Yesterday, I talked about the recent USCF election. Today, some new information came out and it is what I had feared the most.
The USCF has been run by basically the same people for decades. Many of these people do care about chess but they have their own “slate” / “group” and they do not like each other at all. Sometimes people switch sides but the petty ugly politics remain. They would do anything and everything to destroy each other, regardless of the welfare of chess or the USCF.
A few years ago, one group got control of the USCF and the other group vowed to take control back. They campaigned hard and they succeeded. Then the group that was ousted wanted revenge. So they went out to endorse a candidate with a criminal record and many other problems. Why? If the battle cannot be won then let’s destroy everything so the opponents will be the rulers of a fallen empire.
What happen to the best interest of chess? What happen to the best interest of the USCF? What happen carrying out the mission of the USCF? Who cares! It is more important to seek revenge and destroy your opponents, even if that means to support and endorse a convicted criminal who has no business representing 50,000 young members of the USCF.
The level of hatred, vindictiveness and pettiness has reached an all-time low.
The constant bickering, fighting and backstabbing is destroying the USCF but these people just do not care.
I am more appalled than ever at this kind of behavior. Yes, I am probably one of the most hated people to these politicians because I fight for chess, I fight for my fellow chess players and I fight for what I believe in. I fought gender, age and religious discrimination through out my chess career and I will continue to fight for the well being of chess.
Then there is another group of people who do not trust either of the chess political group. So they voted for a convicted criminal to keep both sides honest. How ironic! This is how bad it has become.
I believe that we should do everything we can for the best interest of the game we love. Any corporation that wants to do business with the USCF would do background check on this organization. What does it say when a convicted felon is on the Executive Board? What does it say when a convicted criminal is proud to publicly brag about his criminal conquest?
These are the words of Mr. Sloan about some of the people who endorsed him:
“Leroy Dubeck (Past President of the USCF and the NJ State Chess Federation) called a Special Meeting of the New Jersey State Chess Association just to announce that he was supporting me for election to the Executive Board and to recommend that the association endorse me for election, which it did.”
I am just completely stunned by this! So we have a past President of the USCF endorsing a convicted criminal! This is the state of chess in America! When is it enough?
Susan,
Thank you for being so bold as to post these thoughts.
What is the best thing to do at this point to fight for USCF ethics and chess in the USA?
Is it possible for the leaders to be removed and replaced? If so how?
Suggestions? Thoughts?
First of all, no convicted criminal should be allowed to serve on the board.
Secondly, no one who proudly bragged about having sex with minors among other criminal activities should be allowed to represent an organization with 50,000 young players.
I hope the current board members are courageous enough to speak up about this issue. The USCF voting members DID NOT know the background of the candidates.
In addition, thousands of young chess players and their parents did not have a chance to make their voices heard. They are not allowed to vote.
There should be NO paper ballot next time. Many people did not even get their ballots on time to vote.
We are in the 21st century and there is no reason why we cannot vote electronically or via the Internet.
I hope that this is a loud and clear message to both parties. STOP the fighting, bickering and backstabbing. If you are not able to serve the members then resign. Their personal ego should not get in the way of the best interest of the USCF and chess.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.SusanPolgar.com
Are these allegations about the new USCF board member true? If so, I feel nauseated. Can we circulate a petition to all chess parents to get this guy off the board? Maybe call our movement “Chess for Children” or something like that?
Unfortunately, it is even worst than what Susan has stated.
I don’t think anyone hates you Susan… not even Sam Sloan
Hi Susan,
One thing that troubles me is that many people, including my brother, my father and I did not receive USCF ballots.
We are USCF members.
Did anyone else experience this problem?
By the way, I just posted a story on http://www.uschess.org about your World Cup victory:
http://beta.uschess.org/frontend/news_7_68.php
I would have posted it earlier, but there were tech problems with the server.
Best wishes,
Jennifer Shahade
the TRUTH shall set you free.
Susan keep telling the truth and eventually the truth will win out.
I am almost afraid to say how disgusted I am. but I too must face the truth and work to change things in the future.
I think a big problem in the past has been that we have not been told about the nature of the bickering and fighting and what has been going on.
We need to find a good slate of good people who will put chess as first priority. if all the people running for office are so bad. then we need to find some good people.
