I'm sorry, but I have to call Mark Forbes on "bending the truth" here ...
On the Oz Report forum, Angelo posted the following comment:
Angelo wrote:Secret vote? What kind of B.S. is this? We elect regional directors to represent us, they have absolutely no right to hide their votes from us, the members that put them there.
Angelo is absolutely correct. Yet in a
long-winded post Mark Forbes tried to dodge and obfuscate that obvious reality:
On Oct 25 2010, in a post titled: No secrets in the voting, Mark Forbes wrote:
There wasn't any secrecy at all about it, so I don't know what the problem is. The competition committee was an open session, members were welcome to attend and some did. The vote was taken by a show of hands, and unless some voting member specifically requests a roll-call vote, there's no record made of who voted which way. That's standard practice in any meeting. For most decisions, it's a voice vote. "All in favor say Aye." AYE! "All opposed?" Sometimes there's a few "Nay" votes, but if there's enough to make the decision at all questionable, a show of hands is taken and a count is made.
I wasn't at the comp committee meeting; I was next door at Organization and Bylaws, since there was plenty of participation at competition and somebody needed to keep Dave Wills company as we went through the SOP language and editing changes. For a small (3 people) meeting like that one, we don't even take votes. We operate by consensus since it's silly to move, second, discuss and vote when it's just a few of us. That sort of process is needed when you have more people involved and need to organize them.
None of the committee actions become official until they're ratified by the full board in general session. The competition committee report, including all of its final recommendations, was approved by voice vote in general session, as I recall without dissent. Until that point, it's all discussion and recommendations, and subject to change by the general session.
The only time we take a roll call vote with recorded names is when we're voting on something like an amendment to the Bylaws, which requires a 2/3 majority (17 affirmative votes) to pass, or when a director specifically requests it. At this meeting, we had one item which related to the Foundation, and it failed to pass by 11-4 with 4 abstentions. I asked Rich to note in the minutes that two of those abstentions were Riss Estes and myself, since both of us are Foundation trustees. I wanted the record to show that we had refrained from voting on this item because of potential conflict of interest. The votes of the other directors were not recorded by name.
If a director wants to have the secretary note how they voted, they're free to ask the secretary to add that to the minutes. This might be the case if you're voting on something of vital interest to pilots in your region, for which you may have reasons to want a permanent record.
Folks should understand that proposals may come up that are a lousy idea, but we'll still give them a hearing and consideration. Just because it's on the agenda and discussed doesn't mean it's a good idea, or going to become policy. I thought this "code of conduct" thing was total overkill, and would only be appropriate to even consider doing if we were providing substantial financial support to the world team. And by "substantial", I mean funding a team of full-time athletes to train for a year or so. If we're doing that, then we can tell them how to behave, because they're living on our nickel. Absent that, we have no business telling them who they can talk to or what time they have to go to bed. The chance of USHPA reallocating its resources to do that is zero…so it's not really an issue. If it had survived to general session I would have argued against it and voted that way, but it never made it out of committee, which is what I figured would happen.
If you're wondering how your regional director voted on something, ask 'em. We all have email addresses and phone numbers.
The only "secret" ballots at this meeting were the elections for a region 8 director replacement (Mike Holmes, taking over for the late Jeff Nicolay) and the elections for directors-at-large and officers. Those are required to be written ballots, even when we only have a single candidate for the position. So we went through the motions, even though only one of the positions on the EC was contested.
New officers for 2011: Rich Hass, president; Dave Wills, vice president; Bill Bolosky, secretary; Mark Forbes, treasurer.
MGF
There are lots of twisted facts in that statement, but here's the one where Mark Forbes crossed the line. Mark Forbes wrote:
"The vote was taken by a show of hands, and unless some voting member specifically requests a roll-call vote, there's no record made of who voted which way. That's standard practice in any meeting." - Mark ForbesThat's absolutely misleading. I know because I've requested roll call votes and they were denied one after another. Whenever Lisa Tate called for a secret ballot she didn't ask permission. She just declared it to be a secret ballot and refused any objections. I was there and I saw it myself, so don't let Mark Forbes say it didn't happen. The fact that he would portray USHPA's voting as he did in this statement tells us a lot more about Mark Forbes' honesty (or dishonesty) than it does about USHPA's voting practices.
Here's the "Accountability Amendment" that I proposed in the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 board meetings:
In a message to Dave Wills on September 4, 2009, Bob Kuczewski wrote:[Article VIII, Section 13.] Conduct of Meetings:
All meetings (including Board of Director Meetings, Committee Meetings, General Membership Meetings, and others) shall be governed by Robert's Rules of Order, Revised unless otherwise provided for in these By-Laws or listed specifically below:
(a) In accordance with one of the practices discussed in Robert's Rules of Order Revised, a Roll Call vote (Yeas and Nays) shall be taken if requested by any Director. The names and votes of all Directors during any such Roll Call vote shall be included in the minutes of the meeting for distribution to the general membership.
Mark Forbes knows all about that proposed amendment, and he never supported it. He allowed it to be killed in the Fall 2009 Board meeting and he sat there next to Lisa Tate as she flat out refused to even allow discussion after it had been seconded in the Spring 2010 Board meeting. Mark makes it sound like any Director can get a roll call vote on request, and yet he knows that's not true.
Mark goes on to say that we can find out how our Directors have voted by just asking. That's also false. There's no obligation for a Director to tell how they voted, and there's nothing to keep them from lying if they did tell. Furthermore, we shouldn't have to individually "beg" our Directors to tell us how they voted. And we shouldn't have to trust that they'll tell us the truth.
The votes should be recorded in the meeting and published for all the members to see (as they are with Congress). That's what Mark Forbes, Lisa Tate, Brad Hall, Dave Wills, and all their cronies have resisted for years. That's disgusting, and Angelo has every right to be outraged.
P.S. I hope someone will cross-post this to the Oz Report so Mark Forbes won't think he's getting away with his spin doctoring of the truth. And please post a link to this US Hawks topic where
everyone is free to speak their minds.
Home
, but she is a candidate for the ED job 
. And I sincerely hope all You pilots from the upper Left Coast don't hate me, but I hope she is totally out of there... 
EXIT. It seems obvious that she has been using that position to promote her flying site, King Mt., and the NW regions, even to the detriment of other quality flying areas/locations. If I lived out there I'd feel bad, with her as meet director,RD, Pres. Her local Chamber of Commerce must really love her. But ,good for the sport in the long run?
