Hello all,

As the president of the Torrey Hawks, I haven't communicated very much to the membership, but we are at a crossroads where the club must consider some changes.

One of the Torrey Hawks goals has been to gain membership to the Torrey Pines Soaring Council (TPSC); and with good reason. It is the only form of oversight, if you can call it oversight, of the Torrey Pines site. The TPSC has a history of being active and inactive over the last 12 years or so, but has been steadily active for the last 5 years. It's stated purpose is to consult and advise the site lessee. It has no authority to do anything with the site, and in reality it is a rather impotent gathering of club representitives. On the other hand, it is the only group that meets regularly to discuss matters directly related to the site and activities taking place at the site.

All of the members of the TPSC and the site lessee have a complete disdain for the very existence of the Torrey Hawks, and have repeatedly refused to even vote on an application for the membership of the Torrey Hawks. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that there is an extremely high level of animosity between the site lessee and Bob Kuczewski. Some members of the TPSC have also displayed animosity towards Bob, both in emails and during the TPSC meetings. Another issue is that the Torrey Hawks is seen as an illegitimate club by the USHPA representitive to the TPSC for three reasons:

1. We have no membership fee.
2. We have no membership expiration.
3. We are not seen as contributing anything to the site. [I believe this is arguable, but this is the perception.]

So, we can do very little about the vitriol against Bob other than have Bob take a true back seat in the operation of the Torrey Hawks and also not attend the TPSC meetings. I believe this would placate the TPSC to some extent, although I've no idea how much. I don't think it would placate the site lessee, maybe nothing could at this point.

We can begin charging a membership fee and we can have a membership expiration. We could also have two types of members; paying members and non-paying members. Paying members expire, non-paying members are removed by request. As far as what the yearly fee would be, we have to strike a balance between what is seen as legitimate and what is seen as ludicrous. So $1 would probably not be seen as reasonable, but $10 might be. As for what we would use the fee for, I would suggest site improvements, such as signage around the perimeter of the Hang Gliding LZ warning the public to keep out. I would go further to say that the more we can build up the site improvements, the better chance we will have in getting the TPSC to turn around.

These changes should get the USHPA representitive on the TPSC board to look at the Torrey Hawks as a worthwhile organization. I don't know if we can sway other board members, but it must be kept in mind that the existing board members will not be on the board forever. Some will probably leave at the next election.

This is the state of the club as I see it based on the conversation with the USHPA representitive last night after a rather tumultuous TPSC meeting.

Please contribute your thoughts regarding membership fees and expiration.

Brian McMahon
Torrey Hawks President

Thanks for that post Brian. I like that you want to have these issues discussed by the entire club, and it might be good for you to send a short email message to the club letting them know about this topic. I can send you an updated emailing list if you don't have the latest one. Thanks!

With regard to the "Bob Kuczewski" stuff, I'd like to give you a little background. I left San Diego toward the end of 2010 to spend some time on the east coast with my Mom who needed some help. So Joe Spinney was president of the Hawks from September 9th, 2010 until September 11th, 2011 when you were elected for your first term.

When Joe first became President of the Hawks, he also assumed that the resistance on the Council was due to an animosity toward me. So here's what he wrote to the Soaring Council Chairman (Angelo Orona) and the Soaring Council members on September 20th, 2010:


Now that was a good-faith effort on Joe's part to assure the Council that he would not appoint me to represent the Hawks. Of course, I wasn't happy about the Hawks making any promises about who they would (or would not) appoint, and I did tell Joe privately that I didn't think the Hawks should be restricting our ability to choose our representatives in that way. But I didn't raise a public fuss, and I sat back to watch what happened.

It turned out that Joe's nice letter (and my year-long absence) had ZERO effect on the Council (just as I predicted). They had been claiming that "it was all about Bob", but I was gone from December of 2010 through December of 2011 (with just a few visits) and the Council still did not vote to accept the Hawks. So it's important to understand that they use "Bob" as an excuse, but the underlying reality is that none of the clubs want to dilute their own voting power on the Council by adding another club. If "Bob" is thrown under the bus, I suspect they'll just find another excuse to deny the Hawks membership on the Council.

