[Bill Cummings]

Good ideas on Bob’s post.
Bob’s expulsion appeared to me to have been driven primarily by financial interests of a paragliding “school.”
Thousands of dollars supposedly or were supposed to make their way to USHPA for temporary memberships required at Air California Adventures in their exclusive “training” efforts made possible by the means of a extremely restrictive tandem exemption with the FAA.

A regional director that is only a recreational pilot and has no financial ties to “schools,” businesses and “trainers,” and votes to expel a fellow member will not appear on my radar as a person with a conflict of interest or an appearance of impropriety.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest
Whistle Blowers should be protected from contaminated regional directors by some means of neutral arbitration.

[JoeF]

2. The fact that a member has reported concerns to any governmental body.
3. The fact that a member has reported concerns to any land owner.

Scenario of a challenge on those things: Suppose a member is on a vindictive run and reports concerns, and more concerns, and more concerns .... with the intent (someone might judge) to simply spoil relationships. Ulteriorly-purposed nagging? A letter and a call a week to a landowner for months until the landowner thinks, "I do not want to have anything to do with whole activity; it will be simpler to just say "No" to the activity. Result: lost site, lost good relations. The vindictive member gets his or her way; the "concerns" were trumped up, maybe with some grain of importance, but mostly to get the landowner mad, disturbed, anxious. Such a member did not simply present a concern, he or she looked for what might stand for a "concern" and then pressed the matter for ulterior purpose, not to improve matters. Such an acting member would have lost a care for the sport and the site and the landowner while dressing up the action to seem righteous. The distinction between whistle blowing and vindictive trumping and spoiling might not be clear at the start of a concern reporting. The member would be an enemy in sheep's clothing. Distinguishing helpful whistle blowing from vindictive whistle blowing could be difficult to distinguish.

[Bill Cummings]

2. The fact that a member has reported concerns to any governmental body.
3. The fact that a member has reported concerns to any land owner.

Scenario of a challenge on those things: Suppose a member is on a vindictive run and reports concerns, and more concerns, and more concerns .... with the intent (someone might judge) to simply spoil relationships. Ulteriorly-purposed nagging? A letter and a call a week to a landowner for months until the landowner thinks, "I do not want to have anything to do with whole activity; it will be simpler to just say "No" to the activity. Result: lost site, lost good relations. The vindictive member gets his or her way; the "concerns" were trumped up, maybe with some grain of importance, but mostly to get the landowner mad, disturbed, anxious. Such a member did not simply present a concern, he or she looked for what might stand for a "concern" and then pressed the matter for ulterior purpose, not to improve matters. Such an acting member would have lost a care for the sport and the site and the landowner while dressing up the action to seem righteous. The distinction between whistle blowing and vindictive trumping and spoiling might not be clear at the start of a concern reporting. The member would be an enemy in sheep's clothing. Distinguishing helpful whistle blowing from vindictive whistle blowing could be difficult to distinguish.

Very good counseling from Joe.
That’s an extremely large Monkey Wrench that you just dropped into our tool box!
Damned if we do and damned if we don’t -- it looks like.
We need a solution.
Waiting for ideas ------

  LATER EDIT  
Scott’s warning about unforeseen loop holes with word selection on the Whistle Blowers statement or SOP leapt up in my mind with the vindictive whistle blower caution from Joe.

Perhaps mandatory grievance procedures are a way through this jungle of ideas.
Steps taken in their proper order whereby contacting a landowner with a whistle blowing situation is the last step in the prearranged procedure after exhausting all other steps.
(no-- wait---how about tell the insurance company last!)
Just kidding!
  another EDIT  
Someone not following procedure could be directed to USHPA.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Scenario of a challenge on those things: Suppose a member is on a vindictive run and reports concerns, and more concerns, and more concerns .... with the intent (someone might judge) to simply spoil relationships. Ulteriorly-purposed nagging? A letter and a call a week to a landowner for months until the landowner thinks, "I do not want to have anything to do with whole activity; it will be simpler to just say "No" to the activity. Result: lost site, lost good relations. The vindictive member gets his or her way; the "concerns" were trumped up, maybe with some grain of importance, but mostly to get the landowner mad, disturbed, anxious. Such a member did not simply present a concern, he or she looked for what might stand for a "concern" and then pressed the matter for ulterior purpose, not to improve matters. Such an acting member would have lost a care for the sport and the site and the landowner while dressing up the action to seem righteous. The distinction between whistle blowing and vindictive trumping and spoiling might not be clear at the start of a concern reporting. The member would be an enemy in sheep's clothing. Distinguishing helpful whistle blowing from vindictive whistle blowing could be difficult to distinguish.

That's all true, but someone with such a desire to cause trouble wouldn't be stopped by expelling them anyway. My own expulsion from USHPA, for example, does not deter me from doing the things they didn't like (speaking before the City Council, assisting with justice for injured pilots, posting on web forums, creating alternate national associations). I don't do these things to cause trouble for USHPA. I do them because I believe they're the right thing to do. But from USHPA's point of view, their expulsion has only caused me to be more dedicated to my efforts.

