Ms Pivkova,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this issue and for your service as vice president. I know personally how much work and headache it can be as I have been the president of many clubs and organizations and led a large recreation department with over 400 employees and multiple customer advisory boards.  You and the entire board have a very difficult yet extremely important job to do.  I hear your frustration with this situation and the points you detailed in your response yet you have a responsibility to be fair and do what is good for the overall organization and I understand that is not easy.  But the way I see it the problems that CSS has are far greater than a dog peeing. This could be a world-class flying site but it currently could only be described as where east LA goes to hang and get high. It has become a group of four gangs that can be identified by who their instructor was and the rest fall into the old folks who just hang out at the LZ and complain about everyone else. The rest of the members just try to stay in the background invisible so they don’t have to bear the wrath of one of the gangs.  If efforts were successful in unifying this group the possibilities are endless. These factions fighting against each other continue to make the place an uncomfortable and now, inconvenient place to fly. My reasons for writing to you are only to right an injustice to an individual who should be honored by this organization instead of as I see it,  vilified.

The dogs and horses in the LZ were interesting, but seriously; this is an outdoor sport. I have flown at over 40 sites in more than a dozen countries and trust me this is not unusual. It is my responsibility to look after my gear. I expect wildlife to have visited the LZ many times and have tried to mark their territory on that very recliner, which; I also have to ask, why someone thought that they could dump their old discarded furniture there in the first place. It is not outdoor furniture and will and probably has already, become infested with who knows what.  But to have this as a reason to suspend a member for a year seems a bit out of place.

Here is where the perception of the board’s actions is so out of place.  Discipline should have the only purpose of correcting unwanted behavior and not be vindictive. Documentation should not be to CYA but instead to explain and clearly identify the issue at hand and the desired outcome.  I have seen many supervisors who just don’t like a person and use the process to set up the person for failure with the hope they could use that as documentation to get rid of the person. They are usually sloppy with the documentation and unrealistic in either their expectations or do not fairly and uniformly hold others accountable and their punishment is out of place for the offence. These cases rarely hold up in court.

So let’s take this one step at a time. First, why would you hand deliver a back-dated letter? If it was a simple mistake or you simply didn’t have the time to deliver it earlier that is on you. You should have corrected the date on the letter and made sure that you clearly communicated that to Gene and Nichole at the time you gave it to them. And if you didn’t notice it then shame on you, you should have known and respected the severity of this situation and taken the time and effort to ensure it was clear.  That is the responsibility we have placed on you as VP.  Remember that the part about documentation is to be clear and not have any ambiguity. It could have been fixed with a simple pen stroke, the new date, and your initials.

Second, it was clear to me during my visits to the site during the past several weeks that Gene was making an honest effort to comply with the request to keep the dogs and horses off the LZ. He should have been commended for that by yourself and other board members if indeed their only motivation was to fix the problem. This small gesture would have gone a long way toward mending fences and achieving the goal of corrected behavior that should have been your only objective. Myself and many other club members had to hike outside the property line to get a ride so we all know that he was also trying to comply with the disciplinary action. So when you say he violated the ban and thought the ban ended on the 10th I have to go back to that clarity issue.  You need to take some responsibility.  Otherwise, it looks like you never had the intention of assisting them in fixing the problem but instead just set up a little trap, and the instant he fell into it you banned him for a year.  It could have been handled with an honest conversation that went “Look we understand there is some confusion because of the date on the letter but this is a 30-day ban and you can either accept that and stay out for the extra 9 days or the board will have to consider this breaking of the ban and will take further action”. And even then, progressive discipline should have a reasonable progression. i.e. one month then two months etc. not 30 days to a year. Again, the purpose should be to correct the behavior and not get rid of the person.

Third, are you as a board enforcing the rules uniformly or are you only enforcing the rules that this person breaks? I have to ask this because I noticed a couple of months ago that suddenly everyone has to wear helmets in the UTVs going up to Regionals and thought that was a great safety point then got into a van going to Marshal and no one was wearing their seatbelts.  To me that shows Gene and Nichole trying to follow the rules but similar safety rules are not being enforced with other club members who are favored by the board. There was even a board member in the van that day and nothing was said. And we have a rule that acro is not permitted below 700 feet AGL and yet I have witnessed on several occasions an instructor doing swoop landings into the LZ. Now that is far more dangerous than the pissing contest that is currently going on.

You said in your forum post “Painting the current board as some vindictive organization that’s out to get people, is a bit reckless.” But we are not doing the painting. It is the actions of the board that are painting the picture and we as members are just telling you what our perceptions are.  When your actions are perceived a certain way you should first take an honest look in the mirror and then either change your actions or do a better job of managing those perceptions.