The Torrey Pines Soaring Council met this evening and we had a pretty good turnout of Torrey Hawks. From my memory, we had Brian, John, Dave, Ken, Ken, Chris, Willy and Bob (myself) in attendance (and I might have forgotten someone). That was more attendees than from any other club on the Soaring Council.

The Council started by approving the minutes from the last meeting.

Then the Council members were solicited for anyone wanting to be an officer in 2012.

Byron Lowry (sailplane pilot from the AGCSC) offered his services as Chair. I think this is a positive step because both previous chairs (Gary Fogel and Angelo Orona) had been staunchly against adding the Torrey Hawks to the Council. I don't know Byron's position, but he's been much more reasonable in personal discussions ... and he couldn't be any worse!!

Joe Holtzman said that he would stay on as Secretary for one more year. Joe is the representative from the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) which is the national RC association. Joe has stood up to Jebb in the past, but he hasn't been very supportive of the Hawks.

Finally, the USHPA representative, Ken Baier was nominated and elected as Treasurer of the Council. I think they said that the Council has about $60, so this isn't a major burden, but it does show some acceptance of the USHPA representative on the Council. It turns out that Ken Baier was the name that I submitted for the Council when I was Regional Director. Ken is also the Torrey Hawks representative on the Torrey Pines City Park Advisory Board. I have to say that I've been disappointed in Ken's unwillingness to stand up for the Hawks given that we have been responsible for both of his appointments. But maybe he's just waiting for the right time to take action.

The Council then went on to discuss the impact of the Consortium for Regenerative Medicine building on the sailplane operations. There's hope that they will be able to fly this spring (2012). They are still working out the dates but it might be in early March.

There was a quick status report on the Torrey Pines City Park Advisory Board which hasn't met in a long time (over a year?). Ken Baier said they were still technically in existence, but not meeting.

There was no progress reported on the Torrey Pines Historical Film Project.

The RC clubs mentioned that they're planning a fun fly for February 18th. There was no objection.

Bob Kuczewski mentioned that the Torrey Hawks would like to continue to hold our "Second Sunday" events on the second Sunday of each month in 2012. There was no objection.

During the Lessee Report, Robin started by saying that "The grass is green". But on further questioning, he did mention that the City had installed a water meter and that someone had been hit by an RC glider.

Chris Bolfing asked about moving the large sign that's currently in the approach path for hang glider landings. After a little discussion, Robin agreed that it could be moved.

During "New Business", Willy brought up the question of the Training Hill for hang glider training. Several of the Hawks echoed the idea that the training hill would be an asset to the site and would allow training of hang glider pilots. This would allow training of all forms of powerless aviation at the facility. David Metzgar of the San Diego Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association resisted the suggestion, and Byron Lowry expressed that it wasn't in the Soaring Council's purview to make suggestions on that property. Bob Kuczewski commented that the Soaring Council was already involved with the sailplane operations on that property, so including the training hill would not be outside of the Council's scope. Bob Kuczewski asked if the Council would endorse the idea, but it wasn't supported by any of the Council members. Bob Kuczewski then asked if the Council would oppose that use of the land, and no representatives voiced opposition either. It was somewhat surprising (and disappointing) that neither the SDHGPA representative (David Metzgar) nor the USHPA representative (Ken Baier) would endorse the use of the land for a training hill.

During the "New Business", Brian (current Torrey Hawks President) asked the Council about adding the Torrey Hawks pending application to the next Council's agenda in March. We will be following up with that request to hopefully bring the matter to a vote.

The meeting was adjourned.

Sounds about like a black person attending a klan meeting

If you can seriously consider attending those meetings, you should consider a run for office in U*

You don't know how right you are about that, although the real fireworks were before the meeting started. Bob does not need to say anything, someone will start up ruckus by his mere presence at the site. Lets just say that there are some self-decribed crazy people at Torrey.

Brian

Hi Miguel,

I apologize if you already know this story, but I'll post it again in case anyone else reading this hasn't heard about it.

I ran for USHPA Regional Director in 2008 and was elected (defeating David Jebb) with more votes than any other Director in any other Region. The local paraglider crowd hated that outcome so much that they started a recall process almost immediately after my election. I hadn't even done anything as Director, but they wanted me recalled anyway.

It took them over a year (into my 2 year term) to collect enough signatures to meet the threshold for a recall election. Unfortunately the election coincided with an important deadline on my project at work. Many of us were all putting in 16 hour days, and I slept over at the office several times during that period. But while I was working at my job, the Torrey Concessionaire was brainwashing pilots (mostly PG pilots) to vote for the recall. They even had a campaign poster right on the sign-in counter at Torrey, and their cronies had a secret web site (password required) full of lies and/or half-truths.

On top of that, I figured that their candidate to replace me (Bill Helliwell) was better than Brad Hall, so I didn't mind if Bill won my seat because that would free me to run against Brad Hall in the alternate year's election. Based on the prospect of replacing both David Jebb and Brad Hall along with the demands of my job, I didn't campaign very hard in that recall election. Even so, I ended up getting more votes during the recall than I did when originally elected. But the Torrey / PG "get out the vote" campaign was able to get more votes during the recall and I ended up losing.