By the way, that reminds me of even more proof of that position. When I first began to work to get the Soaring Council together, I was on good terms with all of the RC clubs and sailplane clubs. Gary Fogel and I corresponded regularly, and I was even suggested as a representative for the Torrey Pines Gulls RC club. The resistance by the other clubs didn't happen until AFTER September of 2007 when I first applied to have the Torrey Hawks added to the Council. I have plenty of email to show this if you want the proof.

So it's important to understand that anyone who says they don't want to add the Hawks to the Council "because of Bob" is blowing smoke up your keel tube. There may be some animosity toward me because i've been so persistant, but the real problem is that they just don't want to add another club to dilute their power.

So here's the real "lay of the land" as I have come to understand it...

The original Soaring Council (under the City of San Diego, and before paragliding) was made up of 6 clubs: 2 Sailplane, 2 RC, and 2 HG. When Gary Fogel resurrected the Soaring Council in 2007 (through my urging), the Bylaws that he produced had a 3rd RC club (TPSSS) to give the current configuration of the Council. Unfortunately, I didn't really question the imbalance at that time (and I never asked him who had voted to add the TPSSS), so here's what ended up becoming the current makeup of the Council (Note: SP=Sailplane, RC=Remote Control, HP=Hang Gliding/Paragliding since they are considered to be the "same" sport by Gary Fogel):

    SP - National: Soaring Society of America (SSA)
    HP - National: United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHPA)
    RC - National: Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA)
    SP - Local: Associated Glider Clubs of Southern California (AGCSC)
    HP - Local: San Diego Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (SDHGPA)
    RC - Local: Torrey Pines Gulls (Gulls)
    RC - Local: Torrey Pines Scale Soaring Society (TPSSS)

You can see from this, that because hang gliding and paragliding are lumped into one "sport" we don't have separate representatives for either (that's why I've listed them as "HP" rather than HG or PG). So we only have 2 representatives covering both sports (essentially 1 representative per sport), while the RC clubs have managed to get 3 representatives for their one sport.

Here are the positions that I think each of the groups are taking:

The RC's feel that the hang gliders were a blight on Torrey when they arrived in the 70's. I believe there's still some memory of that in their club. They also remember being kicked out of Torrey for a year by Jebb (PG pilot who also claimed to be an HG pilot when it suited him). So they feel it's very important for them to have strong control of the Council to protect them from the HG (and now PG) "blight" that's befallen Torrey. I think that's why they invented the "Torrey Pines Scale Soaring Society" so they could get a third RC seat on the Council. This doesn't have anything to do with Bob. It has everything to do with them wanting 3 out of 7 votes on the Soaring Council. But I'm still on good terms with some of the RC folks, and I believe that there are some good rational people in that group who would support adding the Hawks because they can see that it's fair ... even if it isn't in their own special interests.

The sailplanes are in a different situation. I don't think they have anything against hang gliding or the Hawks. In fact, the AGCSC actually voted to follow USHPA's lead on whether or not to add the Hawks. They said that if USHPA will vote to add the Hawks, then they would do so as well. They are more concerned about whether they'll be able to fly at all given the precarious nature of their runway on UCSD property. In general, I've had good relations with many of their members, and I think they're mostly honest enough to recognize the imbalance on the Council and to support adding the Hawks if they feel that it would actually happen. They do, however, want to stay on good terms with Robin because they like to place their winch inside the Gliderport lease area. But I think they are the most likely non-HG/PG organization to support adding the Hawks.

Then there's the two HG/PG organizations on the Council (SDHGPA and USHPA).

