Re: USARRA
From: Allan Miller, Chairman, NorthEast Rugby Referees' Society
To: Referees in the NorthEast Territory
cc USARRA General Committee
The purpose of this memo is to provide an account of recent activities relating to the operation of the national referees' body, USARRA.
The Referees & Laws committee of USARFU restructured itself in 1999-2000, adopting the name "USARRA" and a new set of operating guidelines, also known as "The By-Laws."
Briefly, there are seven territorial representatives (the TR's) who elect the four Executive Officers (Chariman, Secretary, Treasurer, and RDO) to staggered four year terms.
The TR's, plus the Executive Officers, plus an International Athlete and A-panel Rep comprise the General Committee (GC), with a maximum size of 7 + 4 + 1 + 1 = 13.
USARRA has five standing committees, four of which come under the authority of the RDO. (Evaluation, Appointments, Training, and Coaching). The Laws committee does not.
The By-Laws state that the chairs of these committees are appointed to four year terms by the Executive Committee, pending approval by the General Committee. The chairs of these separate committees are then responsible for the membership and performance of their respective committees. There is one notable exception. Voting Members of the Evaluation Committee must be approved by the Executive Committee. These are the individuals who decide who gets to be an international referee and who doesn't, and therefore additional safeguards were deemed necessary. Mechanisms exist for the Executive to remove unsatisfactory committee chairs, and for the Territorial Representatives to remove unsatisfactory Executive Officers (2/3 vote required here).
When these By-Laws were drafted in 1999, there was considerable discussion of checks and balances, and the Senate/Executive arrangement described above was arrived at as being the best balance of executive power and political oversight. It was obvious from the structure chosen that an impasse could occur if the General Committee declined to approve the Executive Committee's choice.
Jim Russell was the first Chairman of the re-vamped USARRA. In July of 2000, he was replaced in a contested election by Steve Nally. In this election I voted for Steve, for the pragmatic reason that I believed Steve would make a better chariman of USARRA than Jim. Since I am accusing others of being naive, I should confess it here. I was apparently the only person in the room surprised at this turn of events. I continue to base my votes on what I believe to be in the best interests of USA referees as a whole.
The four Executive Officers must be four individuals, but beyond that multiple hat-wearing is common. Thus Charlie Haupt is Secretary of USARRA and TR for the West, Tom Barr is Chair of the Appointments Committee and TR for the Mid-West, and Don Morrison was RDO and chair of the Evaluation Committee (making him his own boss).
This fall, Don Morrison resigned as Evaluation Chair in order to work full-time (and I mean full-time - Don has retired from paid employment) as RDO, and the Executive Committee unanimously appointed Jim Russell. This was then put to an electronic vote of the General Committee.
At this juncture, the process got somewhat off-track. Dave Williamson, apparently at Mark Zetterburg's suggestion, offered the alternative "write-in" candidate, Mark Koiwai.
Electronic Vote Tally
Yeah's for Russell:
The General Committee of USARRA has been much maligned for failing to follow its own By-Laws. The nomination and attempted election of Mark Koiwai to the Chair of the Evaluation Committee was in contravention of the By-laws. When this was pointed out to the General Committee, the election was set aside. This could fall into the honest mistake category.
The next stage is a little harder to defend. A Conference Call was convened on 11/14/01 to discuss the impasse.
Two issues were raised in discussing the aborted election.
All of the GC (I believe) wanted to amend the By-laws to clarify what constituted an allowable voting procedure, the goal being to allow the GC to act without necessarily having to meet face-to-face.
A majority of the GC (7/9, Haupt absent, Miller and Morrison dissenting) wished to change the procedure for choosing standing committee chairs to one in which the GC would nominate and elect. It was pointed out that since these motions were By-Laws changes, a 30-day notice period was required.
