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The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he
resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. —Archibald Macleish: |
As with every organization, the League’
[SIC]
must adapt to challenges.
The League’s Board of Directors meets at least twice a year (and
more often by phone conference) to discuss policy and make changes
when and where needed. Last year, your Board made a number of
internal and external improvements to the League’s organization. The
Board simplified the League’s mission statement. The mission wasn’t
changed, just the “mission statement” – to make it shorter, more
concise, more clear.
We beg to differ! The new “mission statement”
(possibly better called a “statement of purpose”) removed a number of very
important, specific functions that the League was obligated to perform.
With the new, wishy-washy, feel-good statement, the League can perform or not
perform any of those former functions, subject to the whim of the current
directors and staff. The new statement says nothing about protecting
cyclists’ rights, which was a cornerstone of the League’s original
mission.
The timing of this change is also suspect. At the end of the March 8, 2003
board meeting, Bill Hoffman reminded the Board that cycling education is the
League’s primary function. He also told the Board of their duty to protect
cyclists’ interests. Both of these duties were prominently stated in
ARTICLE I of the Bylaws. So, how did the Board respond? They removed
the “offending” language! We believe the mission was not just changed, it
was gutted.
Update: Almost three years later, the statement was essentially restored at the
March 2006 board meeting. While this is a real “positive change” the other
negative changes described here are still in force.
The League’s mission was and remains “to
promote bicycling for fun, fitness and transportation, and to work
through advocacy and education for a bicycle-friendly America.” Of
course, this is really nothing new; we’ve been doing it all along,
but it gives us a more focused approach to achieving what we all
want: a more bicycle-friendly America!
We think it is much more important to be
cyclist-friendly. Bicycles are only machines. They don’t care
whether America is friendly or not. And indeed, some of the designated
“Bicycle Friendly Communities”
are quite hostile to cyclists.
As a member-driven organization, the League’s Board always puts
the members’ interests first. We think Mr. Kegel’s claims are an extreme example of hypocrisy. He is
the leader of a faction that appointed itself the guardian of the members’
interest. They plan to “protect” the majority by restricting their choice
of candidates in future elections, and by making it nearly impossible for
members to overturn any decision of the board.
How is severely restricting the ability of members to
direct the Board to act, or to propose candidates for election to the Board, as
described below, “putting the members’ interests first”? How can we have a
“member-driven organization” if members are not consulted about substantial
changes in the mission and governance?
Members are the driving force behind
the League’s powerful education and advocacy efforts. Recently, the
board established a member involvement committee to identify even
more opportunities for engaging our concerned and committed members.
The Board also decided to change the petition process to protect the
majority of the membership. Until now, a small group of people could
fairly easily make drastic changes to the organization that might
not be in the best long term interests of the members. Your Board
felt that major changes of policy should reflect the views of the
majority of the membership, not just those of a small but vocal
interest group.
Let’s look at this claim … We have a 12-member
board, 5 of whom were appointed and not elected by the members. This looks
to us like a small but vocal interest group. This small group has indeed
made drastic changes to the organization that are not in best long term
interests of the members.
At first, Kegel’s message said that these changes were adopted
unanimously. (We show the deleted original words in strikeout
text below). This claim was dropped after we pointed out that the
minutes show that the vote to increase the number of petition signatures to run
for Board seats was 9-2 and another amendment to increase the number of
signatures required for a referendum passed by a vote of 9-1 plus one
abstention.
As a result of pressure by LAB Reform (and our making Bill Hoffman’s notes
available), the board finally started making minutes of open board meetings
available on its website. However, several months pass before these
minutes are approved and posted. Another problem: the board does not tell
us in advance of telecon meetings nor do they provide the agenda for such
meetings. In addition, meetings of the executive committee are still
secret.
Therefore, in October the board
unanimously amended
voted to amend
the by-laws,
Earlier in 2003, the Board secretly (via telephone
conference) added another appointed seat for a Treasurer, bringing to five (out
of twelve) the number of directors that members are not allowed to vote
for. Members were not allowed to vote on any of these changes, nor were
they informed in advance.
The vote to add a fifth unelected director violated the Bylaws provision for
amending the Bylaws. Therefore, we believe this change is
illegal.
to require the signatures of 10% of voting members (it
was previously 3%) to launch a referendum on issues affecting the
governance or policies of the League. Also, candidates who seek
election to board seats now will need signatures of 5% of members to
petition for the nationwide (“at large”) seat, and 10% of the
members in a region, for the regional seats. These revised
percentages are within the ranges of a number of national non-profit
organizations, and should ensure that only serious candidates and
serious issues are brought forward for the entire membership’s
consideration.
Many local and state political offices can be sought
with fewer petition signatures than LAB now requires to qualify for its
ballot. For example, in Pennsylvania, you need only 5 signatures to run
for inspector of election, 10 to run for your local school board, 250 for common
pleas court judge, 300 for state representative, you can even run for US
President by collecting only 2000 signatures.
Now contrast these requirements with what is required if you have a buddy on the
board. Then you need NO signatures. And if you can get appointed to
one of the non-elected seats on the board then you don’t even need to appeal to
members for votes. We think this isolation of the Board is why the League
is so unresponsive to members.
Your Board believes that these changes will result in a better
League of American Bicyclists, one that will be able to successfully
push the agenda of making America more bicycle-friendly! Thank you
for your continued support in the quest.
America doesn’t need to become more “bicycle-friendly”
because bicycles do not need friends. However, we should be cyclist
friendly. And how will restricting members’ influence result in a better
League?
As always, the Board
welcomes your suggestions and concerns.
We certainly don’t get that impression from the recent actions of the Board.
Sincerely,
Chris Kegel
President of the Board of Directors
|
League of American Bicyclists | |
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Phone: 202-822-1333 Fax: 202-822-1334 E-mail: [email protected] |
| COPYRIGHT © 2004, League of American Bicyclists | |
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