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Home > Archive > Chess politics > December 2004 > The political status of the Crossville move
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The political status of the Crossville move
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| Petrel 2004-12-28, 5:47 pm |
| When an airplane is about to take off, and is gathering speed on the runway,
there is a point after which it is impossible to abort the takeoff. We may
have already passed that point with regard to the Crossville move. If not,
it is coming up on us pretty fast.
Really, we might have passed it in 2003. I mean, a decision was made to move
to Crossville in 2003, and the USCF under Frank Niro's leadership apparently
made a series of contractual commitments at that time. We even accepted the
land. After Niro left his ED post, there was apparently a period when the
EB tried to pretend that the commitments made by Niro were somehow no longer
valid and perhaps had all been a dream, and someone attempted to mail back
the deed to the City of Crossville in an envelope. Not very impressive. A
lot of people were apparently unimpressed by the letter written by the
Crossville lawyers to us threatening us with a lawsuit, but I thought they
had a decent case.
With every passing day we are firming up our contractual commitments in
Crossville, to the city, the bank, the architect, and probably other people.
Furthermore, we have an expiring lease in New Windsor, and apparently we
have no working fallback plan to retain office space there if for some
reason the move fails, and furthermore we are not going to have anybody who
would have the time and willingness to work on getting us such space.
Of the seven elected voting members of the EB, four voted for it in October
and opposed a two-week delay for more negotiation on the Liberty proposal; I
presume they are all firmly committed to the move. A fifth (Bauer) voted
for the delay but is now at least reasonably comfortable with the move.
Two, Schultz and Brady, have reservations about it. Those reservations, and
the arguments of the Interim ED, seem quite sensible to me, but it seems
that they haven't carried much weight with the other five. I don't think
this is because the majority are committed to evil schemes. Perhaps they
just have a different picture of what the USCF's role and strategy should
be.
Schultz wrote here a few days ago that he still thinks the Crossville move,
at this time, in the middle of the ED search and of a computer upgrade, is a
"dumb idea". He may be right. But this is going to be beside the point
very quickly. At some point, which, again, we may already have passed,
stopping the move in its tracks and attempting to scrounge up some office
space in the New York area is going to become an even dumber idea, an even
more impossible plan.
Brady and Schultz are going to have to make up their minds very quickly what
they really think about this move. Is it "merely" a bad idea, but one which
the USCF will be able to survive, a decision which the elected majority of
the board has the right to make? Or is it such a disastrous idea that they
are obliged to -actually- fight it "tooth and nail", as the head of the
Finance Committee inaccurately accuses them of doing already? Actually
doing so would involve more than voicing misgivings and complaints on rgcp,
which really serves not much more purpose than creating a basis for saying
"I told you so" in the future. Actually fighting the move would mean, as a
minumum, taking immediate energetic steps to contact the elected delegates
and attempt to win over a majority of them to come out in opposition to the
move and bring pressure on the EB majority. If they don't believe that this
can be done, why not? Because the delegates think more like the board
majority than like the minority? In that case the move really is
unstoppable.
Really, the person who stands out here for having the courage of his
convictions in opposing the move is Sam Sloan. He has made his strategy
very clear: he plans to obstruct the move by any possible means until it can
be reversed by a new EB election and/or a new vote by the delegates. To
this end, he has brought suit claiming that the sale of the New Windsor
building without approval by the state is actually a violation of the New
York law for not-for-profits. However, even if he does stop the USCF from
selling a building in New York, I am worried that we may still be committed
to building a building in Tennessee.
(By the way, I haven't seen any strong argument here that he is wrong about
this. There are a lot of complaints about Sam's character and background
and motives and judgment, but very little on the question of whether Sam is
wrong on the law in this case except the syllogistic argument that "Sam is
always wrong, therefore he is wrong on the law in this case." However, "a
stopped clock is right twice a day." Since we will be in a HELL of a mess
if the judge rules for Sam in March, say, or continues the case leaving us
in legal limbo, I hope the Board and its lawyers have a plan here, possibly
even for obtaining the approval that Sam says we need to get.)
Sam is actually fighting the move. What about Schultz and Brady? Are they
going to fight the move tooth and nail? In that case they had better get at
it. Or is it their judgment that the move is really past the point of being
stopped, either because the will to stop it is just not present among the
delegates and just cannot be aroused, or because the USCF now is just too
committed to it, both legally and practically? In that case it becomes
their responsibility to tell us so and actually try to make the move work
and force the majority to solve the problems of the move.
As for the majority, if they want the delegates and members of the USCF to
be as enthusiastic about the Crossville move as they are, they have some
work to do. They should tell us what the costs are. They should tell us
what we are committed to do. For example, for how many years are we
committed to stay in Crossville? What limitations will there be on our
right to dispose freely of the land? What is the timetable of hiring and
training? I realize that many of these things may still be the subject of
negotiation* or may be unknown or unplanned, but they should make known as
much as they can and not be secretive and high-handed. When I say "they
should tell us", I don't mean just that they should post it on rgcp for the
benefit of me and Larry Parr, I mean that they should post it on the website
and write about it in CL and otherwise broadcast the details to the
membership. It continues to baffle me that there is no mention of the move
at uschess.org except hidden away in the EB minutes. Why aren't they
working as hard to promote the move as Sam is to oppose it?
petrel
* By the way, the fact that the details of the Crossville move are still
apparently being negotiated sort of takes the edge off the argument that the
proponents of the Liberty proposal were firmly required to have all the
details in final form by a date certain, and that it was not possible to
allow two weeks for further negotiation with the AF4C.
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| WPraeder 2004-12-28, 5:47 pm |
| >Really, we might have passed it in 2003. I mean, a decision was made to move
quote:
>to Crossville in 2003, and the USCF under Frank Niro's leadership apparently
>made a series of contractual commitments at that time. We even accepted the
>land. After Niro left his ED post, there was apparently a period when the
>EB tried to pretend that the commitments made by Niro were somehow no longer
>valid and perhaps had all been a dream, and someone attempted to mail back
>the deed to the City of Crossville in an envelope. Not very impressive. A
>lot of people were apparently unimpressed by the letter written by the
>Crossville lawyers to us threatening us with a lawsuit, but I thought they
>had a decent case.
>
Petrel,
Another thoughtful post. In hindsight it seems we lost our way on the move
during our 2003/2004 fiscal year. We have yet to hear whether this was a
combination of unsound influence from special interests and/or just being
overwhelmed dealing with another immediate financial crisis. I find it sad that
the board infighting over hiring an ED and the move had spilled into the
streets so to speak. In my view until recently the organization has not had the
will for hard decisions or actions which require multiple years to implement.
We may disagree about who really has displayed moral courage in the face of
opposition.
It appears to me the plane is in the air once again. We have yet to see if it
turns around and lands, crashes, or gets shot down by the resistance.
Regards,
Wayne Praeder
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