Susan you can count on my vote for anyone you say to vote for. I will try to get more votes for that person also. I dont know what is going on behind closed doors. I need information so I can do the right thing.
Please keep us informed.
all reform comes from the bottom up. it comes from the people. reform never comes down from the power at the top. the top stays corrupt.
jennifer that is incredible. they probably thought you would know too much about what is happening and therefore did not allow you to get a vote.
damn corruption for sure.
is Goichberg a part of this corruption. or is it happening without him knowing it.
Hi David,
Actually, I think it was just a random mistake.
There are many good people like Goichberg working at the USCF, both on staff and on the board.I’m sure there is no specific reason I didnt get a ballot.
My concern is that if there are a few people in my circle who didn’t get ballots, maybe there are hundreds overall who didnt get them. That’s why I’m posting here- to see if anyone else had this problem.
Thank you!
Best wishes,
Jennifer
Dear Jennifer,
I did not get the ballot either. Neither are many of the members of my club. This is a real mess.
The article is great! You are a wonderful writer!
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.SusanPolgar.com
Several people complained on the USCF forum about not receiving ballots either.
We didn’t get a ballot either for both of our membership.
Sloan’s criminal conviction stems from a custody battle over his daughter after one of his many divorces. Each side accused the other of kidnapping, but Sloan went to jail. It’s a complex story and it’s hard to paint Sloan as a 100% villain in that particular incident. I think he has all the court documents on his web site if anyone wants to study them.
Sloan’s term on the board will not start until the delegates certify the election in August, and his winning margin in the election (i.e. difference between his number of votes and that of the third place finisher) was very slim. If there are really as many problems with the ballots as posters here describe, challenging certification might be appropriate.
If Susan had run in this election she would have won a seat by an overwhelming margin, but I can understand why she chose to stay away.
Hi Jennifer,
My concern is that if there are a few people in my circle who didn’t get ballots, maybe there are hundreds overall who didnt get them.
I suspect the problem was widespread. There were several complaints on the USCF forums, too. Adding those to your complaint makes me think the USCF screwed up by mailing the ballots late, or the USPS messed up.
From what I read there, less than 10% of the membership voted. That’s terrible. There’s really no excuse no to have Internet voting, which would surely lead more people to vote.
That’s quite a big one to swallow, that the ousted group got Sam elected as revenge. Particularly when the leader of the ousted group is the one who wrote the paragraph you quoted yesterday.
Look at Sloan’s support across the regions. It was solid straight across. Is this group big enough and smart enough to create credibility for him in every region. You’d think the group would have a power base where the votes would spike. For instance check out Hough. Region XI was about 1/3 of his votes.
I think rather than just accept the fact that a protest vote elected someone who would be guaranteed to mouth off about anything he finds wrong, or imagines to be wrong, people are building elaborate conspiracy theories because they don’t want to believe he could be elected honestly.
Remember Jesse Ventura, Gov. Jesse Ventura?
Sometimes the electorate gets fed up and they know what they’re doing when they tell the parties in power they’ve had it and they send a message like this.
If people cared enough to vote, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened, but people didn’t vote. Look elsewhere than Sloan for these problems.
As for being a convicted criminal, I’m no Sloan fan and I don’t think he belongs on the board, but once you’ve served your time your punishment should be over. You might even invite a lawsuit with such a requirement.
“As for being a convicted criminal, I’m no Sloan fan and I don’t think he belongs on the board, but once you’ve served your time your punishment should be over. You might even invite a lawsuit with such a requirement.”
It’s not about punishment, it’s about whether or not you can trust the guy. And based on what I’ve read so far, I don’t think that this guy can and/or should be trusted.
I read something about only 450 (or some random number) members having a certain “voting right”… I’m really not sure what it was, but it had to do with the USCF election. Like some members had more voting power than others, or “average members'” voes didn’t really count. I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but does this sound familliar to anyone? And what is the “One-Member-One-Vote?”