One of the somewhat timid female attendees of my expulsion hearing hinted at this problem (that expelling me wouldn't stop me from doing what they didn't like), but her concerns were brushed aside by the more strident voices to expel me. In a sense, she was like a mini-whistle-blower within that meeting, but her concerns were "bulldozed" by the lynch mob mentality. That's another aspect of this discussion that's important. The US Hawks should work to develop ways for those timid (but very important) voices to be heard.

[Bill Cummings]

It’s looking more and more to me that a set grievance procedure be put into the Hawks SOP and or the Whistle Blowers issue.

I’m still leaning hard toward an independent professional arbitration board or single arbitrator being used to follow OUR membership’s contract before any retaliation, RD expulsion, or court action.

A deliberate, methodical, step by step procedure that is a precondition to membership within the US Hawks.

Can anyone see possible weaknesses, deficiency or loop holes for a move in this direction?
As Scott has pointed out the devil will be in the details of our final wording.

[Bob Kuczewski]

It’s looking more and more to me that a set grievance procedure be put into the Hawks SOP and or the Whistle Blowers issue.

I’m still leaning hard toward an independent professional arbitration board or single arbitrator being used to follow OUR membership’s contract before any retaliation, RD expulsion, or court action.

A deliberate, methodical, step by step procedure that is a precondition to membership within the US Hawks.

Bill, it's really great having people like you on the Board. Thanks so much for each thoughtful post!!!  

This is a tricky thing because people are involved. We're trying to come up with a system that keeps the people in power who want to retaliate from being able to retaliate. But they're the people in power, so how can we limit their power and still have them in power?

Your point about an "independent" board or arbiter is probably what's really needed. The word "professional" means it will cost us money, and maybe there's no way around that. The only other alternative is a "Jury of our Peers" (I have Jury duty coming up soon), and that might work as well ... maybe?

But mostly, I am really heartened to see this forum starting to come to life. This coming August will be the 5 year anniversary of the founding of the US Hawks, and for the first time in those 5 years, I can say that we're really starting to have an active community. The sun is rising.

[Bill Cummings]

Jury duty here for me as well. US district court for me all of June and July.
I’m concerned my lower back problems could become an issue if a lot of sitting is necessary but I’m going to give it a try.
The court could have picked better months like January February since my flying summer vacations are probably coming to a close soon due to my age (66).
But duty calls.
I had planned to go to Chelan Washington this summer after my wife retires from her job but ---- oh well!

[Bob Kuczewski]

I had planned to go to Chelan Washington this summer after my wife retires from her job but ---- oh well!

I found that they were very flexible with their scheduling. They have an ongoing need for jurors, so you might try calling to ask for a better time.

[Bill Cummings]

Bob Kuczewski quote,

"On the flip side, we have to make sure that any whistle-blower protection policy doesn't give pilots a "pass" for things that aren't whistle blowing. For example, if I had been performing extremely dangerous flying (in addition to reporting problems at Torrey), then our policy shouldn't keep me from being expelled for my flying."

http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1801&start=20&sid=7152cbb03b2cf121052e89beed227996&sid=7152cbb03b2cf121052e89beed227996#p11865
I once played the protection policy card. Some called it abuse of the, Safety Investigation Contract Clause.
While operating a 200 ton Milwaukee Overhead Crane I abandoned a suspended load. Actually the discharge end of the Rod mill was being bolted onto the rod mill by four mechanics below.
(The discharge end wasn't going anywhere.)
A leaded gasoline burning crane car was also running below my cab and the exhaust was giving me a headache. I was later hospitalized for lead poisoning.
In the lunch room my foreman gave me the third degree for violating the suspended load clause
in the overhead crane operating manual.
I wouldn't let it rest and repeatedly demanded, "Are you giving me a verbal warning?" (First step in our grievance procedure.)
The foreskin in total exasperation yelled, "Yes! This is a VERBAL WARNING!"
My next words were, "I'm invoking a safety investigation!"
I did this knowing that I would be immune from disciplinary action.
PS EDIT: Bob I couldn't strip the SID correctly. It would misdirect. I did close out and log in again after posting. Will that work as well?

[Bill Cummings]

Sorry to be doing this here in the private section but I'm having trouble making reference links so I tried one that even includes the Session ID numbers (SID). Here the public will not see my SID number which may or may not be an issue with my security.

Bob, we can delete this clutter when I'm finally tuned in.

On the attempt above I didn't do anything with the link and it still misdirects.
Is that only because I'm trying to make a clickable link in the private thread?

I've tried everything I can think of to go to the the post where I picked up your quote shown above.
Try as I may I can't go anywhere but:

Bob I am loosing ground making links to mid page..JPG (31.4 KiB) Viewed 3845 times

AND I AM ALREADY LOGGED IN!!!!!
attmpts:
http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1801&start=20#p11865
http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1801&start=20&sid=6402c5cdc62e1f86c2cf6b6c5ab5ada4&sid=6402c5cdc62e1f86c2cf6b6c5ab5ada4#p11865