Just got the ballot for the USAT Bylaw changes. After reading the information from this forum and reading the information included with the ballot sent by USAT, I voted Yes for both ammendments.
It seems to me that the board has done a good job with these amendments and they will help make our federation stronger.
Please remember to vote - it is your federation.
Brian - USAT will come through with a National Championship. They have some work cut out for them, but they will pull it off. There are a number a top quality people who have volunteered their time to serve on the USAT Board of Directors during the past 15 years - Mike Gilmore, David Backer, Flo Bryan, Mike Greer, Gail Moore, Rob Vigoritto, and many others.
The current board and staff are also very good people. It’s very easy to sit back and complain about your federation. It is not easy to volunteer your time to improve our sport.
Tom, what did you like about the amendments? From what I have heard, it seemed just like a power grab. The board hasn’t lived up to the ‘new’ by-laws, and haven’t explained exactly why they need any changes.
After serving on the USAT board for 5 years in the early 90’s I can see why they are asking for these changes in the bylaws. They are asking to be able to change certain ammendments in a timely fashion. Since we are the people who elect these board members, I would hope that we would trust them to do the job they were elected to do. Z
Vote yes or vote no, what does it matter? We pass the petition and the board (largely) ignores it. What does it matter now what we vote for or against? Given the board’s behavior in light of the petition passing isn’t the outcome of this vote preordained? The board will act as it wants to regardless of rules and votes. And for this I’m supposed to thank the current board? “Thank you sir, may I have another”
The recent behaviour of the board doesn’t deserve our trust.
What kind of changes might they need to make in the middle of the year/season? That can’t wait until the regular vote? They mentioned the USOC, what would they ask for on short notice that would require a change in the by-laws?
This is not the ‘middle of the season’ They received a petition. Its been assumed even on this forum that there would be modifications and this was the election to make the proposals. They are proposing amendments that they believe that they need in order to conduct business as any elected federation. There is work to be done and between restructuring the board, flawed new bylaws, derailing of existing processes such as the national championship selection by firebrands, they are trying to do as best they can and are way behind in conducting even the basic policy work of USAT. These guys are your fellow athletes and supporters. After this election it will be entirely new faces and all the old guard will be on the sidelines. I say give them a chance.
I am willing to give them a chance, but it seems like they haven’t given the new by-laws a chance.
I understand that these changes are middle of the year changes, but the only rational I have seen for the proposed changes are to allow them to make middle of the year changes without the approval of the membership, and I haven’t heard any rational for needing to make any middle of the year changes.
Z & all,
I would like to support at least one of the proposed amendments, but I do not know exactly what I am voting on.
The ballot that I received only came with the Board of Director’s platform for the bylaw changes. A printed text of the proposals was not provided, just a link to the website where they are stored.
The problem is that what is on the website has changed…
It was reported on another thread that the first proposal once included the striking of financial reporting requirements, and the current version does not. I’ve got two different copies of the same file. I don’t know which one to believe. Which is the real one? They both came from the same website.
The BOD platform that I received in the mail is also different than the version currently posted on the web. This relates to Proposal #2. The web version lists the Sunshine Policy as one of the exempted sections. The paper version does not. I’m tempted to vote with regards to the paper version.
I’m inclined to believe that this bylaw election is already tainted by the fact that there are multiple copies of the same “proposals” out there. I’ve been exchanging e-mails with one of my representatives on the USAT Board, and I’m planning on attending our USAT region’s annual meeting this weekend, to somehow see if this situation can be salvaged. If there is a way that we could all agree what the proper wording of the proposals are, and get the word out before votes are cast, then I could support what the Board is trying to do.
That’s a real problem - ballot says version 2.0, the website says version 2.1. If there is a “yes” vote, which version has been approved? Moreover, I’m not sure there is a way to make the vote mean anything (though I predict the board will say everything is fine until there is a legal, or electoral, challenge).
Why are we in this pickle? (1) The USOC blue ribbon panel said USAT had to appoint an election task force; (2) Mike Highfield volunteered to head the task force (“volunteered” is not stricly accurate - more like “pleaded”); (3) Highfield is a attorney and ex-USAT president (1998-2000) from Michigan who devised the election procedures that created all the problems of 2003-04 and hated the bylaw amendments proposed in 2004 (in fact, he lobbied against them on this forum); (4) the board gives the job to Highfield; (5) Highfield writes a document that would overturn much of the 2004 bylaw amendments;(6) the board adopts the Highfield proposal without much change; and (7) then the board basically tries to skate through without informing the members and allowing any sort of informed discussion.