The plan of action was to have Dave Peters draft changes that would be circulated prior to our next conference call in January. This is where the game plan starts to look worrisome. Draft changes were circulated more than 30 days prior to the January conference call, which was billed as being to vote on the changes. While I was willing to discuss the changes, I was concerned that voting on them was inappropriate, and represented an attempt to "bootstrap" around the existing by-laws: any new voting procedure should be voted on using the old procedure. Of greater concern was the content of the anonymously proposed changes.
Three of the proposed amendments (I, III, and V) dealt with the changes necessary to change the procedure for choosing standing committee chairs, as requested by a majority of the GC.
The proposed amendment to change voting procedures (II) was an extreme form of the possiblities discussed, as it contained no provision for any challenge to an electronic ballot, nor any requirement for a meeting (by conference call or otherwise). Language allowing for a challenge was deleted from the draft before it was circulated to committee members.
There were in addition a further four proposed amendments that had not been mentioned during the 11/14/01 conference call.
Two of these (*VII and *VIII) transferred responsibility for the Evaluation and Appointments committees from the RDO to the Chairman of USARRA.
The other two effectively empowered the Executive Committee (*IV) and the General Committee (*VI) to run (micro-manage) the various standing committees.
I quote "The General Committee may provide strategic direction and management for the Executive Committee and standing committees." Lest there be any doubt as to the intent here, the following text was removed from the proposal during editing: "The General Committee shall have the right, but not the obligation, to modify or change the direction of the Executive Committee or the officer charged with primary supervision of any standing committee."
This represents a dramatic shift in the checks and balances that were originally built into the By-laws of USARRA. Dick Podmore has since made the arguments in favor of keeping such checks and balances far more eloquently than I did during the Conference Call, or could ever.
Note that the territorial representatives who now wish to change the By-Laws were intimately involved in drafting and approving them in the first place. To claim that the failure to approve Jim Russell's nomination is an unforseen problem in need of a quick fix displays an alarming ignorance of Federal Government.
In fairness to the two Territorial Reps who were not a party to the original drafting of the By-Laws, Messrs Williamson and Cobb, I must note that they too were horrified that these additional proposals were put forward when they had not been part of the original discussion, and prevailed upon Steve Nally to remove them from consideration at the 1/14/02 conference call.
This conference call did not take place, because of the resignation avalanche precipitated by Don Morrison. I am deeply saddened at Don's resignation. As I count Don among my personal friends, I will leave it to others to explain to you the magnitude of his role in USA refereeing, and the impossibility of replacing him. I do understand the intense frustration that led him to take this drastic step.
The problem moving forward, as I see it, is that there is an incredibly high level of mistrust.
Who would wish to take on an administrative role in USARRA (the position of RDO, for instance) when there are on the table anonymously proposed By-laws amendments that would change the nature of this office beyond all recognition? Who would serve on the Evaluation committee under these circumstances?
The structural issues need to be resolved, and resolved in a manner that has some finality to it, before we can get back to the business of actually running this organization.
For the record, I believe that the By-laws should be amended to allow votes to be taken without a meeting, but that a challenge from any two members of the GC would then force a conference call or a face-to-face meeting, at the CHALLENGERS choice.
I have yet to hear any rational argument expounded for changing the by-laws in the manner proposed; the closest anyone has come is to state baldly that it would provide "more accountability". I take this to mean that the Voting Members of the Evaulation Committee would be accountable to the Territorial Representatives. As individuals, or the territories they "represent"? Either way, it's untenable.
Theories abound as to the real motivation behind all this. Everything from petty personal vendettas to a desire to have one A-panel from each territory, regardless of merit. (Yes, the NorthEast currently has zero A-panel refs, so the territory would gain under this arrangement. And no, it really is a bad idea.)
Dave Williamson has publicly stated that he has been persuaded by Dick Podmore's and Ed Todd's arguments that the current structure is the best for USARRA. He also offered to resign, but that would be a step in the wrong direction.
Until such time as the members of the General Committee publicly state their positions and justify those positions, the scurrilous stories will continue, and referees across the USA are getting short-changed by their administration.
| Allan Miller's at Home | NERRS Home Page |
| Drop me a line | Referees' Manual |