I attended the Soaring Council meeting this evening, and my disgust level with USHPA has reached an all time high.
At the September 2013 meeting (two months ago ... the Council only meets every other month) I brought up the issue of my suspension. There was a somewhat heated discussion during which time I raised a number of important points. I wanted to ensure that those points were documented in the Soaring Council minutes.
On November 12th, the Soaring Council Secretary (Joe Holtzman) sent the meeting minutes to the Soaring Council members (including USHPA's representative Ken Baier). Our club (Torrey Hawks) has asked many times to be added to the distribution of those minutes, but the Soaring Council has refused. So instead, we've asked to get a timely copy of the minutes from our USHPA representative, Ken Baier. In this case, Ken didn't send the minutes until November 17th (one day before the November meeting).
I reviewed the minutes, and as I expected, they were written to exclude the important points I had made at the meeting. Here's what was written for the September minutes:
Quote:
Torrey Pines Soaring CouncilMinutes of the September 16, 2013 MeetingHeld at the Torrey Pines Gliderport Administration Building
In attendance:
Members: Joe Holtzman (AMA), Byron Lowry (AGCSC/SSA), Ken Baier (USHPA), Angelo Orona (TPSSS)
Guests: Robin Marien (TPGP), Mark Foster (AMA), Bob Kuczewski (Torrey Hawks), William Armstrong (Torrey Hawks)
The meeting was called to order by Chairman Byron Lowry at 6:12 pm.
Prior Minutes: Minutes of the March meeting were approved as submitted.
Old Business- Treasurer’s Report Ken Baier reported a sum of $160.00 in the treasury.
- The Torrey Pines City Park Advisory Board It was reported by Byron Lowry there was no change in the status of the City Park as funding is lacking to proceed with any definitive actions.
- The 2014 Sailplane Plans Byron Lowry reported he was in discussions that he, Gary Fogel and Bud Robinson had with Bruce Coons of SOHO to discuss ways to break the log jam with UCSD and Cal Trans. Byron noted that the dates for flying were typical—one week after the designated golf tournament, Feb 15 through April 30th.
RC Scale Plane Exhibit and Fun Fly Angelo Orona reported there were no defined dates/plans for the upcoming events. - Lessee Report Robin Marien reported an incident between a Paraglider and an R/C plane had taken place. The Paraglider pilot was taken to the hospital. Submission of an incident report is in process.
- Robin Marien also will be installing more signage for the “front triangle” area.
Additionally, Robin reported he had suspended Bob Kuczewski’s flying privileges for violating the Gliderport’s waiver policy. Robin stated that the waiver documents must be signed to be in compliance with his insurance coverage and the city’s coverage. Bob Kuczewski took great exception to Robin’s explanation and reasoning.
Robin reminded Bob Kuczewski that compliance was required and Bob Kuczewski knows it. Bob Kuczewski stated that insurance could be covered by each flyer having their own coverage.
New Business- There was no new business discussed.
Meeting DatesThe meeting was adjourned at 6:48 PM.
F.K. (Joe) Holtzman
TPSC Secretary
The abusive circumstances surrounding my suspension were completely misrepresented and whitewashed by those minutes. So I immediately wrote to our representative (Ken Baier) and copied all members of the Council requesting an update to the minutes (I also requested to have my email addresses added to the Council's distribution list). Here's what I wrote to Ken (and the Council) at 2:54pm on November 17th (yesterday):
Quote:
Ken Baier (cc Members of the Council and others),
Earlier today was the first chance I've had to see the minutes of the recent Soaring Council meeting (attached below). So I apologize that I was not able to make this request for modification earlier. I ask that my email addresses (b...@gmail.com and b...@ushawks.org) be included in all future Soaring Council mailings so that requested corrections such as this can be made in more timely manner. Thank you.
Additionally, I would like to ask that the following section (delimited by equal === signs) be added to the Council's September 2013 minutes. I ask that this exact language be added following the sentence that states: "Bob Kuczewski stated that insurance could be covered by each flyer having their own coverage". The preface that I've included below explains the source and nature of the addition.
Finally, I do not agree with some of what was reported in the minutes, but I don't want to get into a battle over specific langauge about who said what. Instead, I simply ask that this section below (between === markers) be added as requested and allow the remainder to stand (or fall) on its own merits.
Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski
=====================================================================
Mr. Kuczewski has requested that the Soaring Council minutes reflect the following five points. While there was a heated discussion, it's not clear from memory if all of the following points were brought up during the actual discussion. However, in the interest of properly representing Mr. Kuczewski's assertions, the following 5 points have been added to these Council Minutes at Mr. Kuczewski's request prior to the Council's vote to approve the minutes at the November 2013 meeting. Mr. Kuczewski asserts:
1. The Torrey Pines Gliderport lease states that the public shall not be wholly or permanently excluded from any portion of the property.
2. Allowing public interaction with gliders of all kinds is a long standing tradition at Torrey Pines that is not disallowed in the lease.
3. It is NOT the responsibility of Mr. Kuczewski (nor of any other park users) to determine who has or has not signed waivers or met any other requirements to use the park. Mr. Kuczewski is neither paid to do this job nor has he been given access to the signed waiver forms which would be needed to perform the task.
4. Given all of the above, it was improper for the concessionaire (Robin Marien) to restrict Mr. Kuczewski's flight privileges for 30 days in this case.
5. Exactly 4 weeks (28 days) into the 30 day suspension, Mr. Kuczewski openly (and on video tape) challenged the suspension and flew his hang glider. No action was taken against Mr. Kuczewski.
=====================================================================
So at this evening's meeting (November 18th, 2013) when the prior minutes were being approved, I asked if everyone had gotten that email message and it appeared that they all had (heads nodding and no objections). I followed up by asking to have the requested points from that email message added to the minutes of the September meeting before being approved. Ken Baier (USHPA's representative on the Council) would not endorse that request and he voted to approve the minutes as they were without reflecting the actual discussion that had taken place at the September meeting. Ken was helping to ensure that only one side of the discussion was represented in the minutes.
When I got home after the meeting, I again wrote to Rich Hass (USHPA President) asking for Ken's removal from the Council. Note that this email message to Rich was part of an ongoing discussion requesting site insurance from USHPA. The first paragraph is responding to Rich's most recent message and points out that the Torrey Hawks have been recognized by the City of San Diego as the designated organization representing hang gliding on the Torrey Pines City Park Advisory Board. Rich had stated earlier that our club had no "standing" or "relationship whatsoever" with the City. The first paragraph disputes RIch's assertion. Here's the message:
Quote:
Rich (cc/bcc others),
The City looked to the Hawks to advise the City on matters relating to hang gliding at Torrey Pines. We were the sole representative for the sport of hang gliding on that Board. That was a position where we could have provided all kinds of helpful advice - advice that might have trumped even the concessionaire's control. So I view that Advisory Board as having been even higher on the "food chain" than the lessee of the park. I'd call that a "relationship whatsoever".
Unfortunately, it was probably one of my greatest mistakes in 7 years that I trusted Ken Baier to that position (on the Torrey Pines City Park Advisory Board). Just this evening on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council, Ken participated in the cover up of the concessionaire's abuses by refusing to vote to update the minutes of the last Council's meeting to reflect what I had presented to the Council at that meeting.
Ken, you should be ashamed of yourself. Rich, I am again calling on you to replace Ken Baier with someone who has the backbone to stand up rather than cover up.
I won't be holding my breath.
Bob Kuczewski
So the Soaring Council covers up Robin's abuses ... as long as he's not abusing any of
their members, and USHPA (which surely doesn't represent pilots anymore) goes along with it.
Disgusting.