Two weeks ago, I initiated a relevant discussion on this forum - and once we started dissecting the issues, some problems became apparent. So, the board did a politically understandable thing: it made some last minute changes. But when you do all sorts of things at the last moment, sometimes there isn’t enough time to think the ramifications through and make sure everything is in order.
That’s what happened with proposal 2 - the Sunshine Policy. They hate that sucker, and initially gave themselves the right to change it without submitting it to a vote of the members. But when that became public, they recognized how bad it looked and made a last-minute change. Problem was, the 53,000 ballots had already been printed. Oops.
I would imagine you will be in Shreveport this weekend. So will I and I can tell you, as a board member, I have not a clue about what is going on with these amendments from the organizations standpoint. What I know is by using the USAT website and Slowtwitch.
What is happening here would be likened to our founding fathers, after ratifying the Constitution, putting up amendments the next year to go to a monarchy because it seemed to work better than having all the riff raff voting all the time. Our nations constitution survives because it is not all that easy to amend.
I am saying this to people who allowed the election of their representative go unchallenged in 7 out of 8 regions. That is really sad. When Lew Friedland told the race directors that you can charge what you wnat without reprecussions from the membership, he was probably correct.
Bob Sigerson
I voted NO on both. We’ve just gotten the Dan/Lew stuff passed, and nobody’s willing to try to work with what we as a membership have just recently expressed as our will.
Sorry. And I realize that the board seems to be made up of nice people, but I want to see them work with what we’ve already given them before allowing them to jigger with things.
Tony
I think I’m voting No. Not because there may be merit in the proposed changes, but more for the presentation. The fact that what’s on the website and what’s on the ballot are different is suspect and certainly open for more legal expenses if ratified and not what was expected to be ratified. Also, unsubstantiated claims of the inablility to adjust with the current bylaws based on changes in USOC policies, etc. just don’t cut it with me. There should have been examples - real incidences or theoretical incidences that we could evaluate. There also should have been for and against arguments along with rebutals (don’t know if that’s been done before, but in government elections, I put a lot of faith in those and note who wrote them.)
Simply put, for me, there’s not enough information to make an intellegent choice. So, I’ll do the dumb choice and vote for the business as usual - No. Actually, I’ll dig a little deeper before I finalize my choice to see if I can find something that makes sense.
Tom:
Lew offers more than compelling reasoning why we should be looking at this with a somewhat jaundiced view.
I may be aging up into a new group this year…but my memory still remains fresh on a very recent membership vote. The new stuff to me does not even count as an end around. This is more like a slap in the face. The Board just didn’t like what we, their employers, decided we wanted to begin with. Who is in charge of this operation, the dues/fees paying members, or the cowboy board members? I’m open to be enlightened.
I still say hire an Executive Director with a one year contract and option to extend based on performance. Keep the staff and fire the board.
If you want a good Executive Director you will have to give him/her more than a year. You will have to give them a package that would make them want to work for you.
"I still say hire an Executive Director with a one year contract and option to extend based on performance. Keep the staff and fire the board. "
<< Keep the staff and fire the board.
problem is, you can’t fire the board, you elect them, and based on the current apathy, we won’t even get to elect the board representatives in all but one region. Five of the eight regions had only one person running, two regions didn’t have anyone running. One person currently on the board will be on the board again this next year because he had no opposition, another current board member is the only person facing an election. So at best, there will be two remaining board members that repeat on the board this next time. It gets really old reading all the negative comments but then no one is willing to step up and really do something to really effect change.
I still haven’t made up my mind on the amendments, but I do know a couple of things. I think one year terms are too short, I believe they should be two year terms, and I like the idea of staggering them so that there are always experienced board members on board each year. I also think that the current voting regions can be further improved upon and bringing them more in line with the regional boards is a good idea in my opinion. When you are getting approximately 15- 20% of the membership to vote on anything, and can’t even get enough people to run for positions to have a vote, why should the option to vote on things be given to the membership? I don’t think that is very responsible. I also don’t necessarily like the idea that the board can then make all the decisions and changes that they see fit to do, but the reality of it is is that we are supposed to elect a representative that reflects our views and ideas so that those views and ideas are present to influence decisions made by the board. If you don’t like the decisions that the board makes, you have options. Don’t vote for them again, assuming that you did vote in the first place; and/or run for a position yourself and bring your ideas to Colorado Springs.
