Here is the email I sent to all of the Association Presidents tonight, please let me know if you want a copy to forward to others.
Association Presidents,
Temporary Amendment Vote Tomorrow
At the past two Annual Meetings, I addressed the delegation at closing session and urged you to vote no on the temporary amendments to our bylaws. I felt that the amendments proposed at the time would destroy the system of checks and balances that our NGB had been using successfully for decades.
Over the past year, dozens of zoom meetings have been held by various groups and negotiations were held. Associations were well represented in the process and updates were given regularly to the AEC.
Compromises were made by both sides to address the concerns of the board that the membership has too much power over the business areas of USATF and the concerns that concentrating all of the power at the board level would strip the membership of their voice and eliminate checks and balances.
I was not directly involved with the negotiations, but I attended many meetings giving updates on the process and I am pleased with the outcome of the the compromise legislation. The board unanimously voted to pass this compromise legislation as temporary amendments to the bylaws, now the time has come for the delegates to ratify them.
I urge you to read the letter that L&L Chair Mitch Garner wrote explaining them: https://www.flipsnack.com/USATF/reporttomembership-annualmeeting-11-1-22/full-view.html
More information can also be found in the Annual Meeting document library under Law and Legislation: https://www.usatf.org/events/2022/2022-usatf-annual-meeting/document-library
It is imperative that we pass this compromise legislation. The USOPC did make reference to this matter in our governance audit this year and we need to show them that we are an NGB capable of governing ourselves.
I am not in Orlando, my son was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last spring and I cannot risk bringing illness back to him, but if I were there, I would be voting yes on these amendments.
Weighted Voting
This is an incredibly complicated issue, and the parties involved disagree passionately about the facts of the issue, I recognize that no matter what I write here, I will upset people.
At last year’s Annual Meeting, AAC proposed that their vote for the World Athletics Council nominee increase to 40% with a weighted vote. What actually passed is on page 50 of last year’s final L&L package, it did not specifically indicate weighted voting: https://www.flipsnack.com/USATF/2021-final-package/full-view.html
Unbeknownst to apparently everyone within USATF (myself included), for years, the USOPC has been interpreting the term “voting power” in the Sports Act to mean that in situations involving very large votes, if the athletes of an NGB are unable to achieve their voting power through raw numbers, they have to achieve that voting power through other means such as weighted voting.
When the requirement for AAC representation was 20%, we were apparently close enough that the USOPC did not have a problem with this aspect of our governance, but now that the requirement has increased to 33.3%, there are no NGBs able to meet their AAC voting power through raw numbers in these large vote situations.
The issue is addressed (albeit somewhat obliquely) on page 43 of the USOPC bylaws and we can look at other NGBs for examples of this being applied in the real world.
Weighted voting was not addressed in our USOPC Governance Audit, for reasons that are still unclear, but there have been other conversations happening between AAC leadership and the USOPC and our staff and the USOPC.
How much the board of directors was aware of this issue is a contentious issue. You can see from the posted board minutes that there was never a clear discussion and vote on weighted voting.
The Governance Manual was not posted until September and in October, concerns were raised that there were changes to the bylaws that had not been approved by the Board or the delegates. I do not think anyone fully connected the dots that there was a disagreement about weighted voting at this Annual Meeting until late November.
USATF’s Board of Directors met this morning to try and rectify the situation. They voted to pass a temporary amendment allowing weighted voting so that the athletes can achieve their voting power as mandated by the Sport Act and USOPC.
It was critical that this pass for us to be compliant with our requirements as an NGB.
Because this is a completely new amendment that has not gone through the Law and Legislation process, this will temporarily be in effect until next year’s Annual Meeting when we will need to vote for it to be permanent. Next year is an L&L year, we all now have time to sort out the nuts and bolts of this change to how we govern ourselves.
Weighted voting was applied to the vote for World Athletics Council nominee today and the results were the same using either method, Willie Banks won the election.
Weighted voting will also be in effect at closing session tomorrow to ensure the athletes have the voting power they are entitled to under the Sports Act.
I am not happy that it was necessary to hold an emergency board meeting this morning, but I applaud our board chair Mike Conley for stepping up and making the meeting happen.
I am sorry for the lengthy email, but I hope this sheds light on the process that happened to get to this point.
Please reach out if you have questions, I may not have all of the answers but I am happy to point people in the right direction as best I can.
Thanks,
Becca Peter