The SDHGPA has essentially become a paragliding organization. This is a result of the continuous production of new PG pilots at Torrey. All of the SDHGPA presidents, vice presidents, and most of the officers (and members) have been PG pilots for as long as I've been attending their meetings (I think I first attended in early 2007). They are mostly pawns of the concession, and that was evident when Dave Metzgar appointed Gabe Jebb to the Soaring Council (even though he knew it was against the Soaring Council's rules). So of all the clubs, I think the SDHGPA is the last one that would ever vote to add the Hawks to the Council. In fact, they really resent the fact that the Hawks even exist (picture the middle east with the Hawks playing the role of Isreal). The SDHGPA has wanted to maintain absolute control over both sports, and they really hate me for starting an alternate club in San Diego. I do think there are some reasonable people inside the SDHGPA, but they are far outnumbered by the Torrey Pawns. So the SDHGPA leadership would rather have the current under-representation of our sports on the Soaring Council than allow the Torrey Hawks to have a vote or a voice.

Last, but not least, is USHPA. USHPA SHOULD be working to support the Torrey Hawks. That's what it says in the USHPA Standard Operating Procedures. SOP 06-01.02 states:

    USHPA Chapters can take advantage of many benefits provided by USHPA.
    These include:
        :
        F. Additional leverage in lobbying efforts.

So we are supposed to be able to get help from USHPA in our lobbying efforts. That should include our efforts to increase our representation on a local boards like the Soaring Council where other sports are also represented. In fact, USHPA did vote to increase our representation on the Soaring Council in their March 2010 resolution:


But USHPA hasn't followed through on that resolution because Ken Baier (and several others lurking behind the scenes) don't want to do it. You heard Ken Baier say it in his own words after the September 17th Soaring Council meeting:

      "I don't like this club."
      "I don't want to vote for this club."
      "I don't want to speak for this club."
                - Ken Baier, September 17th, 2012

That's where the problem lies. USHPA should be lobbying the other organizations for their support in balancing the Soaring Council. That's what USHPA's resolution told Ken to do ("work to increase our sports' representation on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council"). Ken should be approaching the sailplane clubs asking for their support. He should be going to the RC clubs asking for their support. He should even be pressuring the SDHGPA to play nicely and allow the Hawks to have a voice on the Council. I believe that could really make a difference. But Ken Baier (and USHPA) have not followed through on the USHPA Board's resolution, and that's the first biggest problem.

When I was Director, I thought that Ken Baier really cared about fairness at Torrey. After all, he had been defeated as Regional Director by David Jebb who used some underhanded tricks (according to Ken). Unfortunately, I misread Ken's opposition to Jebb as being a desire for true fairness at Torrey and that's why I worked (very hard) to get him appointed to both the Soaring Council and the Advisory Board. In retrospect, I think both were mistakes.

Don't get me wrong here. I don't think that Ken is a bad guy. But Ken has three problems that make him unsuited to the task. The first problem is that Ken doesn't believe in having different clubs for the different sports of hang gliding and paragliding. I believe he supported the merger between USHGA and the failing USPA? (US Paragliding Assocation?). Ken's second problem is that he is, after all, running a paragliding business (Airjunkies Paragliding). He hasn't flown a hang glider at Torrey in years, and I don't think he appreciates the pressures that hang gliding has experienced due to the growth of paragliding. Third, Ken is one of those guys who wants to be liked. This can be a debilitating factor when you need to be forceful to get things done. I understand that a "bull in a china shop" isn't always the best way either, but sometimes you have to take a firm stand for something and not allow peer pressure to erode your conviction. Ken hasn't been able to do that in the nearly 8 years that I've known him.

So when I evaluate all the players, I think it all has to start with USHPA's support. If we can really get that, then we can have USHPA (which is a voting member of the Council) begin to approach the other clubs asking them to help balance the Council. That's where I think we should start. I also think that's far more important than making any changes to our club's bylaws to satisfy Ken. We have to realize that Ken is not going to support us even if you promise not to appoint me to the Council or change our bylaws or do anything. He might say he's going to support us (just like the USHPA resolution says he's supposed to do), but if he really doesn't want to do it, then he's just not going to do it.

