Dear Officers, Directors, and Vice Directors, Here is the proposed message that will I plan to publish on Wednesday, after Congressional staffers have been informed of the Board's decision. It is imperative that we notify Congress on Tuesday because the APRA is expected to be "on the floor this week." Please send me any comments on the statement below ASAP. ARRL Board Statement on Amateur Radio Parity Act At its annual meeting, held Jan. 18-19 in Windsor, CT, the ARRL Board of Directors decided that the organization needs to “review, re-examine and reappraise the ARRL’s regulatory and legislative policy with regard to private land use restrictions.” In order to have time to effectively undertake such a review, the Board adopted a resolution to withdraw its Petition for Rule Making to the FCC (which would amend its Part 97 Amateur Service rules to incorporate the provisions of the Amateur Radio Parity Act), without prejudice to refiling. The resolution also asks the members of Congress who had refiled legislation to enact the Amateur Radio Parity Act (ARPA) to refrain from seeking to advance that legislation pending further input from the ARRL. Board members believe that taking this action represents a chance to take a step back and take the time to get this issue right. The ARRL has been pursuing adoption of the ARPA for the past several years and has been unable to achieve its objective. A majority of the board now believes that there is a need to reassess the organization’s approach to this issue. The Board noted that its “intent [is] to renew, continue and strengthen the ARRL’s effort to achieve relief from such restrictions.” This action represents a chance to get the best product possible for ARRL members and all amateur radio operators. A majority of Board members believe that the timing is appropriate in taking this step, particularly given that ARRL’s petition to the FCC was only filed about a month ago (December 17, 2018), and that the decision to file the petition was made without review by the Board of Directors. In addition, it has only been a couple of weeks since the ARPA legislation was filed by members of Congress and this refiling was done with no advance notification to the ARRL. I have informed both Atty Imlay and Mr McCarthy that the Board wishes to withdraw the Petition for Rule Making, without prejudice, and to request members of Congress seeking to advance the ARPA to refrain from seeking to advance that legislation. Atty Imlay will withdraw the petition as soon as the FCC opens. I have instructed Mr. McCarthy to convey our message to the appropriate congressional staffers on Tuesday. 73, Howard, WB2ITX. -- Howard E. Michel, WB2ITX Chief Executive Officer ARRL, The National Association for Amateur Radio® 225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111-1494 USA Telephone: +1 860-594-0404 email: hmichel@arrl.org<mailto:hmichel@arrl.org>