I agree with Director Tiemstra. I have also agreed to fly to Denver. My reason is that I believe that I believe that the process so far has excluded the input of the Board outside the hiring committee and I that the members of the Southeastern Division need to be represented as equitably in this process as possible. Director Carlson asked me if traveling was "against my better judgement." I replied that it is. I feel that, in order to fairly represent the Division, I must travel if any one of the rest of us travel. I appreciate the question. Were we all asked that? My opinion is that we can fairly pick a candidate remotely without risking anyone’s health. I also feel that the “option” to travel or not results in the unintentional consequence of dividing us into two “classes” of evaluators - those who attend and those who do not. I suspect our candidates feel the same way - certainly every serious candidate must attend. Now that the only Colorado candidate has apparently withdrawn, all of the candidates must make long trips, as does Mr. Shelley. If the Colorado statistics degrade just a bit, the Connecticut employees are subject to a 14 day quarantine, or testing, or paying a fine. Currently, the rate of infection in Colorado is 9.4/100000 people. Connecticut requires this quarantine For those returning from states that reach 10/100000, which Colorado will likely meet in the next two weeks.Most metro areas have already surpassed this number. We saw this week that a dedicated follower of President Trump, who traveled from Atlanta to Tulsa to attend a rally, contracted COVID and has passed away. It appears he travelled by private jet, not even by airline. I've heard lectures of Corporate Counsel, Rick Roderick and others about how we must protect the League with our speech and actions. If one of us were to be sick as a result of this trip, what is the potential liability to the League? It certainly doesn't seem prudent - the risk seems high. Given some of the paranoia I hear about what I perceive to be a general paranoia about litigation and liability, I’m surprised “Connecticut Counsel” has not weighed in. I'm booking flights today, so I will see many of you in Denver. May you all be safe and health. 73, Mickey N4MB On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:50 PM James Tiemstra <k6jat@comcast.net> wrote:
For the record, I can no longer refrain from making the following statement: I do not understand why the Board is insisting on conducting in-person interviews in Denver since the risks appear to far outweigh the unarticulated benefits.
First, ignoring the nationwide pandemic for the moment, separately scheduled interviews in a remote location would be a push from a cost-benefit standpoint, but to encourage our leadership (and the candidates) to unnecessarily expose themselves to a highly contagious and lethal virus for just the opportunity to possibly interview up to four masked candidates in-person, rather than by video conference, seems foolhardy at best.
Second, providing for two modes of interviewing introduces an inherent element of unfairness to both the candidates and the Board members, especially if you believe that there is some significant, intangible benefit to the in-person process.
Third, believing that we can effectively mitigate the risks is willful blindness. If we think that traveling first class rather than coach on a two to five hour plane flight with a hundred passengers and a Covid closet for a restroom marginalizes the risk, we have another thing coming. And, of course, flying requires passing through airports, and driving still requires the use of unknown public facilities; not to mention whatever conditions might exist at the airport Marriott which is in the business of hosting travelers from all over, and where all of our attendees will be exposing each other to their travels.
Finally, there are a host of state and local orders, protocols, requirements, guidance and conditions that make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for some to attend even if they wanted to. Anyone who's had a recent Doctor's appointment will know how difficult a time the medical profession is having, how serious they are about this virus and how hard it is to get medical attention.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a frequent flyer in several programs, and I love to travel as much as anyone. However, this is not the time to take needless risks or unwittingly cause ourselves harm. This is a time to err on the side of safety, especially where there can be little cost and no risk while still meeting our objectives.
Please be safe everyone es 73,
*Jim Tiemstra, K6JAT*
*Pacific Division Director*
_______________________________________________ arrl-odv mailing list arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org https://reflector.arrl.org/mailman/listinfo/arrl-odv
-- “Ends and beginnings—there are no such things. There are only middles.” Robert Frost
