July 2012 Soaring Council Meeting Canceled?

Bob Kuczewski · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2012 11:29 am

The dates for the 2012 Soaring Council meetings were set at the November 21st, 2011 Soaring Council meeting with Robin Marien (concessionaire) and Jeremy Bishop (flight director) in attendance. The July 2012 meeting was scheduled for July 16th at the Gliderport facility, and that date has been in place for nearly 8 months now.

Yet just last Friday (the Friday before the Monday meeting) we got a message from Byron Lowry (sailplane representative) stating:

On July 13th, 2012, Byron Lowry wrote:

Members, friends and guests of TPSC … Due to scheduling conflicts and some members unavailability we are cancelling our July meeting previously scheduled for next Monday the 16th.

I expect we will be meeting again as scheduled on September 17th.

Please pass this note to anyone else that is not listed above to minimize any inconvenience.

Thank you,

Byron Lowry
President, TPSC

I initially replied to Byron and the Council with this message:

On July 13th, 2012, Bob Kuczewski wrote:

Hello Byron (cc/bcc everyone else),

The meeting dates were announced well in advance of this meeting. It has been common practice in the past that when a member cannot be present, they may designate an alternate to sit in for them or not be represented. Can we do that in this case? And if not, then why not?

Alternatively, given that the Soaring Council is already only meeting once every two months, would it be possible to reschedule the July meeting in the near future rather than waiting 4 months between meetings?

Thanks in advance,
Bob Kuczewski

After giving it some more thought, I decided to check with the Soaring Council bylaws. The bylaws made it very clear that anyone who could not attend "shall" designate a representative to be their proxy. So I sent a follow up message to the Council a few minutes after my initial message:

Bob Kuczewski wrote:

Hello again Byron (cc/bcc others),

I just checked with the Soaring Council Bylaws provided by Gary Fogel (dated February 28th, 2001). Article III is titled "MEMBERSHIP AND VOTING" and it addresses absences:

Article III - Section 3:
     "In the event a Torrey Pines Soaring Council member is unable
     to attend Regular or Special Meeting he/she shall designate a
     representative to attend as a proxy. Only one member of each
     organization or proxy shall be entitled to vote at all meetings.
     Each organization may have only one vote on the Torrey Pines
     Soaring Council."

I know that many organizations have both failed to show up and failed to provide a proxy as stated in these bylaws. However, that's not the same as canceling a meeting in violation of the bylaws. Given that your notice went out earlier today, it is not too late to simply ask those members who cannot attend to designate a proxy who can attend in their absence.

Thanks for considering this request,
Bob Kuczewski

After thinking about it, I realized that some of the members might not have seen the actual bylaws, so I decided to send one final message which included an actual copy of the page regarding meetings and proxies:

Bob Kuczewski wrote:

Hello yet again Byron (cc/bcc others),

I've attached page 2 of the 2001 Bylaws below (these were given to me by Gary Fogel when we were getting the Soaring Council started again in 2007).

All of page 2 is part of Article III, and it turns out that there are two paragraphs titled "Section 3". They both apply to this situation. The first "Section 3" states that the Council will meet on scheduled dates (so meetings should NOT be canceled), and the second "Section 3" describes the "proxy" attendance that I mentioned in my previous messages.

I therefore request that the Soaring Council meet as scheduled this Monday night and that anyone who cannot attend should designate a proxy to stand in for them.

Please let us all know whether you will honor this request or not.

Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski

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That was late Friday night. When I checked my email this morning, the only reply was from the SDHGPA representative (David Metzgar) who wrote this:

David Metzgar wrote:

Bob,
I write this as an individual, and my words are solely my opinion and not representative of any group to which I may belong. You are a constant irritation and distraction to everyone you seek to manipulate. You add nothing of value to the world around you, nothing positive, nothing productive, not even anything unique or interesting. You provide only grating negativity and demanding egocentrism. I could care less what you think, and you can't bring me down no matter how diligently you try. Please find another worthless and hopeless cause to champion.
Cheers,
Dave

This is exactly the kind of garbage that comes from the SDHGPA. Dave Metzgar does not address any facts and instead resorts immediately to personal attacks. This has been the same kind of reply that I had gotten from David Metzgar when he was president of the SDHGPA, and it was this kind of response that led to the founding of the Torrey Hawks in the first place.

In addition to Dave's message, I heard from another source that the meeting had been cancelled because Robin Marien (concessionaire) had scheduled some other use of the facility during that time (even though Robin attended the November 2011 meeting when those dates were picked). So I sent the following message to the group responding to Dave Metzgar's message and addressing the possibility that Robin was partially responsible for the cancellation:

Quote:

Members of the Torrey Pines Soaring Council,

I offer Dave Metzgar's comments as further proof that he does not represent the interests of all hang gliding pilots at the Torrey Pines Gliderport. His personal attacks are fully unjustified in response to my simple request that the Torrey Pines Soaring Council abide by its bylaws and hold its meetings according to the dates scheduled by the quorum.