With regard to changing our bylaws, I go back and forth. Sometimes, I think that maybe we should change them to remove the excuse that Ken is raising. But other times I don't think that we should be allowing USHPA (or Ken) to dictate how we run our club. I like the idea that our club is free. That's how hang gliding started ... with freedom in aviation. I also like that our memberships are good for as long as people want. I might agree with creating different levels of memberships, but I want everyone to feel that they belong to the Hawks whether they're paying or not. This club should be about binding hang glider pilots together, and I'm inclined to resist anything (including money) that divides us. So if we can do these things in a way that doesn't change the spirit of freedom in our club, then I'll vote to go along with them. But I don't think it will make any difference because I think Ken's mind is made up to resist us regardless of what we do. BUT, if we do decide to make any changes to our bylaws to satisfy Ken, then I think we should get (in writing) exactly what Ken will do to support the Hawks in return.

Finally (sorry this is so long), I have been thinking about the issue of paid memberships, and I'd like to propose this idea. I'd like to keep money out of the Hawks until we have a real need for it (like insurance). After all, we don't even have a treasurer!! But if we need to have a "paid member" level or list, then here's my proposal. I would suggest that we ask members who want to be "paid members" to donate their "membership fee" of say $10 to their own favorite club (Crestline, Sylmar, Funston, even USHPA or SDHGPA). Anyone who donates that fee to any hang gliding or paragliding club will be considered a paid member of the Torrey Hawks for the purposes of satisfying Ken Baier or anyone else who complains about us being a free club. How does that sound Brian?

Posted in Oz Report today in response to Jacmac concern over method of applying tandem fees.
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Tandem feeling-rate bias! Just a symptom of a large challenge!

Time to be without a concessionaire at the Torrey site!
Let multiple licensed concessionaires open mobile 10'x10' shade arrangement 500 ft east of the cliff's edge; let businesses direct people to larger stores off the park.

Take down the structures that block the view.
Never charge a fee for leaping into the air with or without a wing. Flights are not taxed. The park land for jumping, skipping, leaping, kiting, walking, dancing … is not fee-charged.
The airspace is adequately controlled by Federal airspace rules. Win back the park for public use. Have rules posted. Perhaps pay the City a grass-keep fee per year. Users of the park buy goods in the City; the City benefits already. Motels, food, moving to the City because of the asset, gasoline purchases, car repairs, sunscreen, etc. The City gets its cut just by having parks.

Let pilots of the day confer for safety. Let park users figure out their play. It is time to forget having one concessionaire at Torrey; it may be time to let multiple businesses have a mobile say …but back 500 feet from the gem that is Torrey. Power has been abused by the one concessionaire. A Flight Director of the hour … could be arranged by pilot conference. Forget one oppressive controlling concessionaire that mixes up business with flight directing at cross purposes and with bias that injures the creative progress of free-flight.

Forget forcing membership to one private corporation in order to use the park. Forget rating policing by the seller of bias goods. Let smiles rule. Let people play and communicate. Pilots and non pilots can figure out the situation without a site-defacing biased controlling business pressing a narrow view of personal free-flight in order to put money in the pockets of a few. Last time I checked, I was not screened for third-party insurance coverage when I ran my umbrella in various city parks; I already pay taxes that support parks for play.

Want to land below? Have buddies go there to communicate with beach users about the game being played in a few minutes. A person will be running (yeah, with a wing, OK) on the sand. People carry umbrellas and flags and kites and blankets, towels, toys, clothes (sometimes not…) … Why tax someone carrying a wing? Luddite syndrome or tax-me-if-you-can oppression over recreation on city parks?

Clear away structures from the view and play areas. Store, food building, bag shade, repair trailer, office, tables, etc.
Get them back 500 feet or off completely. Gain back the park .

Have you ever seen a framed hang glider set up in that bag shader?



GAIN BACK THE PARK. NIX THE STRUCTURES! OPEN TO MULTIPLE CONESSIONAIRES LIMITED TO 10 FT X 10 FT MOBILE SHADERS …back from cliff 500 ft. Remove abusive power.

