Video/audio of the meeting is here
Prior to the meeting President Kassis and other board members had a discussion with my group. The president wanted to know why we were demanding his removal, and I explained his failure to follow the law and the bylaws made him unfit for office. The same held true for directors Fletcher, Rodkis and Lavender. The president failed to comprehend how not responding to my inquiry and my attorneys inquiry was actionable and exposed us to liability.
Secretary Fletcher would not even make eye contact with me when asked about the phone call he placed to me regarding this inquiry. He denied even placing it.
This was not a good start, but we did make some progress. What we did agree on was to start a process development committee (PDC) where any member can propose changes to process and the bylaws and the rest of the members will vote on it. This will check the authority of the board and allow any members to improve FRC process/policies. My friend Dave, NX4Y agreed to be the PDC chair with me being a member of this committee.
This was our agreement going into the meeting. I thought we had some good progress, and was I positive going into the formal FRC meeting.
At the meeting we did get some of what we wanted, director Lavender was absent and had tendered his resignation. The director Butler resigned as well.
Secretary Fletcher, President Kassis, and Dana Rodakis (not present) refused to resign, but President Kassis had given me his word we would work together.
All was fine till we got to the board meeting, and it was quite obvious
Secretary Fletcher runs things as if he’s the president. One of his first
orders of business was to remove Director Gonzalez from the board for missing two meetings.
While this is permitted under the bylaws, the FRC has never done it before.
The Director was an acquaintance of mine and director Fetcher made a motion to remove him due in no small part to this.
President Kassis reappointed the removed Director and they voted to accept it, with the notable exception of Secretary Fletcher.
After this they created the Process development committee as we’d agreed to with Dave, NX4Y as the chair. However they appointed a number of people to the PDC and refused to appoint me as agreed prior.
Adding further insult to this, Secretary Fletcher invented a new point of
business that I was a member of the FRC, as the board never voted to approve my membership. I have been paid for 3 year, have PayPal receipts to Dana Rodakis proving this, and in the history of the FRC, no members have ever been approved by the board. Further he stated, they can’t process any memberships as the treasurer was not in attendance!
Moving past this as they knew they were on shaky legal ground, Secretary
Fletcher with President Kassis now invented the requirement that I stop all
legal action and consulting with my attorney regarding the FRC. This is quite illegal. I had to get up and raise my voice for the President to live up to his end of our agreement.
Eventually a compromise was reached with me agreeing to halt any legal matters and I’ll be part of the committee. Regardless I said I would consider the matter closed and we moved forward. This is highly illegal to require me to forgo legal counsel as condition to work with the board.
As of now we have a PDC forum website and we’re working on the process of the PDC. Once this is done, any member will be able to write up a proposal and have it voted on by the membership. I believe this will allow us to change the FRC for the better in the long term. Our goal is to be up and running with this in a couple months from Melbourne.
Once this is in place we’ll be able to attack the ongoing issues such as:
- New coordination taking months or years Renewals not being processed in a timely manner
- The ongoing issue of paper repeaters
- Unprotected or test pairs
- Single points of failure
- Legal compliance (FL, IRS, etc.)
- Etc.
We’re going to work hard with the board over the next few months and I hope we’ll have some forward progress soon. This is most significant development to come from the FRC in the past 20 years.
Let’s look to the future and how we can improve coordination in Florida.