club war in nj.....so sad ,and stupid!

[stuart]

this is the news letter sent to the club members of hackensack valley flyers regarding another club[lakeland flyers] that lost their flying site recently.they knew we were negotiating with the property owners on details for the lic agreement dating back to 2009 and took advantage to jump thee Field and kick us out out . hvf has occuppied this flying site since it opened decades ago and just spent money galor to install sprinklers,new sign ,host events throughout the years open to all.....now its war and all stand to loose the arrangement to fly .stupid is as stupid does!!!!!!!!!when this happens a lot of disgruntled flyers will flock to the new club i joined thats north in nystate about 20mins from my home....my fear is we'll open the door for war to come to the peaceful hills of Rockland county.the members i used to fly with are good guys with lots of attitude...the guys i fly with now are mostly retired and laid back.I'll post updates in an attempt to show other clubs how to resolve or ruin this wonderful hobby we all love to do .


This is the situation.

As you know Lakeland entered into a license agreement with the owner
of the Flying Field property. Lakeland did this without the knowledge
of our organization. When HVF became aware of this unfortunate
situation, we attempted to negotiate a license to operate on the
Flying Field property as a co-licensee with Lakeland. The owner had no
objection to this request, but Lakeland objected to this arrangement.
As such, this arrangement was not permitted.

In an attempt to work around Lakeland’s objections, the membership
of HVF agreed to join Lakeland and fly at the field as Lakeland
members. Rich M drafted a proposed resolution for the Lakeland
organization which provided for all members of HVF to become Lakeland
members. Again, the owner had no issue with this solution but Lakeland
objected. Lakeland objected even though (i) Lakeland is required to
offer membership to all HVF members in its license agreement with the
owner and (ii) Lakeland objected to HVF being a co-licensee as
initially suggested by HVF.

The owner’s attorney has indicated that since HVF and Lakeland
cannot come to terms, the owner has no choice but to file an ejectment
action against HVF in the Superior Court of New Jersey. At great cost
to the members, HVF will have no choice but to defend this action,
assert our property rights to the Flying Field and sue the Lakeland
organization for interfering with our property rights and to invoke
our status as a third party beneficiary of the license agreement
between the owner and Lakeland.

We can only hope that the situation Lakeland is creating will not
result in the loss of the Flying Field to all concerned.

-HVFRC Executive Board

[firemanbill]

Wow... What a mess. I feel for ya Stu, that is no fun to be involved in I am sure.

[stuart]

thanks bill, and happy thanksgiving to all here at wattflyer,don't eat to much gang. i gotta say I'm not going to be involved as i fly all the time at the club i recently joined and haven't lost[i do mean lost,not crashed...lol]a plane to the evil marshlands know as the meadowland of new jersey. no medows....just good old marsh lands...lol. i can't justify joining 2 clubs if i don't use the one. and now the war is going to get ugly between the members of rival clubs.

for the members of those 2 clubs i hope the resolve comes quickly and peacefully so not to loose the site all together.

time will tell.

[TDisaster]

Originally Posted by stuart

thanks bill, and happy thanksgiving to all here at wattflyer,don't eat to much gang. i gotta say I'm not going to be involved as i fly all the time at the club i recently joined and haven't lost[i do mean lost,not crashed...lol]a plane to the evil marshlands know as the meadowland of new jersey. no medows....just good old marsh lands...lol. i can't justify joining 2 clubs if i don't use the one. and now the war is going to get ugly between the members of rival clubs.

for the members of those 2 clubs i hope the resolve comes quickly and peacefully so not to loose the site all together.

time will tell.

You can always come across the river and fly here!

Just give me a call, I should be down there all this weekend (regardless of weather), so if you're available you're more than welcome to fly. This time I'll actually be there to open the gate.

[aviatordave]

Part of the reason I got out of my club. Internal and external politics were enough to make me feel like it was too much. Thankfully I live in such a rural area that me and my friends fly wherever we want.

I hope it works out for ya.

[stevecooper]

We lost our club to a tree farmer 9-10 years back, He's now in the Fed pen for grow'in pot there,bubsteve

[rcers]

Yea club politics can get terrible. I was treasurer years ago in a club in another state. Got cussed out for 30 minutes by another officer of the club, because I would not drop what I was doing, drive to his house and write a check.

I am like you are welcome to come to my house and I will be happy to write you a check. "That is not my job". It turns out he bought the last fuel order with personal funds, and it drained his account. I am like why would you do that, come get a check for stuff like that.

I told him I was busy, and he could come get the check, but I was not doing personal delivery service. He stewed for a while longer called me again and scolded me some more.

I then called the president, told him I was done, he could come get the stuff, change all the account signatures and find a new "volunteer".

That is the sad thing, the club was excellent, with great members, but we all know those 5-6 guys in a club, that just make it miserable for the rest.

My club now rock, no egos, we ignore those 5-6 guys that make it miserable and life is good.



Mike

[Lieutenant Loughead]

Time heals all wounds.

I don't really believe that 100%, but time does help...

[SHADY]

wow... that sucks. hopefully you can all come to an agreement...
that's one small reason i do not desire to belong to a club.
costs me nothing to go to our local park and tear up some sky...

[stuart]

td,i did some work in philly just over the ben franklyn bridge for a couple of weeks and may take ya up on the offer in the spring to visit,i also plan on flying the long island sound ny by hanks area[his back yard....lol]that is if he would welcome an old forum friend.....just kidding hank,i know we will have a blast flying and if i drop in the water we'll buzz out in the boat to get it.....

the rcrcc club i fly at now just elected new officers and a president....but i'm thrilled with the way they think and really want to get the towns folks involved with the club..the town asks the club to fly models at different events and i want very much to support the effort to keep relations good as we are using an old close garbage dump that resembles rolling grass hills maintained by the town ,not counting our areas we call the runways.those are maintain by the club members who are retired and love the field and flying.

another site i want to vist is in long island where theres a soaring club.it is what got me interested in thermaling and why i built the skimmer600. just need to give aeajr a pm before taking the ride north.

mike and dave,politics really shouldn't be part of the fun of clubs ,but i guess it all come down to a vote on how to spend the money....at least the club politics shouldn't ruin our joy and friendships....but altimately it stresses everyone out.....what a shame.

hey steve......that a bummer about the field you lost to a pot head,we had a great flying site 10 mins down the road from me before i got into the hobby...the property owner was dumping illegaly dirt removed from gas stations when tanks were replaced. toxic waste and right next to the river.......opps.sites still locked down.

thing can be healed over time...but that clubhouse at glenpoint is rotting away and the runways all but over run with trees . very sad what greed and pride will do to good folks.

[Turner]

It's none of my business of course but I am curious why the property owner made a deal with these other people rather than with HVF the present tenants.

[stuart]

to all who are interested in reviewing the lease agreement and learn alittle of the complex issues. if this link works you can read the agreement of the property owner and the lakeland rc clubs lease . it explains that hackensack valley flyers club failed to meet agreement to sign a lease with the new property owner who purchased the property [while hvf had an agreement with the previouse owner] in 2009.due to not reaching a lease agreement with the new property ower and hvf. hvf was told to vacate the property under order they were tresspassing....hvf did not leave but continued to use the property with out permission.

this is were it get ugly.....the lakeland flyers were recently evicted from a ball field park in the medowlands that was not being used for sports but the town decided to take back control and ordered lakelands club out. lakelands club officers[without members knowledge] took advantage of the knowledge of the status of hvf position with the property owner of the hvfc site.

without any notice to the hackensack valley flyers club ,lakeland entered into a lease agreement with the owner of the field hvfc has been using for decades without any issues.[at least nothing i know of aas a fairly neew member.
once lakeland took control they were told by the property owner to evict hvf from the property and offer all its members the opportunity to join lakelands club.......this is where i can't comment further as i didn't attend the club meeting regarding this problem due to the fact i didn't expect to re-up my membership...i felt it might be inappropriate to offer suggestions when i don't fly there anymore.the 2 clubs are at odds and can't seem to share the field.hvf wanted to co-lease the property but lakeland said "no"this left the property owner no choice but to effect the eviction order to hvfc.

this is all public information I'm sharing and i have deleted any names of individuals mentioned in the news letters sent via emails.

sharing this information is a warning to all clubs of the danger politic,and the inability to reach agreements can ruin our flying sites worked so hard to secure .also a warning to all club members to be proactive in making sure the club officers are doing their jobs with the best intrest of the members to share flying site putting old grips aside. i hope for a peaceful resolve by both clubs.

Location: http://hvfrc.org/phplist/dl.php?id=2

[Turner]

Thanks for responding. A truly unfortunate situation but many lessons to be learned there.

[Sparky Paul]

After a couple years in the higher echelons of the AMA I decided model airplane club politics are the lowest of the low.
I fly my airplanes for fun now.
And go where I can do that without any politics.

[Gohmer]

Wow,even doctors have problems keeping flying fields

[stuart]

i love going to the club field and flying 7+ battery packs worth of flying....but inbetween flights we sit in rows of chairs talking relaxing subjects and laughing at each others mistakes or comiserating with each others downed planes. but i also am seeking more small light weight parkflyers to toss into the air near my home in the evenings while theres still light.the micro p 51 fits that perfectly,to bad i beat it up learning how to fly it...lol.....but i'll always prefer to fly larger aircraft at the field safe and secure from the crowds.

[Big Johnny]

My club is so small, only about 25 members. There is never no politics involved. We always have a good time. Our safety Officer is strick, but he is just looking out for everyone safety.

[TLyttle]

Always the same... Decades ago, our club developed fields and relationships with owners so that we could fly small, schoolyard-sized models. Along would come The Club with their large-scale models, fly at one of our sites for awhile (3 weeks, usually) and bingo, we would ALL be gone. There was nothing we could do about it; we even tried to have their club charter revoked by MAAC (Canada's AMA), but they kept it up. Eventually, we gave up, and watched The Club go through site after site, until they had to settle on a very expensive piece of property, with exorbitant club dues. They don't teach people to fly, they have a closed membership, and (amazingly) a waiting list of prospective members.

Meanwhile, there is a small cadre of model flyers who fly at undisclosed sites.... Great for the hobby, eh?

[stuart]

up date on the issues of the hackensack valley flyers club field which they spent money and tremendouse amounts of time to build up a great field and club.this is where we stand on the flying field rights to who can fly there.....this is the hackensack news letter as the lastest position of lakeland rc club taking control of the hackensack valley flyers field behind their back.....



The December Meeting/Holiday Party will likely bring in more members than we have seen in a decade. This year we may have less to be thankful for, but we are hopeful that next year will be better. Unfortunately, the entire November meeting was devoted to the issues surrounding the agreement between Lakeland Aero Model Club and Russo Development LLC, the HVFRC Flying Field property owner, specifically, the license granted by Russo to Lakeland for the use of the flying field. HVF attempted to negotiate a license identical to that provided to Lakeland, but Lakeland objected to this arrangement. Russo had no objection to licensing the flying field to both Lakeland and HVF.

As the only alternative available and AS APPROVED BY A MAJORITY VOTE OF THE MEMBERSHIP PRESENT, HVF members agreed to sign over any and all rights to the field to Russo in return for a resolution from Lakeland allowing all HVF members to become members in Lakeland. Lakeland rejected this resolution and the approach of granting membership to all HVF members in one vote. Lakeland’s position appears to be that each HVF member should apply for membership in Lakeland individually and that these applications will be handled by Lakeland in due course pursuant to its rules and prior practices.

We believe that this procedure is potentially unworkable because it is rife with the potential to prejudice certain members of HVF based on personal issues by and between HVF members and Lakeland members. Another issue on this point is that HVF is currently unaware of Lakeland’s rules and prior practices related to the admission of new members. Lakeland’s bylaws are not posted on their website nor would they produce them for inspection upon our request. Furthermore, there was rumored to be a waived initiation fee for HVF members entering Lakeland. We have not seen that offer in writing as well.

AS A RESULT OF THIS IMPASS, RUSSO DEVELOPMENT HAS BROUGHT A LAWSUIT AGAINST HVF AND THE HVF BOARD MEMBERS, INDIVIDUALLY, SEEKING, PRINCIPALLY, A COURT ORDER EVICTING HVF AND ITS MEMBERS FROM THE FIELD.

The meeting ended late and many members remained for some time to continue the discussion. Through all the debate and sometimes heated arguments, we somehow forgot to get to the business of officer nominations. The board has since met and decided that the annual vote for officers should go forward on schedule. Considering the issues at hand and the current Civil Case naming HVF and our officers individually, we the HVFRC Executive Board have decided unanimously to run for another term and continue in our present capacities on your behalf. The current Executive Board remains hopeful and agreeable to work with Lakeland during this transition.


one can only hope thing will work out so all club members can continue to share the field and get on with enjoying the awsome hobby of fly rc aircraft.

[Lieutenant Loughead]

I just don't understand why both clubs don't consider this a merger -- rename the new club something completely different. Both clubs increase their numbers. Pilots just want a place to fly -- why all the drama?

If I were a member of EITHER clubs, I would quickly join BOTH clubs to hedge my bets.

BOTH club presidents need to get off their duffs, put aside personal feelings, meet for lunch at a neutral site, and settle this issue like gentlemen. If the presidents don't do that, NOBODY in the club will have the authority to resolve the issue!

[firemanbill]

Originally Posted by Lieutenant Loughead

I just don't understand why both clubs don't consider this a merger --

I think this line about sums up that question...

"We believe that this procedure is potentially unworkable because it is rife with the potential to prejudice certain members of HVF based on personal issues by and between HVF members and Lakeland members."

Sounds like a lot of animosity between the two clubs for whatever reason. I feel sorry for them and the fact that they seem to have lost the joy of what this hobby is all about. Sad thing is that is probably just one or two that have an ax to grind with each other that has fueled this into what it is. The majority probably just want to fly and have fun, whatever the name of the club is using the field.

[FlyingMonkey]

Are these not AMA clubs?

Where is the AMA on this?

[stuart]

I'm guessing the AMA doesn't get in the middle of club negotiations. there defiantly must be old Ax's to grind between members.

as for me,I'll fly at the new club site i joined which is about a 45 min drive from hvfc field and only 20 mins from my house literally as the crow flys[a straight drive on 303 and I'm there] and hope these 2 clubs merge peacefully....it's a "no brainier" i think the officers of the board at hvfc and members of say 8 years or 10 years should be automatically voted in and all the other newer members from hvfc should individually join....seems the issues of prejudice had better be dropped or the problems will escalate .

sad is the hvfc has maintained a beautiful site and just replaced the club sign that was a hand painted tri folker with the club name on a 4x8 board.
i wouldn't mind it at all if hvfc could find a better site to fly at and the lakeland boys can go search the marshes when their birds go down...been there and done that....not fun to battle the bugs ,snake ground hog holes ,and worse....thorns galore!!!!!that Rip ya up .even a machete won't cut Thru the 12' high marsh grass. this i will not miss.

[rcers]

The AMA does not mediate club battles. They are a bit busy right now trying to keep the FAA from doing stupid things to us and our hobby.

I don't want them spending any time on this type of foolish bickering - that is not their purpose.

Mike

[FlyingMonkey]

Seems to me they should have some sort of mediator. If the club officers are fighting, the rest of the membership loses out. They should have someone to turn to.

The AMA could revoke their membership, and allow the non warring parties to form a new club.