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Most membes do not care about the politics. They just want to go to tournaments and play. Politics is just nasty how it got its name I’ll never know. Who knows Sloan may even do a good job. I wouldn’t have voted for him but what will his duties be. There are five other members on that board what and he is not the sole voice for the uscf. I suspect after his year is up he will not be reelected. Why don’t you run Susan? I know you are busy with all the other stuff in your life. Same as other members. I agree with you on the conduct of the elections in the future. The USCF has a nice site and could put the ballot in the members section. I don’t like Sloans election either but it seems we are stuck with it at least for a year then find another more credible candidate for the future. I think this organization should be allowed to let itself wither though. Tournaments could be organized without them it is after all a board game who needs all this nasty business to go along with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sloan#_note-5
After reading the info on this page and following some of the links to California and a “book” he authored it is clear he is NOT suited to be anywhere’s near an organization that has many children as members.
I always thought he was a strange dude just from his rants online but that was only scratching the surface.
I wish Susan wasn’t one of the few people willing to take the heat so the truth could be known by all.
there are 2 different david’s posting. my david is in blue and underlined. the other one is black and not underlined.
I can not have someone else posting as david and have it confused as being me.
so I have changed my displayed name to Sunshine. that should not get confused.
David
I received no ballot, but I don’t think I’m in any circles or blacklists. It was probably an accident.
In any case, the nature of some of his crimes plus that he openly boasts about having sex with children kind of obliterates the point that he has served his time and now gets a clean slate. This guy is sick, dangerous, and twisted in a way that goes far beyond “do the crime, do the time”. I think he’s also literally insane, in a medical sense not an insult sense, and he should be put away. Even not involving dangerous or criminal acts, sometimes his behavior is just absolutely detached from reality, and you can tell when you see him sometimes that he’s just plain nuts. I cannot stress enough, that I mean this in the most literal way, unfortunately I understand people who haven’t seen him can’t understand just how true this is. He’s crazy, plain and simple, even if you put aside the legal and pedophilia issues, he’s still just crazy. He will be talking and suddenly go off in the bizarre nonsequitur tangents that leave those around him nervous and lost, it makes just no sense and he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. What’s worse, often this tangents involve sexual fantasies or analogies that are very inappropriate for public conversation.
One example, he publicly argued repeatedly that the US invaded Afghanistan based off of his personal website, and that further their specific invasion routes and plans were taken from some article he had written. Then he started talking about a specific region in Afghanistan and went into this long description, trying to convince people how this area looked like genitalia. This usenet post still exists on deja.com but I will not post to such inappropriate content here.
Insert Garry’s new occupation joke here. From chess to poltics, I’d have to give that move two question marks.
I have personally read just a little of what sam sloan was posting over at uscf web site. I would never vote for someone who posted like that.
by the way I got my ballot. I voted the same day and mailed it immediately. hope it got counted.
Many replies here are expressing outrage and implying blame. They say they did not know about all these concerns before the election.
The recent Chess Life issues have encouraged people to visit the UsChess.org/forums/.
Any who had bothered to visit even once would have been well enuf informed. The info would likely have motivated more people to paste a $.39 stamp and vote.
SUSAN is absolutely correct in her call to eliminate these stupid paper ballots. Guess how much these ballots cost to print and mail, then revise your guess upward to get closer to the painful truth.
The USCF spends this amount every year, year after year. A single year’s cost could pay to develop online voting (we all already have IDs and PINs).
Gene Milener
http://CastleLong.com/
We just elected someone who may be a child molester (according to many sources on the web)to the USCF executive board. This was a democratic vote, so it is not the fault of the USCF; but it will definitely hurt our cause to promote chess. This will hurt our image in the long run- and would like to know; how did this happen!?
I can understand that many uneducated folks in the USCF would have voted for him by his name alone. I can see many casual members thinking ‘hmm… that name has a nice ring to it, and I think that I have heard the name before; I will vote for him’. I can also understand that there are other members who voted for him to make a statement against the politics of the USCF to shake things up a bit; but I would like to believe that they never thought that he might actually win. However, I can’t understand how he was the 2nd most popular vote getter against some really good candidates. Can you?
When I told my wife that about this, she was shocked. I teach chess to children in primary education, and work for the students in the college chess world, and I am utterly disappointed to find out that a certain candidate won. If our wives, and the mothers of our children take the time to read some of his crap on the web like I did; I bet that they would have liked to decapitate their husbands for even thinking about voting for this candidate. How do you think that the rest of America will think about this vote once Sam’s character is inevitably revealed? Do you really think that they will have a positive view of the USCF? Do you think that is bodes well that we have an admitted person who brags about sexually raping teen age girls on the USCF governing board? Does this really help promote the game of chess!?
