[K3CAL] Open letter to the board

[David Olenjack]

*Unfounded accusations, mind you.*
Au contraire, my good sir.  The fact that you are the Vice President and
Chair of the Repeater Committee and some sort of RACES or ARES officer or
official are huge conflicts of interest.  Not in any corporate malfeasance
sort of way, but in the simple fact that you might have agendas or goals
that have nothing to do with the CARA organization but rather more to do
with the other organization(s) that you are a member of.  I'm not saying
that you do have conflicting goals, I'm saying it gives the appearance.
And as the old saying goes, sometimes the appearance of wrongdoing is just
as bad as any actual wrongdoing.



*At no time has anyone provided any proof of any wrong doing of anyone on
the Board.  There have been many claims but none, that I'm aware of, hold
up to any kind of scrutiny.*
I must be confused here.  Stop me if I'm wrong:
1 - The digipeter is part of the already approved plan for the PF machine,
yes?
2 - The linking of the two machines is not part of any work plans that have
been voted on and/or approved or funded yet, correct?

You said: "The digipeater was, is, and always has been part of the Prince
Frederick
Project.  I'm not prioritizing or otherwise talking about doing work
that was not already approved."

You said before that: "



*My response (although perhaps it wasn't clear?) was that I planned on
working on both simultaneously and was not favoring either part of the
project ahead of the other."*
You have been accused of, and if the above is correct, have been shown
evidence of the fact that you have overstepped your authority.  You do not
have the authority to make the decision to work on "both simultaneously"
due to the fact that one of the items (the digipeter) has been approved by
the membership and the other item (the linking of the two machines) has not
been approved by the membership.






*All of today's discussions was started by hearsay and a misunderstanding
of what happened.  Did he write to try to get clarity about the topic?  No,
he started throwing out accusations and falsely claiming things as
fact. *Unless
I'm completely mistaken here, the above issue with the digipeater and the
links is precisely what Dave Weaver was talking about in his email.
Although the language in his email was rather inflammatory due to the high
levels of frustration he is experiencing, he is nevertheless correct.  You
did try to sandwich work that had been approved with work that had not been
approved.  And furthermore, Ed did specifically say that he was going to
"table the discussion" while you gather information for a more complete
recommendation for the aforementioned 1, 3, and 5 year plan.  Not to
mention the fact that you keep talking about the digipeter as being part of
this future plan.  It can't be part of the future plan because it's already
been approved.

So no, unless I'm completely off base here, Dave made no false
accusations.  He went off of what we told him.  Which is what happened.

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 7:41 PM, Eric Christensen <eric at christensenplace.us>
wrote:

> On 03/04/2016 06:33 PM, David Olenjack wrote:
>
> > 1. People who have made accusations against one or more members of the
> > board (i.e. conflicts of interest, abuse of or overstepping authority,
> > etc..)
>
> Unfounded accusations, mind you.  At no time has anyone provided any
> proof of any wrong doing of anyone on the Board.  There have been many
> claims but none, that I'm aware of, hold up to any kind of scrutiny.
> There seem to be a couple of people who seem to really dislike the
> current Board's attempts at including people that were otherwise run off
> by the previous President or previous ex-President.
>
> > 2. People (like me) who are trying (and miserably failing, I might add)
> > to mediate the two sides and help to bring the conflict to some kind of
> > resolution, and
>
> And I wish there were more people that expect that something that
> doesn't sound correct is likely a misunderstanding rather than malice.
>
> > 3. People who are so tired of the drama and just want to sell the
> > equipment, throw in the towel, and call it a day.
>
> And, honestly, I'm in this camp.  I've never been a part of an
> organization where this much drama exists.
>
> > You keep talking about what "you" know, or what "you" are
> > trying to do.  "You" aren't important in this issue.  What is important
> > is the fact that under (in part) your leadership, this organization is
> > having serious issues.
>
> Well, we have two problems that seem to want to tear the community apart
> no matter how much work the leadership puts into trying to move forward.
>  No one on the current Board has ever threatened anyone or yelled at
> anyone in a meeting or excluded people because they were felt they
> weren't smart enough or it wasn't their place.  That cannot be said of
> the previous President and previous ex-President.
>
> Look back at who has been spreading the accusations and negativity and
> you'll find it centers around two people that seem to want to throw crap
> from the sidelines without actually participating in any of the
> meetings.  All of today's discussions was started by hearsay and a
> misunderstanding of what happened.  Did he write to try to get clarity
> about the topic?  No, he started throwing out accusations and falsely
> claiming things as fact.  I guarantee that if more people would not
> assume malice and try to gain clarity we would avoid much of this bad
> faith belief in each other.
>
> > It's not what you do or do
> > not know about repeaters or what you were doing behind legions of armed
> > Marines during 9/11.
>
> As it shouldn't.  I was simply replying to the apparent question of my
> technical ability.  I now see that it's my leadership that was in
> question and I can honestly say that I'm new to all this.  I didn't get
> to do anything under the previous President and was told more than once
> that I was hanging out with "other" crowd (which I was unaware there was
> an "other" crowd in our club) too much.
>
> > It matters that everything is falling apart, and
> > what is supposed to be a fun hobby is turning into something that people
> > are ready to just walk away from.
>
> Well, I'm trying to move forward.  Perhaps I should let my actions speak
> for me instead of replying to all the bait.
>
> Next month we'll have a talk given by the ARRL Section Manager for MDC.
>  I think Jim, K3UGA, is also going to give a brief presentation of his
> go-box with a longer presentation later in the year.  I want to get Bob
> (from Charles County) to come demonstrate his BPQ digital messaging
> station, and try to get W3YVV to come do his talk on station grounding.
>  I've had requests for demonstrations/talks on ATV, more on what we can
> do with our Yaesu equipment, and have Keith come back to talk more about
> mesh networking.  That's what I'm working on as Vice President.  I'm
> trying to get people doing things.  There are others in the club that
> are working on getting folks together to build project radios and
> antennas and our public service liaison is already stacking the calendar
> full of public service events for the year.  That's what we're doing.
> Who wants to talk about that stuff instead of bickering and fighting on
> email?
>
> I was elected by the membership to the position of Vice President so
> there are ways (Article 1, Section 8 of the By-laws) to unseat me if the
> membership doesn't think I'm doing a good job.  Honestly, I'd have no
> problem with it as I'm really tired of dealing with the crap that has
> been thrown at the Board.
>
> I was asked to be the ARES EC and I was appointed to the Repeater
> Committee.  If someone would like either one of these positions please
> let me know.  The latter has to go through the President but being ARES
> EC just has to go through the SEC and I'll happily make the
> recommendation.  It is a lot of work, though.  Bob alluded to the number
> of hours I submitted for the January blizzard.  I have logs to show
> exactly how much time I spent planning for the event and working with
> Section leadership before the first flake fell.  There's a lot of work
> that goes into these events.
>
> I have two small children and lots of other aspects to this hobby that
> I'd rather focus on when compared to the training, planning, and work
> that goes into these other positions.  I'm trying very hard to stay
> focused on the positives and get people in the club involved in things
> because I, and others, saw this as an area that was lacking.  But at
> this point it's getting very difficult to stay focused with all the
> negatives that seem to be dragging us back.  I'd much rather being
> playing fort, coloring, and reading books than going out for a long
> evening where the work I've put in won't be appreciated and will end up
> being misrepresented by someone with an agenda.
>
> --Eric
> ______________________________________________________________
> K3CAL mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/k3cal
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:K3CAL at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/k3cal/attachments/20160304/a394dc22/attachment.html>