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Larry Allen Petition

Letter to Jay Geise from USCA Board of Directors

This letter is intended to answer the petition brought to the Board Of Directors of the United Sidecar Association by Larry Allen USCA member # 6597. In addition to Mr. Allen there are 30 member signatures and membership numbers supporting this petition, all of who have been verified to be members in good standing. The petition reads as follows;

We the undersigned do petition the Board of Directors of the United Sidecar Association to remove Jay Geise from the Board of Directors due to the fact that he is in the Sidecar manufacturing industry and that constitutes a conflict of interest.

The Board of directors has no standing via its Constitution and by laws of the USCA to remove a Board Member.

At the December Board meeting a motion was brought to the floor by Colby Cousineau that the Board ask Jay Geise to resign. The motion was seconded By Chuck Tretyak. Much discussion followed and then President John Kennedy called for a vote. The vote result was as follows;

President John Kennedy voted in favor (Pres. Kennedy voted Secretary Al Roache’s proxy)
Vice Pres. Colby Cousineau voted in favor
Treasurer Robert Montague voted in favor

North East regional Director Chuck Tretyak voted against
Central Regional Director Joyce Canfield voted against
Western Regional Director Jay Geise voted against

Total in favor of motion 3
Total against motion 3

President John Kennedy, acting as directed in the bylaws, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the motion

Motion carried 4 to 3, Resulting in this letter. Although the Board has no standing to force Jay Geise to resign, it was and is important for the Board to respond to and act upon issues brought forward by the club members. This letter, which will be sent to Jay Geise in hopes he will provide an answering letter to the Board, and also to Mr. Larry Allen in hope of showing Mr. Allen and others that the Board is infact responding to the membership.

I will also post this letter on Sidecar.com and submit it to the Sidecarist for printing in the next issue.

Colby M Cousineau
Vice President, USCA

Being new to the USCA I assumed that there had been some discussion concerning the conflict of interest that I was not aware of. In conversing with some of the more established membership of the USCA, I have not been able to get an indepth description of just exactly what the conflict of interest is. It is good to have such experience and insight on the BOD I would assume, but will someone please give me and others an example of the conflict of interest. My wife says that sometimes I need someone to draw me a picture, so please forgive me. Thanks so much!

As one of the no votes, I will offer my explaination. The Board has no constitutional right to remove anyone from their elected position. We do not require anyone to even own a sidecar to be a member nor do we discriminate based on race,religion,or any of the other things associated with the laws concerning such. There have been manufacturers who have served as directors in the past so there is a precident. There was no secret as to what Jay did for a living before he ran for office and if there were concerns they should have been voiced long before he took office not at the end of his two year term.

While we want to address the concerns of our members, I feel this should never have come to a vote of The Board.

I agree that this issue of the Larry Allen petition should never have needed to be a board vote, however what is the board to do with a petition that has 31 USCA members signing asking the board to take some measure of action.

Regardless of how we feel about the petition, right or wrong, as president of the USCA could this petition just have been lost or swept aside. If the board did not answer the petition with official action then it would have looked like the board was not listening to the voice of the members.

I know many of the reasons, because I have called most of the signers
on the petition, I ask them questions that I thought that were important to the issue and I agreed with them as shown by my vote.

I also know from talking with Mr. Allen that before he sent this petition in that he personally called Jay and tried to discuss his concerns for the club and for Jays actions. Jay was unreceptive to Mr. Allens good-will gesture.

( I will note that it truely was a conflict of intrest for Jay to have voted on this matter, he should have excused himself from the discission and abstaned from voting; this tells me that Jay thought the petition was correct)

I would also like to point out that now the members know that they have a voice on the board, I promised when I was elected that I was just a general member working for the general membership.

Thank you for looking at both sides of the issue, and of course your support for the USCA

I read posts today from Joyce, John K. and Colby with great interest. I appreciate being provided with viewpoints from all sides. Thanks to each of you. I have no doubt that each member of the USCA wants what is best for the organization and our leadership wants the same. Sometimes we may have differing viewpoints on how to get there and that is perfectly normal. I recall one of my sidecar safety course instructors referring me to this site. It was, and still is a dream come true...a place where I could share my passion for sidecars with like minded people... T-shirts and patches that I wear with pride. The love for sidecars, that is our common bond. In the end, from what I can tell...each of you did what you believed was in the best interest of the USCA concerning the Larry Allen petition...that is all any membership could ask and that is all that matters to me! Thanks to each of you for your service to the USCA....Gerald Fletcher

Thank you good sir!!!!!!!

John,

If you really felt that this petition should not have been voted upon, it seems that it might have been a good idea to abstain and let it rest as a tie vote. The item would have been addressed by the Board and no action taken. By voting you clearly showed that you had a position and you made it public.

We all know what caused the petition and we also see that a USCA officer was one of the immediate signers. Someone who knew that there was no way to remove a Board member. That evening when you asked me what I thought you should do I told you that you should censure BOTH parties for their actions. You chose to back Colby. It was wrong that night and it's still wrong. Letting that petition come to a vote was equally wrong and now saying that Jay should recuse himself from voting is still wrong. The only person who shouldn't have voted on the issue was you. It would have put a statesmanly ending on a sorry episode for the USCA.

One last thing. It would be great if everyone who wants to discuss this issue would limit their posts to sidecar.com. The SCT site is not affiliated with the USCA and I know that Claude would appreciate if SCT wasn't overrun with USCA politics. Thanks for your time.

Al Olme wrote:
>>One last thing. It would be great if everyone who wants to discuss this issue would limit their posts to sidecar.com. The SCT site is not affiliated with the USCA and I know that Claude would appreciate if SCT wasn't overrun with USCA politics. Thanks for your time.<<

I am not too concerned about these posts at SCT but do feel that they should all be in one place and not scattered all over the net. Sidecar.com is the site of the USCA and all of what is being discussed right now pertains to the USCA ..SO..sidecar.com is the better place to have this discussion.
Thanks for the considerate comment Al,
Claude
Founder ISOK at SCT
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/SCT/