If you are an educated voter– can you please explain; why did you vote for such a candidate!? I would love to hear the folks that voted for him, and if so; I would like to ask; tell us, do you have kids!? If you voted for Sam just to spite the USCF, I would like to ask you– is your own selfish need to hurt the USCF above your own ethics to vote for a this guy!? If so, you have won– how very sad… congratulations– you have just given a very bad name to the folks that love to play and promote the game of chess.
I can’t, and won’t, believe that the average USCF members would have voted for such a character if they knew of the candidates public postings. Why would someone vote for someone who publicly brags about raping our young women!? If someone voted for him without knowing his quite public penchant for preying on women; what did we do wrong? Is there anything your fellow members of the USCF could have done different to educate you? How did we fail?
Signing off, completely flustered and discouraged,
Gregory Alexander
A USCF member
PS Congrats Sam– you won. If you really care about chess, you should resign at once, or do you really think that your stated providence regarding preying upon young women is not good for chess? Last time I checked, the USCF’s mission to promote chess, but your presence does nothing but to hurt the game.
Well, I received my ballot; I didn’t vote for Sam. However, I think the biggest mistake made by the USCF was having Sam’s name first on the ballot. It’s been proven statistically that people, who are not familiar with the candidate, will choose the first name on the list.
“I don’t think anyone hates you Susan… not even Sam Sloan”
Frankly, looking through the website, he seems to LOVE the Polgar family in general.
After seeing his website and the many unusual things there, I have to say that anybody who thinks Bobby is out of his mind should see this guys webpage. He makes Bobby look quite normal by comparison. One from the site:
“With these test results (in PDF Format), anyone who believes that I might be their father can have their own DNA test done and compare the results with the data I have posted and determine with a fair degree of certainty the likelihood that I am their father.”
Subj: Improving Organizational Behavior
Date: 8/27/2005 5:31:20 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: WPraeder
To: Chessoffice
CC: Beatchess, Chessdon, joel@channingcorporation.com, Rtannerae, gregshahade@yahoo.com
Dear President Goichberg,
It would appear from your campaign postings that you expressed concerns about potential conflicts of interest on the part of the Executive Board particularly regarding the office of the USCF President. It also appears you have been concerned in the past about USCF officials attacking others publicly — be these officials acting as USCF Executive Board Members or even USCF Committee Chairs. Certainly unresolved questions of conflict of interest or public smears of others by those who represent the USCF do not help the business or reputation of the Federation. Much of the energy of the previous Executive Board over the last two years seemed to have been diverted by such divisive activities. It is particularly unbecoming when USCF officials publicly attack each other and even more egregious when they attack ordinary USCF members. The previous Executive Board was unable to organizationally address the perceptions of potential conflicts or public name calling by such officials.
It always takes courage to bring up issues that may affect personal relationships in an organization but the situation already has been a serious hindrance to effectiveness, ethical behavior and transparency. As USCF President you have the opportunity to address these issues thus helping to mitigate the potential obstacles and dangers to organizational reputation by the lack of clear guidelines for dealing with conflicts of interest as well as poor public behavior by those who are in a position of leadership. As you have aptly pointed out, silence by those who have held leadership positions implies consent.
You may recall on July 30, 2005 I sent you a thought piece entitled Serving with Integrity. The online version of this piece can be found at http://members.aol.com/wpraeder/integrity.htm . In this piece I included several sample documents which may serve as a starting point to aid the USCF in navigating the choppy waters regarding competing interest related issues. I would ask that the Executive Board consider the adoption of such policies or rules to enhance its effectiveness and the organizations reputation.
To improve there must be a commitment to change. I would strongly suggest the organization seek professional guidance from someone who specializes in nonprofit leadership and ethics. Current officers should at minimum sign a document confirming that they would live up their fiduciary obligations and to the organization’s Standards of Conduct for the Executive Board. While the Standards of Conduct is contradictory in part and poorly worded in other parts, attempting in good faith to follow it would resolve many concerns. The remaining concerns can be remediated by holding other USCF officials to similar standards of conduct. Further, the Standards of Conduct for the Executive Board have no standing in the bylaws, and also the bylaws contain no independent references to conflict of interest. There is an opportunity to improve this at the next annual meeting.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter. I would like to request this note to you be BINFOed and also ask for a response. I wish the Executive Board all the best at their efforts to further the purpose of the USCF on behalf of the membership.
