mmur-@teleport.com

For those few of you that still have a license through USAC...



Mike Murray



-----Original Message-----

From: Les Earnest [mailto:le-@cs.stanford.edu]

Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 13:53 PM

To: uscf-of-@topica.com; uscf-@topica.com; mast-@topica.com;

ncn-@topica.com; team-in-@topica.com

Subject: Proposition A ballot materials





I believe that the voting members of USA Cycling would find the ballot

materials more useful if, in addition to providing the supporting

statements for each proposal, opponents had been given a limited amount of

space for rebuttal, as is often done in state or municipal elections. Such

election materials also should include legislative analyses by a neutral

authority, which can clarify the consequences of a given proposal. Neither

is provided in the current ballot materials.



Instead, the "Staff Responses" that have been inserted in the ballot

material are flagrantly political and contain a number of gross distortions

and outright fabrications, as discussed below. The balance of this note

provides a short rebuttal to the supporting statement for Prop. A and

reviews the Staff Response.



REBUTTAL TO PROPOSITION A



A key claim in the supporting argument is that "Proposition A establishes a

fully democratic membership process with direct voting and elected

representatives." How can we reconcile this statement with the fact that

Proposition A does not permit members to vote directly for any directors

and arranges to have 11 of the 15 directors elected by special interests

who include less than 1% of the licensees? That doesn''t sound like any

democracy I've heard of.



Another supporting statement says that Prop. A "retains the provision for

an annual meeting of USA Cycling members." Yes, but . . .

(1) instead of five members being able to put a proposed amendment to the

Articles on the ballot, as at present, Prop. A would require 5% of the

members, which would be on the order of 3,000 co-sponsors -- an unwarranted

barrier;

(2) Prop. A would allow the board of directors to amend the Articles all by

themselves, a power that they do not currently have, which means that this

grossly undemocratic board could overturn any amendment adopted by the

members and could change or eliminate voting processes whenever and however

they wished.



STAFF RESPONSE TO PROPOSITION A



The "Staff Response" to Prop. A is, in effect, an additional supporting

argument. It says Prop. A "Simplifies Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws

of USA Cycling." That is correct -- it does this by giving total control

of the organization to a board of directors in which the members have no

representation to speak of. A junta doesn't need written rules. In fact,

they get in the way.



Another "staff response" says that Prop. A "Preserves democratic direct

member voting rights and the provision for annual membership

meeting." Does this sound like the "Staff Response" was written by the

same person who wrote the supporting argument? If not, it is certainly an

example of an old scheme called "You lie and I'll swear to it."



In summary, both the supporting argument and "Staff Response" to Prop. A

attempt to mislead the reader through a combination of distortion and

fabrication. I recommend that you read between the lines.



-Les Earnest