JoeF! I love your thinking! Getting rid of the massive structure that's blocking the view and the current concessionaire is the best thing I've heard in a long time regarding the Torrey Pines Gliderport.

Brian, as for club fees - I agree that fees should be taken and used for either insurance or designated to different sites, as Bob suggested. Either or both suggestions are easy enough to do - just find someone who's willing to take the time to manage it. A treasurer could take the time to research the insurance part of it and/or, what sites have a means to receive funds. If annual fees and expiration dates are what's necessary to become legitimate in the eyes of USHPA, then perhaps an effort should be made to implement it.

my two cents,
M

A little more history ....

Brad Hall was USHPA's representative on the Soaring Council when the Torrey Hawks were first applying for membership in 2007. At that time, Brad Hall made similar claims that the Hawks were an "illegitimate" club. I specifically remember him demanding (with all of his bluster) that I should turn over the names of our members to him so he could verify that they were real people.

I took him up on his challenge, but I said that I would turn over the names if he promised that would be the last hurtle to the Hawks being accepted to the Soaring Council. That shut him up because he knew that whether we had 5 members or 500 members - he was still not going to support adding our club to the Council.

I believe that's Ken's situation as well. He doesn't really care whether our members pay dues or not. He doesn't care if we have lifetime memberships or if we require annual renewals. Those are all smokescreens for what finally came out on September 17th, 2012. Ken's own words in haste betrayed his agenda when he said:

    "I don't like this club."
    "I don't want to vote for this club."
    "I don't want to speak for this club."
            - Ken Baier, September 17th, 2012

One of my biggest regrets as past Regional Director and as past President of the Hawks is that I put Ken Baier in positions of trust representing our club's interests on the Soaring Council and on the Advisory Board. He's been a total disappointment in both positions, and I'm writing here to pass that experience on to you Brian. You can say that's burning a bridge. I say it's making people accountable for their actions. And by the way, when it comes to burning bridges, I think Ken's actions of stabbing our club in the back for 2 years are the real bridge that's been burned. Ken's statements above are just the final ashes of that bridge drifting away on the wind.

With regard to USHPA, they have standards for Chapters that we have met. Those standards DO NOT include volunteerism for local paragliding businesses, and they DO NOT include membership fees, and they DO NOT include membership time limits (indeed, USHGA itself used to offer lifetime memberships years ago). So until USHPA changes its own Chapter requirements, Ken Baier has no basis for discriminating against our club by using his own chosen metrics of what makes an acceptable "Ken Baier" club. If Ken wants to make Chapters require paid and finite memberships, then he should go to USHPA and have the USHPA Board vote on it. Until then, he remains in violation of USHPA's Spring 2010 resolution, and I think we should start calling for his removal as USHPA's representative on the Soaring Council.

Here's even a little more history ...

When I was elected as Director in 2008, I began looking at how to balance the Soaring Council. I wanted to start by getting the full USHPA Board to understand what was going on with the Council, and I wanted it to reflect Gary Fogel's own words so there would be no question whether I was "misinterpreting" or "misrepresenting" anything. At that time, I was going to ask the Board for USHPA's support to add the Hawks to the Council. So here's what I wrote to Gary Fogel:



That was a very reasonable request from a USHPA Regional Director who wanted to collect factual information to bring to the USHPA Board. However, Brad Hall knew that the answers to those three questions would surely have indicated that USHPA should be supporting the addition of the Hawks. Let's look at the answers to those three questions now that we pretty much know what they are:

1. Council Membership History Question - I believe Gary would have to confirm that those were the clubs listed in the bylaws. That would demonstrate that it's not uncommon for the Council to add new clubs. It would also demonstrate that there had been a balance on the Council (2/2/2) up until the invention of paragliding (which was lumped in with hang gliding) and up until the addition of the TPSSS in 2001 (how did this happen?).

