought should be done with USAT. I was actually quite surprised to see him at that particular race. But when it came time to vote for an at-large candidate I really had nothing to go on but the advice of the candidate sitting next to me. In all honesty I should not have voted for anyone at-large because I knew nothing about any of them except what I had just been told by a biased candidate, but I figured I wanted more people like him on the board so I’d take his opinion seriously. Of course they both lost.
I campaigned on this issue, devoting a fair portion of my platform to it as Dan will attest. I sent e-mails all over the country on this. Most chose to ignore me, some even sent e-mails telling me not to bother them any more. Although I was elected to the Board (and the only non-incumbent to do so), my position on election reform remains unchanged. We need it and we need it now. But here is the thing, in a Democracy, Abe Lincoln’s old words continue to ring true, “Government by the people, of the people and for the people”. The problem is with USAT the people, that’s all of you and me have failed to monitor with any seriousness our National Governing body, so that aspect “by the people” is darn near non-existent. Consequently, the rest of Abe’s statement becomes moot with regard to USAT. 4,000 total votes out of 47,000 members only serves to underline the apathy. It took Dan’s timely article to wake you all up and now most of you are rightfully indignant. The best way to prevent this in the future is to get actively involved in the politics and operation of YOUR Federation. Work with your local clubs and Regional Federations to select your future leaders and promote them within the system, while insuring that system remains fair and true. Thru your duly elected representatives demand fairness and honesty. That takes vigilance. The choice is yours.
Bill,
I have a copy of the Bylaws and based on my reading of the ByLaws I come up with the following. These are portions of the Bylaws in Artcle VI relating to Membership.
“A special meeting of the membership can be called by the Board, Executive Director, President or, 5% or more of the total members.” I would guess that means around 2,000 to 2,500 members. I believe the place of the meeting will be dertermined by who calls the meeting.
“A quorum for the transaction of business shall consist of 100 members. Any action taken by membership at such meeting shall not be effective until ratified by the appropriate method and entity.”
I believe the “appropriate method” includes being ratified by written ballot mailed to members.
"The items requiring ratification by mail ballot are (a) adoption, amendment, or repeal of the Articles of Inc or Bylaws, (b) filling vacancies on the Board, (c) removal of a director.
However, “Any action which may be taken at any regular or special meeting of the members, and any action requiring the ratification of the members by written ballot may be taken without a meeting by distribution of a written ballot to every member entitled to vote.”
“The members may initiate a written ballot vote of the membership on any matter upon which the membership is entitled to vote by presentation to the Exec Director of a petition, signed by no fewer than 100 members, requesting such ballot and designating the specific matter or matters upon which the vote is requested.”
Not sure what matters members are “entitled to vote”.
So I am not sure but perhaps you only really need 100 members to get something started which would lead to a vote of all the members. I would guess we need an atty to look the Bylaws over. Also, I am not sure what else the members could ask to be voted on. Last year the SF Tri Club put a petition out regarding Race Transfers but noone in the club knew about this rule or looked into if it would fit. Also the SF Tri Club signitures were not officially submitted so perhaps that was an issue. But if it only take 100 signitures most tri clubs could get it started.
Willy in Pacifica
thanks to very astute willy, the cat must come out of the bag. there are two issues here. the smaller issue is race transfers/refunds, and while i vehemently support RDs who have a generous transfer policy, i vehemently support USAT’s staying out of market issues. USAT has three duties you and i are concerned about:
- making races more safe.
- making races more fair.
- making more races.
it is not USAT’s mission to make races cheaper, except by helping in the establishment of more races and race directors, thus increasing competition. refunds are a market issue, not a safety issue. that said, if you want to banter this about, let’s start a new thread.
now to the important point:
yes, we have a vehicle for direct vote (two vehicles, in fact). it is important, and it is a hallmark of democracy in america, and either the “initiative” or the “referendum” process, depending on where you live, is something we need to protect. USAT’s board has commenced on a wholesale rewrite of the bylaws and is at it as we speak. personally, i don’t know if it might be legally possible for them to write the initiative process out of the bylaws, but i wouldn’t put it past certain of them to try. so i’m finishing up the wording on a petition right now, which has two aims:
-
to preserve the initiative process, and make its abolition only possible through a supermajority of eligible voting members, i.e., if by direct vote 2/3 of you all want to give up your right to hold a direct election, then you can, but short of that nothing is able to abolish this right. and…
-
such initiatives shall be placed ONLY the same ballot as used for the election of board members, which means initiatives appear only once a year. otherwise, you’ve got the SF Tri club (let us say) putting its own agenda ahead of the best interest of the federation, and you’ve got a dozen elections a year each costing the federation tens of thousands of dollars.
