From: Austin State Capitol
Breeze
TMRA II State Chair
This is in response to Sputnik’s, TMRA II Chairman Emeritus, post on 6/6/07 concerning the Austin Minutemen Chapter meeting at Cindy’s Gone Hog Wild stating that I plan to close down the Elgin office and replace Terri, the State Secretary, and Jan, the State Treasurer. For the record, I am stating my concerns and the rest of the facts. As the elected State Chair, I am responsible for the overall success or failure of the organization. There are many areas of the organization that I am concerned with, mainly the infrastructure and how we are doing business. I bring many qualities to the organization but principally the ability to plan, the ability to rally members behind the plan, and the courage to win and overcome all obstacles at all odds. I was elected to office 5/5/07, and one of the first areas I looked at was the finances of the organization. The finances, which are published in the Warrior for 2006, affirm that the TMRA II had an income of $72,550.05 from members and donations and expenses were $71,548.62. In 2006, office rent, which is a house trailer, not an office, and not a good location, totaled $7800.00. Utilities for the TMRA II were $2,352.51, phones $2,538.10, propane $605.00, and Internet service $718.70. I made a recommendation in order to curb spending and planned to meet with the District Advisors on June 26, 2007 at 8pm to relay these concerns.
In addition to the previous mentioned concerns, I am also requesting that the organization postpone the publishing of the Warrior until the funds to pay for this service are readily available. Last year, $9084.09 was spent on publishing the Warrior.
Sputnik proposes $12,000 to publish the Warrior in 2007. The warrior is posted on our website and the organization has the ability to email this publication to members as well. For those members without e-mail addresses, the public library is easily accessible if they feel the need to read the Warrior and pull it off of the website. The Warrior shares information with our community, however, I am confident that our members will understand the need to slow down on spending. I don’t mind sharing this with the members and community because it should be public information but we are thousands of dollars in the red. We owe the IRS taxes from 2003, 2005, and have taxes to be paid in August. Last year, the TMRA II paid our secretary a salary of $15,158.88 a new secretary would cost $1200 a month, which would give the organization an immediate savings of $3600 a year. The one aspect that really stuck out, after pulling all of this information together, was that during the year 2006 the TMRA II only spends
$408.69 on advertising. For the year 2007, Sputnik’s proposed budget is $83,600 but he states that we need to have $100,000 in income just over $9,000 a month to break even. Unfortunately, at this time we only have revenue at $72,000, which we are already over budget of $11,049. Sputnik stated that I made no mention of raising funds, although in the beginning of the meeting I stated the District 14 Advisor was not at the meeting because I had scheduled a meeting with the Hill Country BMW riders to present information about our organization and become members and club sponsors. In addition, it is difficult to have fundraisers with no funds to support them.
I have found an office in Austin, that is approximately 7 minutes from the Capitol, and I must state that it is an office not a house trailer; the cost is $650 a month. There is all modern equipment including computers, Internet, electricity, phone, Internet service, and the organization would not have to pay for propane.
The TMRA II would still have the expense of $7800 a year for an office but it would reflect the image of the TMRA II; however, not having to pay additionally for utilities, phone, propane, or Internet service will save our organization $6,200 a year. When I was discussing my concerns about relocating the office to Austin with Terri, she told me because she lives at the house trailer in Elgin with Sputnik she would quit and no longer be the secretary for the TMRA II. This discussion forced my hand to be prepared for this change and to start looking for a new secretary to replace her. Sputnik, unfairly says that I also wanted to get rid of Jan, our State Treasurer. Sputnik himself had informed me that Jan was no longer wanting to be the treasure because she is getting ready to retire and travel wit h her husband. I have talked to Jan and she expressed this sentiment to me as well. The issue at hand is that we are asking members to join our organization, and we are asking clubs to support us, I feel that as Chair of this organization if I am asking for money and support from members and clubs then the funds have to be managed and the organization accountable for spending. I cannot at this time ask another entity for funds because of the current mismanagement of funds within this organization. Since I have taken office, I have asked Terri on several occasions to provide me with information, and have requested the corporate charter, the non- profit paperwork, as well as the current membership database, to date I have not received anything from her. What I am attempting to do is to place structure in the TMRA II and make sure that all members are accounted for and their renewals for membership are completed in a timely fashion. I want to also provide a P & L report to anyone that would like to see it. I was upfront with Sputnik; sharing with him that these changes needed to occur and for some reason, certain individuals have chosen to wash our dirty laundry in public. I talked to the District Advisors per phone conversations and relayed to Sputnik that eight of the 15 TMRA II District Advisors agreed that change should happen within this organization. The only argument to keep the house trailer is that Sputnik needs a place to shower and a place to stay when he is in town. The TMRA II has 18 months to be ready for the next legislative session. There is a lot of work ahead of the TMRA II, it is essential that we refocus our organization and to select what battles we want to fight. We cannot fight them all. I am smart enough to know and so are our readers that there are two basic parts of being at the capitol. One, to get bills that we support into legislation and the other is to fight the bills that we don’t support. This year was not a loss, we successfully defeated Senator’s Corona’s helmet bill which would have required both a rider’s training course and $150,000 in medical insurance to ride without a helmet; also, this bill would change the penalties of not wearing a helmet from a $10 minimum to a $500 minimum and a maximum of $50 to $1500. This bill was defeated in committee because of the excellent work of our staff, the research that was compiled and presented to the committee, and the members and clubs of our organization that made many calls and visits to the capitol to voice their concerns, a job well done.
This alone was a big win for all. House bill 1279 was passed and relates to traffic control devices requiring them to detect the presence of a motorcycle. Currently, all detectors at traffic lights can be calibrated to recognize a motorcycle. However, often times they are not. As a result, motorcycles riders have to wait at a red light for an extended period, which can be a frustrating experience.
We teamed up with the Corridor Watch, which will be good for us in the future to develop allies for our cause and although they took out the 13th Amendment, which is a two-year moratorium, the bill that passed was still successful because there are many loopholes to slow down the selling of Texas to the big corporations. One representative that we can thank for this is Lois Kolkhorst. State laws written in 2003 gave private companies a key role in building and operating toll roads. We were able to reach a compromise that local toll road agencies, rather than being private operators, will get first shot at building and operating turnpikes. The bill also limits the signing of private toll road contracts over the next two years. This was a sensitive issue and our concerns were that Governor Perry’s highway plans would overtake the landowners, in addition, people do not like the idea of paying tolls especially motorcycle riders who have to stop, put down their kickstands, and dig into their pockets for change. Our organization is all about members weighing in and having some say in how to fix issues, and we value all our members concerns.
I would like to say that our organization is better off with the work that has been done and has been done against all odds. I understand that fourteen states have passed helmet laws. We have a lot of work ahead of us over the next two years, and we will be challenged. I will be focusing on the infrastructure of the organization and prioritizing what issues, we will fight and work towards financial stability. In fairness and good faith, and in the right to discussion, and the right to information, I have shared this information with all.
Dennis Childers, MBA
Breeze
TMRA II State Chair
"SEPIUS EXERTUS, SEMPER FIDELIS, FRATERS INFINITAS"
(Often Tested, Always Faithful, Brothers Forever)
"The more corrupt the State the more numerous the laws." Cornelius Tacitus, Roman historian & politician (55 AD - 117 AD)
