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✉ Letter: Setting Low Standards and Failing to Achieve Them

To Whom It May Concern (including PBFC members and former members):

I have never before sent a “letter to the editor” and I had no intention of ever writing anything for republication until I read the open letter you recently reprinted. Like that person said, I greatly admire your informative newsletters and the site. Those expressions prompted me to air my own views.

I didn’t personally know the club’s previous officers any more than I know the current officers. However, I don’t need to personally know someone to objectively assess their performance. I am floored by the extremely disingenuous behavior of the current officers and the lawyer they hired. I was generally aware of some issues, but have learned much more from you than anything I received from the club. Besides observing the ongoing destructive effects of the current officers’ clear obsession with the former treasurer of the club, I am stuck on what I think is a more important question:

Where do these guys get off? I mean, when has any organization or company ever had the legal or morale right to wake up one day and declare that the debts they owed yesterday are erased? I know they can try to do this kind of stuff in court with a judge overseeing the process, but that’s not what happened here. No wonder the club is being sued by former members, probably most of whom were owed their membership fee refunds before the current officers were even elected!

I have not seen any shred of evidence that would compel me to any conclusion other than the current officers’ conduct has been dishonest and unethical from the outset. I received emails in spring 2020 in which the new officers betrayed that their original plan was just to confiscate the member refundable deposits by strongarm tactics. That trial balloon must have generated some pushback, so then they concocted a ridiculous plan to put lipstick on a pig by weird and selective interpretation of the club bylaws: “The Bylaws made us do it! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

As upsetting as their conduct has been, I am increasingly alarmed that the membership has sanctioned it by doing nothing to stop it. These new incompetent nincompoops got elected and took their ridiculous courses of action knowing full well they were being dishonest on many levels. Their ineptitude will take the club down, and its membership too, into a cesspool of new debt to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Somehow it seems like that debt won’t go unpaid, right? More dues money, more debt. All just to prop up those engaged in what is clearly bad behavior.

Everybody makes bad decisions from time to time, and it hurts. But you pick up your sticks, make it right, and forge ahead. In this instance, these officers keep making decisions that they know are disingenuous. While they may have been trying to conceal their behavior and its related expenses, thanks to your site, the word is now out. Unfortunately, most of that word is in the public court system, and club members are footing all the bills. All that money to pay an attorney could have been used to refund membership fees and properly maintain the airplanes. I know business savvy when I see it and, guess what, that ain’t it.

The club’s officer elections will occur in a few weeks, so the membership can address and resolve what is quickly becoming an insurmountable problem for the club (endlessly increasing legal fees for no good reason and with no end in sight).

The previous writer noted that the club has been making money because they inherited an operation that was already on the mend due to actions of the previous officers. I think this is incredibly obvious despite the new officers’ campaign promises to solve problems that had already been solved. These current officers have only brought dishonor to the club. They have taken credit for the work of others, alienated those the club does business with, made campaign promises that they have not kept, and have repeatedly displayed open contempt for the previous members and officers who built the club into an organization these new officers are now abusing and soaking dry with incompetent, immoral, and unethical behavior. Other than that, they have dramatically increased maintenance costs and introduced very expensive new costs, most notably an attorney costing the club thousands of dollars each month to prop up the new officers and their bad decisions. I can’t think of one thing the new officers have done that is beneficial for the club.

I have an idea: How about we just dump these current officers and their dishonest ways, along with their sidekick attorney, and do the right thing? Rather than squander success, how about being responsible? Vote these idiots out of office. This club is making money due to the work of the previous officers. The club has shown it is doing just fine, paying its operational expenses and even paying enormous legal bills. It obviously has the ability to refund the membership fees that it properly and ethically owes rather than concoct schemes to steal the money owed former members. If these guys consistently make bad decisions and can’t lead by honest example, then it’s up to the membership take command.

Name withheld to avoid having to squabble directly with these new officers about their unparalleled ineptitude.

Editor’s Note: With permission from the author, we offer the following: This letter was originally submitted to us with some spelling and grammar errors, and even expletives, that we felt might hinder and detract from the sender’s message. We therefore offered to correct these issues, being careful to not change the core content of the original submission. We returned the corrected version to the original author for approval prior to reprint herein. As we said earlier, we are reluctant to establish a regular practice of passing along all such letters, but if you have something you’d like us to share with others, please feel free to write (preferably without expletives). In any case, we must reserve the right to decide if any letters will be reprinted, but we definitely want to keep hearing from you. Happy New Year!

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