Yours for Chess,
Wayne Praeder
USCF Member ID 12887461
At the USCF issues forum, Nolan recently (Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:33 pm) made some comments related to the idea of Internet voting:
“electronic voting turns out to have significant costs involved. The software packages I checked out rent for about $15,000 a year, and they all assume that we will send voters a unique ID to authenticate their ballots, so it really doesn’t get us out of mailing out SOMETHING to all voters.
I suppose we could try to write our own election software, though some might object to that if it turns out that someone (like me) has the ability to see exactly who voted for whom.
I don’t think the USCF ID and PIN are secure enough to be trusted for running an election, and neither do the developers of our new website, which is why they are trying to implement a system whereby members will be able to choose their own password. Maybe if that works we can use that to authenticate voters in a future election held online.”
I voted for Sam Sloan.
I am relatively new member for USCF.
Let me tell you about my position about Sam Sloan and why he was elected.
First of all, his profile was published in US Chess Life magazine (and there was nothing like this there)
Second of all, he actually advertized himself live to many people in World Open in Sheraton. He, for example, explained me what “Executive Member” mean-plain and clear.
He appealled taste of any
rebels (I am talking about mind, not about Union-Confederate war),
and many chessplayers are mind-rebels. It seems he could create alternatives at this situation in USCF and he seems does not belong to any fighting klans.
These were my thoughts when I voted for Sam Sloan
There ws no campaign at this point
against him saying that he is “child-molester”,
“convicted criminal”.
What did he do ?
As someone who thinks chess is great and applauds Susan for her constant efforts to raise its popularity here in the U.S., I have to think that Sloan’s election may set these efforts back. Think about it: Do you really want this guy to be one of the faces of U.S. chess, interacting with the media and officials? Do you think he is will appeal to the soccer moms/potential chess moms? I don’t think so. Even more problematic, as the mother of a young female player, the thought of this guy roaming the halls at scholastic chess tournaments gives me the creeps. Putting aside the question of his past legal entanglements, bizarre paternity history, custody fights, at the very least, some of the content on his website reflects a prurient interest in sex, young female chess players, etc. Seriously icky. The question I have is what, if anything, can we do about this?
Hi New to USCF,
I suggest reading the USCF forums to answer your question on what Sam did. You can also do a search on google, Sam likes to brag about sex with minors (see http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Q8eVJuFTzGgJ:www.samsloan.com/girlsgot.htm+girlsgot&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1) and has many extremely racist postings.
I won’t write more as I don’t want to fill Susan’s forum up with his garbage. However, saying this as nice as I can; Sam is an incredibly odd individual and he has no right to work with my kids.
Take care,
Gregory
Gregory is correct. I would never trust my kids with Sam. I would not trust any kid with Sam. He does not belong on the USCF Executive Board.
This is one of the darkest moments in US Chess History, all because of dirty politics.
JM
I’m posting as Anonymous because I can’t negotiate the hassles of registering online, but I would like to identify myself. I am Peter Harris of Lubbock, Texas, rating 1419 (it may have slipped a little after a bad tournament in May). I am well-acquainted with Dr. Haraldur Karlsson of Texas Tech University, and worked with him in a scholastic chess program at a local elementary school for a year and a half until taking my current job. I met GM Polgar and FM Truong briefly at a tournament at Texas Tech in November 2005.
I rejoined USCF in late 2004 after an 11-and-a-half-year absence (to enter a tournament). I have walked away from the Federation several times in 33 years as an active player, upset with the actions people took.
I did receive both ballots (2005 and this year). The second ballot wasn’t part of the magazine as the first one was, and there is a very good chance it was lost in the mailings to members (I only found mine by accident).
I did vote for Sam Sloan the first time, when he finished next-to-last. (My other three votes went to the Bill Goichberg “slate.” I didn’t vote for him this time around. I could tell that he was very belligerent in tone.
