Politics

I’ve always recommended that hams join the ARRL, but recent events have certainly tested my resolve. The ARRL seems to lurch from calamity to calamity. Earlier this year, there was the decision to discontinue sending copies of the print version of QST to members. Then, in May, there was the cyber attack on the ARRL’s shaky IT infrastructure.

The latest debacle is this year’s board of directors election. Every year, the ARRL conducts elections for five of the 15 directorships. This year, candidates in three of these elections have been disqualified,  for somewhat dubious reasons, in my humble opinion.

Officially, these candidates were disqualified for violating one of the ARRL’s election rules. They all share a common characteristic, though: they are all critical of the current board and CEO, David Minster, NA2AA. Whatever the real reason, these disqualifications have turned this year’s elections into a sham.

N3JT Disqualified!

The first disqualification that I became aware of was that of Jim Talens, N3JT. At first glance, Jim seemed like a great  candidate. Professionally, Jim was an attorney for the FCC for 22 years and has both BSEE and MBA degrees. He is an active radio amateur and is one of the founders of CWops, a group devoted to furthering the use of Morse Code. He had hoped to run for Roanoke Division director.

Jim lives in Virginia for about half the year and in Florida for the other half. He says that by law, he is both a legal resident of Virginia and Florida.

His FCC license shows his Virginia address. His long-time home of 49 years and his primary station are located in Virginia. He pays real estate taxes in Virginia. He pays personal property taxes in Virginia.  His cars are registered in Virginia. The signatories to his nomination were all in Virginia. When he submitted his nomination petition, he was a full member in Virginia, and not living in Florida.

Despite this, the Ethics & Elections Committee decided—wrongfully in Jim’s opinion—that he was not a resident of Virginia, and therefore, not eligible to run in the Roanoke Division. ARRL By-Law 18 requires that a candidate must be a “Full member of the division.” The problem is that the by-law doesn’t define what that phrase means. In the absence of that definition, the committee just made up its own rule for political expediency rather than apply common sense, law, or fairness.

Sounds pretty shady, doesn’t it? Would Jim have been disqualified if he hadn’t been so critical of the ARRL? Over and above that, should the Ethics and Elections Committee have the power to disqualify a candidate when the bylaw isn’t specific about what constitutes residency in a division?

K1VR Disqualified!

Fred Hopengarten, K1VR was disqualified on even shakier grounds. In his case, he submitted his nominating petition 24 hours before the deadline (noon of August 16), but inadvertently failed to attach the pages containing the signatures of ten or more members of the New England Division. He was informed of this fact by email at 11:05 am the next day, less than an hour before the deadline. He didn’t see this email until after noon, and when he did, he immediately replied with the signatures. But, he was 27 minutes late. This is the reason he was disqualified.

I don’t know about you, but this sounds pretty shady to me. Could it be because Fred supports policies that buck the current trend on the ARRL board?

K7REX Disqualified!

This is another disturbing case. Dan Marler, K7REX, is as good a candidate as you’d want. He currently serves as Idaho Section Manager, has served as Section Emergency Coordinator, and is the founder of the Radio Amateur Training Planning and Activities Committee (RATPAC). He is a retired computer systems administrator for a Fortune-500 company and would bring a much-needed understanding of IT management to the League.

In an email—which I haven’t seen, to be honest—Dan made several statements that the Ethics & Elections Committee took issue with. The committee specifically demanded that he retract several statements.

Here’s the message that he sent to the  members of the Northwest Division listing the supposedly offending statements and his responses:

Members of the Northwestern Division of our League

I have received a demand from the Ethics & Elections Committee to retract certain statements in my last email message within 24 hours or suffer the consequences. The complaints of the Committee are unfounded in my good faith view. But since they have the power to disqualify me if I do not comply with their demand, I offer each statement, their complaint, and my justification to them.  I believe my statements contain nothing inaccurate, false or personally accusatory.  Accordingly, I leave it to you to hear both sides in fairness.

Each of the five specific statements questioned by the E&E state my opinion and belief as to certain matters that I believe do or may adversely impact the ARRL and invites potential voters to evaluate whether they share my concerns as to those matters.

Excessive employee turnover, expensive compensation, a decision to engage in the sale of amateur radio equipment that competes with the League’s advertisers, the extended absence of IT leadership that may have contributed to a $1,000,000 ransomware attack that resulted in damage to the League’s finances and operation, and the unacceptability of handicapping Directors by withholding financial information are what they demand is retracted. For your information as a voter, you decide. as to each of my stated opinions below:

My Statement

1. ” If you are concerned about historically high personnel turnover in Headquarters, where over 50 League employees have left since the arrival of the present CEO, your views align with mine.”

E&E’s COMPLAINT: As we discussed, there have been people leave the ARRL, but this was through natural attrition and not due to the arrival of the present CEO. It has been long known that we would experience a higher number of retirements since there was a large increase of employees hired in the 1970’s and 1980’s. This along with the natural attrition of employees leaving for better pay or advancements in their particular fields of employment has caused our employee numbers to fluctuate some but is not the fault of the CEO.

MY RESPONSE:    The statement that employee turnover for the prescribed period of time is historically high is accurate. The statement that over 50 League employees have terminated their employment during the prescribed time period is accurate.

The statement does not identify any reason for the turnover or attribute responsibility for the historically high turnover to any specific cause or person. Your objection is based on the false assertion that the statement attributes cause of the historically high turnover to the “CEO.” The reference to the “CEO” merely establishes the time period during which the employee turnover is excessive; it does not attribute the turnover to anyone.

As there are neither inaccuracies nor anything false in the statement, my answer stating both sides of this issue here should settle the concern.