-
realize that as willy correctly pointed out, if there is some egregious stuff going on that requires fixing prior to the general election, there is still ANOTHER mechanism, the special meeting of the members. the bar is much higher for that. as willy’s math demonstrates, you need in excess of 2000 signatures to trigger a special meeting. so if the board of directors decides to vote themselves all a trip around the world after a peyote-riven board meeting, we can hold a special meeting and kick them all out. otherwise, the initiative is the process for direct change, and it ought to invigorate you, me, all of us, and get us involved in the process. but, as i said, it ought not to be a process with which we become so enamored we bankrupt the federation we own.
therefore, pay your 30 goddam bucks and become annual members, so you can sign my petition.
Any thoughts of complaining to USOC? Granted they don’t particularly have their house in order and the whole devil you know thing and all. But it’s an organization that can put pressure on the various sports federations to clean up their act or they’ll lost the right to oversee Olympic team selection. And they are actually in the process of decertifying United States Taekwondo Union. Primarily because of financial mismanagement, but a couple quotes from an article here caught my eye:
http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2003/11/10/story8.html
“The Ohio Taekwondo Association also alleges the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based group engaged in misrepresentation of shareholder voting, which led to a disenfranchisement of many members.”
"The lawsuit also claims that during the USTU’s November 2002 annual meeting in Los Angeles, the group passed several legislative provisions and allowed nonqualified delegates to vote on those propositions. "
Again, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to complain there, and the cure could be worse than the disease, but brainstorming here, and it’s a group that USAT does have to be accountable to in some ways if it wants to be able to continue to bill itself as the governing body of elite triathletes in the US.
“Any thoughts of complaining to USOC?”
hey, as NGBs go, we’re stellar. there aren’t any felonies going on here, just a family tiff. there are mechanism to sort it out, and besides, as you point out, asking the USOC to intervene is like asking elizabeth taylor for marital advice.
btw, perhaps apropos of nothing, but tae kwon do had the same accountant, ken waugh. he resigned as accountant only 34 days ago. glad to see he didn’t rush into any hasty decisions.
I thought you really went, learned, and made some sausage, like a real man.
Shame, “beating around a bush…” and still no sausage!
Dan:
I am saddened by this post. First, you bemoan the apathy of triathletes, condemning them for such a poor participation in the USAT election and not taking an active role in their sport’s future…then you attack the SF Tri Club for assisting in the advancement of a issue high at the list of the nation’s triathletes - that of race entry transfers/refunds. We at SF Tri Club recognize that this issue may be heightened a bit around our area due to popular races such as Escape from Alcatraz, San Jose International, etc. But this issue is far from being exclusive to the SF bay area. Kona 1/2 Ironman; all IM North America events; etc. sell out far in advance. This is a national issue. The issue has appeared in the OP/Ed page of various national triathlon magazines and every on-line forum. Yet, you refer to it as “SF Tri Club’s agenda”…and, worse yet, accuse us of making it our agenda and placing it above the best interests of the sport (despite the fact that our petition received nearly as many signatures as voted in the entire USAT 2002 election). Even assuming that it wasn’t a concern shared among many triathletes, you still insult us for taking what we believe to be an important issue and then continue to attack other triathletes for their apathy and lack of participation in this sport. You tell people that if they are concerned , then they should pay their #&^$^& $30 and sign your petition…but insult us for being so whacked-out since we dared to request the same.
Further, you take it upon yourself to define the three concerns for which the USAT should limit itself. Have you read the USATmission statement? Their policies and “about us” at their website? Their by-laws? I certainly do not see any language reflective of the three-goal limitation that you have created. In fact, it is the opposite. The USAT is chartered to advance the sport; the raise grass-roots awareness; and to be the best representative body in the world. That means, in my humble opinion, representing triathletes as well as race directors; addressing valid concerns raised by its dues-paying members; and ensuring that the sport (and fees paid to compete in the sport) are fair and reasonable. Maybe you are are so comfortable that race entry fees are no longer a concern to you. I can assure you, they are a concern to a large number of USAT members.
I do agree that the initiative procedure should be preserved. I do not agree that it should be restricted to an annual election. Perhaps raise the requisite number of signatures. But by limiting initiatives to an annual election (one which you yourself has indicated has far from satisfactory participation) you would be limiting the effectiveness of the procedure.
Alan
SF Tri Club
Dan - Good luck with trying to improve the process. The USAT election process needs to be changed. I hope that the membership will get involved to make this happen. It would be a shame if they do not get involved and we end up with the same problems next year. You might want to enlist help from RD’s who should also be interested in changing the system. Z
Yet, you refer to it as “SF Tri Club’s agenda”…and, worse yet, accuse us of making it our agenda and placing it above the best interests of the sport<<
Alan, can you HONESTLY say that you wouldn’t have jumped on the race transfer bandwagon so quickly or vehemently if a number of members of the SF Tri Club hadn’t of been caught selling/giving their race spots for SJIT to others?