I have dealt, sort of, with problems with the USCF for a long time. I had serious issues with Gary Sperling, President of USCF from 1978-81, for firing or casuing the resignations of some highly talented USCF staff members — especially the late Burt Hochberg. I had no real quarrel with Dr. Tim Redman — but he was Sperling’s vice president and successor. I saw a long series of fair-to-terrible editors at Chess Life, greatly diminishing my pleasure in reading about the game. I saw a very serious anybody-but-Karpov bias in the magazine, blatantly endorsing Kasparov or anyone else. Then I saw an even more blatant anti-Fischer bias during the 1992 match with Spassky. Though his behavior was beyond incredible, the USCF wrote off the one and only person who put chess on the global map. Repudiated him and anything he wanted to do to advance the game of chess. Certainly you can call Fischer anything you like, including traitor, neo-Nazi and psychopath. But USCF must also share responsibility for hopelessly dropping the ball on keeping all the people who were attracted to chess. Sperling wasn’t responsible for all of it — no one person could be — but i’s clear that sponosrs are alienating one another all over the place, ratings are greatly devalued, titles are greatly devalued, and chess seems destined to sink back to parlor-game status.
I have not said anything about Sam Sloan except to say he is belligerent (which certainly seems accurate). At the time I voted for him, he seemed to be a good independent candidate — although, as a swing vote, he would wield far too much power. I have decided he is too belligerent to help anyone.
The solution may be, repugnant as it may seem to people (even me), to have private corporations take over sponsorship of major tournaments and ram conditions — reasonable ones, that is — down the throats of USCF, FIDE and major corporations. If I sponsored a tournament (sometime after I win the lottery), I would give mammoth prizes to shoot for and appearance money that would satisfy any GM or title aspirant — but I would demand a lot of work in return. I dislike the “Maurice Ashley” draw-offers rule and would not endorse it, but I would have longer time controls, longer accumulators, contracts which created heavy penalties for withdrawals or pre-arranged games, strict rules of player conduct, and detailed rules for reporting.
Peter Harris
USCF Member Starting 1973
Lubbock, Texas
Can anyone find the 1980’s NY Post issue where Sam Sloan infamously made the front page with a purchased wife and revolting details of conduct that made her run screaming to the authorities? That was a bad day for chess.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Q8eVJuFTzGgJ:www.samsloan.com/girlsgot.htm+girlsgot&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1)
Oh my God. Please tell me there are two Sam Sloans, and that the one responsible for the above website has not been elected to the USCF board.
I’m in shock. I remember years ago reading his rants in different chess newsgroups. He seemed absolutely insane, but I had no idea how deep his problems were.
I recall him using the term “kiddies” in an almost-derogatory manner when refering to young chess players. It upset me that he implied children’s chess was beginning to overshadow adult chess… something he vowed to correct.
I personally feel it’s the opposite… children are the future of chess. As a father of two children (16- and 10-years old) who are very active in the USCF, this news makes me sick. No parent who has an idea who Mr. Sloan is would let him near their children.
Maybe if enough members complained to the USCF (perhaps a petition, with detailed reasons for disapproval), he would be dismissed from his position immediately.
Mike Carter
Mike,
I am furious about it. The worst part is he was endorsed by a former USCF President. They wanted him elected as a payback to their opponents.
Some people would go out of their ways for personal vendettas instead of doing positive things for chess.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
http://www.SusanPolgar.com
Mark,
Good to hear from you. Sam used to brag about this to me. It was on many newspaper. They problem is it was before the Internet age so I can’t find it online. I hope someone else can find it.
How could a criminal like this be elected?
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.SusanPolgar.com
Yes, I’m not sure how to find the article. The front page had lurid details of a typical page one sensationalist story and then I realized I knew this person. This may have been the only time since Fischer that chess made page 1 of the NY Post!
:O
-Mark
I have elsewhere expressed some mild concern re Sloan’s election.
🙂
There seems to be little recourse under Illinois law, and the democratic process requires that we tolerate the occasional stupid decision.
Good news: it’s only a one-year term.
We need to plan for the next election: not necessarily picking a slate, but creating an independent group that would vet the qualifications of candidatae (much as bar associations do for judges in many locales). Maybe recruiting good people who are reluctant to run now.
Chess politics is stupid: we should be thinking in terms of advancing the mission of USCF. Other nonprofits have been thru similar fights before.
There are some good people on the board now–let’s cross our fingers.
Contact me if you’re interested: billbrock AT billbrock DOT net