My Statement

2.    ” If you are concerned that an annual salary of $350K plus benefits for the ARRL CEO is substantially above what is warranted, your views align with mine.”

E&E’s COMPLAINT: As we discussed, Mr Minster is not making $350,000 at this time. His salary is $315,000. This figure was verified today and is correct.

MY RESPONSE:    The statement expresses my concern that the compensation for Mr. Minster exceeds that which is justified for his position and responsibilities. The dollar amount is sourced from multiple Directors who advised that the Administration & Finance Committee approved a $100,000 salary increase to Mr. Minster’s initial base salary of $250,000. If that compensation package has been modified, it appears the modification is unknown to multiple members of the Board.

If the $350,000 amount is not current, and if no increase to the $315,000 salary amount has been formally or informally agreed to, I have no objection to correcting the dollar amount, but a concern about executive compensation being too high will not be withdrawn or restated. I ask for verification of Mr. Minster’s current salary and benefits and any approved increases that have not yet taken effect. This will allow me to accurately respond to the membership.

My Statement

3.    ” If you think there is no need for the League to sell antennas competing with its advertisers, your views align with mine.”

E&E’s COMPLAINT: As we discussed, we are selling “kits” to encourage folks to get back into building again. These “kits” are also being used for our STEM projects for students and teachers as well. Our advertisers do not have issues with us doing this, therefore there is no competition.

MY RESPONSE:    The statement accurately reflects my concern that the ARRL, financially dependent on advertising revenue, has – or may have – erred by choosing to sell amateur radio equipment similar to that offered by the ARRL’s advertisers. All antennas require some assembly, so attempting to differentiate the League’s offering by characterizing it as a “kit” is disingenuous. I would point out that JK Antennas’ JK803 is also a “kit”. The ARRL’s rationale for offering the “kit” doesn’t alter the fact that it is amateur radio equipment of a type available from the ARRL’s advertisers.

The fact, if true, that none of the ARRL’s advertisers have publicly, or perhaps privately, objected to the ARRL’s conduct does not alter the reality that the ARRL is selling a product, an antenna, that is offered by multiple ARRL advertisers. It is competition whether anyone complains about it or not: a rose by any other name…

As there are neither inaccuracies nor anything false in the statement, my answer here should settle the concern. But members should decide.

My Statement

4.    ” If you feel that not having an Information Technology Manager for the majority of the present CEO’s term is unacceptable and may have contributed to the ransomware attack damage, your views align with mine.”

E&E’s COMPLAINT: As we discussed with this question and question 1, employment today is much different than it was for you and me. Young adults today jump from one job to another regularly for advancement, benefits or just plain old salary increase. The loyalty to stick to a single employer as you and I did in the past is not the philosophy of today. Today, these young adults, many of them in high-tech jobs, go to the highest bidder and the ARRL isn’t usually the highest. So, to imply that this is the CEO’s fault is something that just isn’t so.

MY RESPONSE:    Once again, you are inferring causation, which I did not assert. I made no statement or implication that any of the foregoing was the fault of the current CEO. That said, lacking an IT manager for an organization of the size and importance of the ARRL for a substantial period of time, in this case a period measured by the term of the current CEO, is unacceptable because of the risk that the absence of such leadership, oversight, and knowledge poses to the organization.

My statement also conveys my belief and concern that the absence of such a Manager for such an extended period of time reasonably could have contributed to the lack of maintenance or installation of protocols that could have prevented a $1,000,000 ransomware attack.

As an aside, your comments regarding young adults are remarkably wide of the mark, as neither of the two IT managers since 2016 met the definition of young.

My statement contains nothing inaccurate, false or personally accusatory  Accordingly, I leave it to the voters having sent the E&E concerns.

My Statement

5.     “ If you feel that keeping any League financial information from ARRL Directors is unacceptable, your views align with mine. “

E&E’s COMPLAINT: As we discussed, this is a very misleading statement. If you or I are asked for information at a meeting that we aren’t able to provide immediately with but was willing to get that information and report back at a later time, is that refusing to give you the information? If the person wanting specific financial information demands information on the spot as has been a few times by a specific Director, is that fair to state later that you asked for and was refused the information?

MY RESPONSE:    My statement accurately reflects my belief that failing to provide financial information to the Board of Directors is unacceptable. Although my statement does not explicitly allege that such conduct has occurred, in fact I previously provided the Ethics & Elections Committee with multiple, verifiable instances in which financial information had been withheld from or denied  – not delayed – to Directors.  E&E Chairman Baker did not disagree or advise me that any of those examples were not true and further advised me that he would allow them to stand. There are multiple Directors prepared to publicly verify the accuracy of those instances.

It is my opinion that my original statements do not contain any inaccurate, false, personal accusatory comments.

I leave it to you to evaluate the validity of E&Es complaints. Please make your own decisions.

I thank you for your time, your consideration and I again ask for your vote for Northwestern Division Director.

Apparently, that wasn’t good enough for the committee. In a letter dated September 28, 2024, Dan was disqualified. It’s not clear if he was being disqualified for not retracting all of the statements or just the statement about the CEO’s salary. In any case, we see again the high-handedness of the E&E Committee, and again I have to say that this all sounds pretty shady to me.

Is this really the best thing for amateur radio?

At this point, all three candidates plan to appeal these decisions by the Ethics & Elections Committee. It is doubtful that appealing will get them reinstated, but I think it’s worth going through the process, if only to emphasize the shadiness of what’s going on.

Over and above this, though, I really wonder how the powers that be can justify to themselves the shabby handling of these candidates? Do they really think that they’re fooling anyone with these political machinations? Do they reallly think what they’re doing is good for the ARRL, much less for amateur radio in general?

It’s really sad that it’s come to this.