2. Membership numbers of Local Clubs Question - I believe Gary would have to answer that two of those clubs (TPSSS and AGCSC) were tiny (maybe less than 10 members each). That would have demonstrated to USHPA that voting clubs on the Soaring Council do not have to be very large at all. At that time the Hawks membership was well above either of those numbers and we were even approaching or exceeding the sizes of the SDHGPA and the Gulls.

3. Views on Different Glider Types Question - Gary had justified having 2 local RC clubs on the Council to me by saying that there were very large differences between "regular" RCs and "scale model" RCs. He claimed that the differences were so huge that they needed to have separate clubs representing those two subdivisions in the RC community. I don't know how he would have actually responded to me, but whatever he said would have clearly justified having different local clubs for hang gliding and paragliding (which are far more different kinds of aircraft than "scale model" and "non-scale-model" RCs.

So however Gary would have answered, it would have clearly shown the USHPA Board that we needed more representation fon the Soaring Council for our sports of hang gliding and paragliding ... back in the spring of 2009. Brad Hall didn't want that. He didn't want the USHPA Board to see how unbalanced the Council had become because the USHPA Board might have supported the Torrey Hawks. So Brad Hall conspired (literally consipired) with Lisa Tate and Rich Hass to have a letter written to the Soaring Council putting a muzzle on me as a Director. Either Brad or Rich (or both?) timed the letter to be sent while I was enroute to the Soaring Council meeting so that I would not have gotten a copy when I was at the Council meeting. But Brad Hall had a copy, and he pushed his laptop in my face and demanded that I read it to the entire Soaring Council ... which I did. Here's what Rich Hass had written:


That letter from Rich Hass was completely unjustified because I was NOT representing anything to the Soaring Council other than that I (as a Regional Director) was requesting information to bring to the USHPA Board to help them decide what to do about supporting the Hawks. But Brad didn't like what he knew the answers would be so he conspired with Lisa Tate and Rich Hass to cut me off at the knees with this infamous "Rich Hass Letter". Rich later apologized, but the letter was never retracted, and Gary Fogel never had to answer those questions. It took me another year (Spring 2010) to finally get the USHPA Board to pass the resolution directing our representative (Ken Baier) to work to increase our membership on the Soaring Council. But even that didn't matter because Ken just didn't like our club and wasn't going to lift a finger to help. Ken spent two years trying to squirm out of carrying out USHPA's directive, and just this past Monday he finally spilled the beans that he "didn't like" our club, "didn't want to vote for" our club, and "didn't want to speak for" our club.

This is what we've gotten from USHPA.

I agree. Either no concessionaire or totally disconnect the concessionaire from any authority over who can fly at the site. I don't mind someone who wants a concession to sell equipment or food or lessons. But that should NOT give them exclusive use of the site. That's when the conflict of interest gets out of control.


That's another great idea that wasn't even discussed by the Torrey Pines City Park Advisory Board (where Ken "represented" the Hawks) because they refused to discuss how the park was going to be managed.


More great ideas that haven't been considered.


At this point, that's sounding pretty good to me.

After this 5 year nightmare of abuses, it's sounding pretty good to me as well!!

BobK,
There is a model in Long Beach, CA, at the popular training beach for kiteboarding. Several licensed concessionairs. I went to visit the beach two weeks ago to see the arrangements. Each of several separate businesses set up their tents away from the flying. Instruction, etc. Just file and get approved by the City.

San Diego has an opportunity: Do not renew the monopolistic concession. Open to other businesses related to soaring that enhance the asset of Torrey Gliderport. You will see San Diego get more tax money. Scale will sell. HG will sell. PG will sell. Instructors with variety will sell. Torrey cliffside seems just to be the wrong place for a growing SearsPGMonster under one monopolistic slant ... "Here is the only way to relate to soaring!" Smothering slant: No more! Let the variety dance and a world gem of a site.

Am I reading correctly that the concessionaire is on a month-to-month right now?

Let San Diego move forward to a robust site that serves freshly in a bigger and broader way.

Two quotes with permit: