USCF - Is This Resolving the Mess?

[Bob Armstrong]

Good New York Times article on USCF problems:

2 Are Voted Off Board That Governs Chess Group
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
August 10,2009


A feud among members of the board of the United States Chess Federation that has spawned several lawsuits took another turn over the weekend when four members of its six-member board voted to kick the other two members out of the federation.

The votes effectively removed Susan Polgar and Paul Truong from the board, said Bill Hall, the federation’s executive director. He said the bylaws of the federation, the governing body of chess, require board members to be federation members.

After the vote, Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong, who are married, appealed the decision to the federation’s delegates, who had convened in Indianapolis for their annual convention. The decision was upheld.

Phone calls to Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were not returned.

Whitney Leigh, Ms. Polgar’s lawyer in a lawsuit the federation brought against her in California, said at the Indianapolis meeting: “We are disappointed but by no means surprised in the outcome because it was run by a majority of the executive board who were determined to disregard the U.S.C.F.’s bylaws and to do everything they could to prevent the delegates from hearing the facts.”

He said he thought that Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were still board members and that they would seek to block the decision through an appeal to the judge hearing the California case.

In that case, brought last year, the federation claims that Ms. Polgar and Gregory Alexander, a federation member who ran a chess discussion Web site for Ms. Polgar, stole e-mail messages between members of the board and a lawyer hired by the federation.

The lawyer, Karl S. Kronenberger, had been hired to look into accusations that Mr. Truong posted obscene messages online in the names of other federation members. Mr. Alexander has been indicted for stealing the e-mail messages. Phone calls to Mr. Alexander have not been returned.

Ms. Polgar has sued the federation, its board and members of the federation in Lubbock, Tex., where she lives, claiming libel, slander and business disparagement. She is asking for $25 million.

A third suit, filed by the federation, is pending in Illinois, where the federation is incorporated. It seeks the removal of Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong from the federation’s board, but it may be moot now, Mr. Hall said.

The federation, which has about 85,000 members, had about $3.3 million in revenues in the fiscal year that ended in June, Mr. Hall said. He said the lawsuits cost about $400,000 last year.

The disputes began in October 2007, when Samuel H. Sloan, a former board member, filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Manhattan accusing Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong of writing the obscene Internet messages, many under Mr. Sloan’s name.

Mr. Sloan, who said the postings were meant to ensure his defeat when he ran for re-election to the board in 2007, also named the federation as a defendant. His lawsuit was dismissed last year. Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong were elected; Mr. Sloan was defeated.

Before the suit’s dismissal, the federation hired Mr. Kronenberger to look into whether Mr. Truong had made the postings. Mr. Kronenberger concluded that he had and presented his findings at last year’s delegates meeting, where some members tried to initiate a recall of Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong but failed.

Randy Bauer, a board member, said the removal of the two members succeeded because “the issue was ripe for consideration. We heard from many of the delegates last year that we need time to see this play out, and now they have had that time.”

[Christopher Mallon]

Umm... wow. You wouldn't think that that would even be a legal motion.

[Christopher Mallon]

But Yay for OMOV! lol.