I have heard that part of the reason to cancel the meeting was because Robin Marien has denied us access to the Gliderport facility. I remind Robin that the meeting dates were scheduled at the Soaring Council meeting on November 21st, 2011 where both he and his flight Director (Jeremy Bishop) were present. It is entirely inappropriate for Robin to deny the Soaring Council the use of OUR City Property for any reason without sufficient advance notice. If Robin is allowed to cause the cancellation of any Soaring Council meetings, then that gives Robin a power over the Council that no other members hold. This runs contrary to the bylaws of the Council which were specifically designed to ensure that the Council is able to function independently of the concessionaire.

Byron, I am asking you to hold the meeting as scheduled by the quorum that established those dates last November. If Robin refuses to allow us to use the Gliderport facility he had promised in November, then I am asking you to choose another venue (there are many restaurants that would be appropriate and welcoming). Byron, I am also asking for a response as to whether you will honor these requests or not.

Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski

Bill Cummings · **Posted:** Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:29 pm

Would it be safe to hold my breath? Will the bylaws prevail? Are these people for real. :shock:

Bob Kuczewski · **Posted:** Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:20 am

billcummings wrote:

Would it be safe to hold my breath? Will the bylaws prevail? Are these people for real. :shock:

Wait, it gets even better...

I began hearing that it wasn't cancelled because of absences (which would be against the bylaws) but because Robin said that the meeting room (in the Gliderport building) was unavailable. So I decided to check it out.

I arrived at the Gliderport right around 6pm - the time of the scheduled Soaring Council meeting - and I found that the meeting room was clearly available. So I decided to document this with my handy camera.

Note that the "meeting room" is essentially a gear storage room. In addition to holding meetings, it is used to store and repair paragliding equipment. So it's not uncommon to see someone using it for that purpose. That's the kind of routine use I found at 6pm when I arrived. More specifically, there were two pilots finishing up a repair on a paragliding harness. These first two pictures show this:

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This was certainly not a reason to cancel the Soaring Council meeting since there was plenty of room to finish the job in other parts of the shop. This photo shows just part of the available area (beyond the stool) where the same work could have been done.

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For those who are familiar with the building, the area shown above opens up to an even larger area to the right around the counter. But even in the worst case, the repair was done by 6:15 and the room was completely empty at that time. These photos were taken at 6:15 and 6:17 respectively:

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Shortly after I took those photos, Robin decided that he didn't like me documenting the empty room, so he locked the door and gave me "the finger" through the glass. This photo of Robin (wearing a red shirt) was taken at 6:18pm (note Robin's hand and finger at the center of the photo just above the reflection of the flash):

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So I continued to document the status of the room by periodically taking pictures through the glass door. For example, these photos were taken around 6:45pm:

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They both show that the room remained completely unused.

Around 7:06pm, Jeremy (on the right) brought in some paragliding gear while Robin (on the left) continued to mill about:

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Right around 7:10pm, Robin locked up the office:

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At 7:12pm, Robin drove out of the park:

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The meeting room remained completely empty, as shown by these example photographs taken between 7:16pm and 7:24pm:

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At about 7:26pm, Robin returned in his truck and unlocked the building to go inside.

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About 20 minutes later (7:47pm) a police car showed up:

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I watched the two officers speak with Robin for quite some time and I overheard Robin making all kinds of unfounded accusations including that I had been "stalking" him. The police seemed to be replying that there was no law against citizens being in the park taking pictures. This seemed to get Robin somewhat agitated, but the police stood by their position. After a while, Robin went inside the building and the police emerged to leave. I walked up and introduced myself and asked what the problem was. The police asked me my side of the story and I told them why I was there (cancelled Soaring Council meeting) and why I was documenting the empty room. I specifically asked if I was doing anything wrong and their reply was that I was not. After that, we had a fairly congenial conversation about the rules of being on the property, and it became clear that everything I had done was well within my rights. As they were about to depart, I asked if I could take their photos, and they didn't object. These photos were taken around 8:05pm:

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The police left shortly after that (maybe 8:07pm?), and Robin left a few minutes later (around 8:09pm);

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The bottom line is that despite what anyone else may have said, the meeting room was available all evening and the Soaring Council certainly could have used it for their meeting. If Robin was misleading the Council as to the room's availability, then that's a fairly serious problem. It remains unclear what exactly had taken place since neither Robin nor the Soaring Council members have been forthcoming on these matters.

JoeF · **Joined:** Sat Aug 14, 2010 3:41 pm **Posts:** 4553

Meet on the grass, under the sky, with the wind, surrounded by fresh air and birds ....
and advance soaring equitably ...

Thanks for the vigilance, BobK,

Lift,
JoeF

July 2012 Soaring Council Meeting Canceled?

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