That would have been fine, and I was really looking forward to running against Brad Hall in the next election. That's when Brad Hall's USHPA cronies hatched a plan to protect his Directorship from my upcoming challenge. While the recall election was already in progress, the USHPA Board changed the rules (consequences) of the election by passing an SOP that made recalled Directors ineligible to be a USHPA Director for several years after being recalled. I specifically asked to have that new change not apply to the election already under way, but the USHPA Board refused to make that exception.

So the bottom line is that USHPA effectively barred me from being a Director even though I got more votes in both my original and recall elections than almost any other Director in the country. They made that change in the middle of an ongoing election after ballots had already been mailed to the members and many of them may have already voted. It was a sneaky underhanded trick, and that's when I knew that USHPA was so corrupted that it would be very difficult (nearly impossible) to fix from within. That's when I started work on the HGAA and eventually the US Hawks.

I was going through my pictures from the recent restraining order case, and I came across these pictures of one of the bullies at the Gliderport. These were taken just prior to the Soaring Council meeting reported above (January 16th, 2012). I'm posting them now to document the kind of abuse that's been allowed at the Gliderport for years. These are from video, and the original video clip also contains the audio of what's being said. Those attending the meeting may remember some of it ... and it wasn't pretty.









Note that this is the same person (Doug Poirier) who Brad Hall supposedly chose to represent all of USHPA on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council back when it was being restarted in the spring of 2007. You can read the unfinished story of the Modern Torrey Pines Soaring Council here:

     http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=936

I used the word "supposedly" because when Doug Poirier showed up at the Soaring Council meeting, Gary Fogel asked him who had appointed him. Poirier was sitting next to Gabriel Jebb, and Gabe Jebb spoke up and said "Brad Hall". Poirier nodded his head and echoed "Brad Hall". They looked like two little kids telling a lie together ... about to be caught.

What they didn't know was that I had been communicating with Brad Hall about who Brad (one of the current USHPA Regional Directors in 2007) was planning to appoint to the Council to represent USHPA. Brad had told me that he wasn't sure yet. So when Doug Poirier showed up claiming to have been appointed by Brad Hall, I was shocked. So I called Brad Hall immediately after the meeting to ask if he had appointed Doug Poirier. Brad Hall said he'd never heard of him and that he certainly didn't appoint anyone to the Council yet.

Brad Hall seemed pretty upset that someone would show up at the Council claiming to have been appointed by him. So I felt pretty good that Brad Hall would get to the bottom of it and straighten it out. That's when I first discovered just how deeply the tentacles of Jebb's power extended into USHPA.

When Brad got back to me he said there was a "misunderstanding", and that he was, indeed, appointing Doug Poirier to represent USHPA on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council. Now how could it be that Brad Hall said he didn't even know who Doug Poirier was, and the next thing you know, he's the one guy - out of all of the USHPA members in Brad's region - that Brad Hall wanted to represent USHPA on the Soaring Council?

I suspect that David Jebb (or possibly Gabe Jebb) actually picked Doug Poirier to be on the Council. Since David Jebb and Brad Hall were both Region 3 Directors, it's not clear who should have been doing the appointing. At the meeting, I am suspecting that Gabe Jebb might have felt it would look like a conflict of interest (which it was) for his father David Jebb to be picking USHPA's representative to the same Council that's supposedly overseeing his own business. So I am suspecting that Gabe Jebb lied when he said that Brad Hall had appointed him, and he figured he'd tell Brad Hall who Brad had supposedly appointed ... after the fact. Neither Gabe Jebb nor Doug Poirier suspected that I'd call Brad Hall immediately after the meeting - which I did.

Here's the message from Brad Hall to Gary Fogel sent shortly after my phone call to Brad:



That message sure sounded like Brad was going to "get to the truth of it" (Brad's own words). But then he had a talk with one of the Jebbs. It's shocking to see how quickly the blustery Brad Hall turned into a puppet. Read his response carefully to see how he covers for the lies of Gabe and Doug at the Soaring Council meeting. Then read Gary's response below which is right on target.



Wow!! That made it pretty clear who was pulling Brad Hall's puppet strings!!! Note the themes of "don't rock the boat" or we'll all lose Torrey. In other words, don't report the abuses or the safety violations or the violations of the law. And whatever you do, don't get the City involved in overseeing a park that's supposedly owned by the people of San Diego!!

Here's Gary Fogel's response to Brad Hall:



Of course, being the puppet of the Jebbs, Brad Hall stood by his appointment. Eventually - a few months later - I met the USHPA President, Lisa Tate, and I explained the situation. She was very adamant that only USHPA Regional Directors could represent USHPA on the Soaring Council, and so in the fall she replaced Doug Poirier with ... Brad Hall.