All excellent points Mike. One of the real problems is that there’s no real mechanism to ensure the proposed by-laws are in agreement with the remaining parts of the by-laws. The difference between the election districts & regional federations is an example of this. In most elections referendums go through a thorough scrubbing (by both lawyers & journalists) and they are focused to one essential point and one essential point only. The Board & the membership have created our own damn mess by Omni-Busing all these proposals: Vote all YES or all NO … neither group is solely to blame.
Most of the by-law changes in proposal #1 sound fair enough to me. The two-year terms are essential imho, but I think I would prefer to see the regional federations matched to the new election districts rather than vice-versa. Or, at least, I would like to know why this idea was presented. Sadly, there’s no record of the debate about these amendments, so we don’t know what the board deemed valuable about one plan vs. another. Still, in the end, I’m not too concerned about how the two align, as long as they do.
If it were not for the complete mess the Board has made of informing the membership of this proposal (or not informing) and then changing things again and again, I would put aside my desire to see the new election districts trump the old regional federations in favor of the two-year terms and other improvements. However, personally, I would like to be able to approve the changes to terms, term limits, and elections and table the election district issue, but we don’t have have that option. In the future, I would like to see the board better isolate any ballot initiative, regardless of the source. Someone on the new board should make that a priority, for everyone’s sanity.
Now, about proposal #2, the Board’s claim is that they need flexibility in order to respond to IRS, USOC, ITU requirements. Fine, on principal I can accept that, but what, in particular (aside from this temporary mess we’ve created over the last 18 months) in the by-laws could possibly concern any of these bodies? I’m still in the process of learning the by-laws, but I cannot think of anything outside of elections, regions, etc, which the Board exempted themselves from modifying. Let’s face it, the by-laws should change infrequently regardless of who is making the changes. As a matter of policy, the Board & the membership should avoid amending the by-laws with anything that could affect the organization’s flexibility. Right now, if the ITU or the USOC has concerns that require the by-laws to change then tell us what the requirements are and let’s have a vote on it.
But, as Mike points out, if we cannot even contest a single election (the only contested election is a fluke that puts an existing board member in a almost-random district since the Petition eliminated his old seat … how silly when we have two districts with NO ONE running) how much power should we have as members? Most sane politicians over the last 2,000 years realize that democracy is messy and a republic is usually the better solution. If we’re electing people to the board, shouldn’t they have a certain degree of power?
In theory, yes, but perhaps the time for that is in the future given recent history.
stv - Very good points - that is the best thing about the forum - it allows people to voice their concerns and talk about the challenges we have with our sport. Z
I think most people were prepared for or expecting a change in the term limits, but not the wholesale undoing of the petition. As far as the districts go, Lew gave very good reasons for setting them the way the petition did (equal representation), so let’s make the regions match.
My biggest problem with this is the way it was done. It smacks of the way things were, the BOD doing whatever they want. Instead of doing their job under the new by-laws, it seems like the only thing they were concerned with was undoing the changes the membership wanted. The way they are going about trying to make changes also looks like they were trying to slip one past us again. If they had brought up concerns about the petition reforms soon after they were voted in, and explained what and why they wanted changes, there could have been some useful discussion and a meaningful proposal could have been on the ballot. Instead, they sneak it in at the last minute with little fanfare, make last minute changes to try to avoid the backlash, and still give no good reasoning for any of it.
I just got home and saw them. While I have not read them completely yet, my initial impression is that they unwind the changes made when Dan et al staged their mini-insurrection last year.
I am not neccessarily opposed to the intent of the bylaw changes, however, in normal for-profit corporations(which are cited as the standard from which these bylaws arise) there are many oversights in place that prevent a board from running amok, while ours seems to require additional oversight in order that it does not become overrun by megalomaniacs.
A one year term should not be a problem for a board member doing a good job, as they will probably get re-elected.
I do not have a solution to offer, but this ballot seems to me to be a rather ominous portent.