Why are you surprised?

There have been complaints about the recent announcement by the USCF to triple the fees charged to affiliates for Tournament Life Announcements.

At the recent Executive Board meeting in Seattle just concluded, there was a motion by McCrary to rescind the TLA fee increase, and to prevent the office from raising TLA fees in the future without Board approval. This was defeated by a vote of 4-3 with McCrary, Smith, and Ippolito in favor and Redman, Warren, Barry, and Pechac opposed.

Ironically, the people who have complained most loudly about the increases in TLA fees are the same persons who campaigned so hard to have Bob Smith thrown out as USCF president and to have him replaced by Tim Redman or Helen Warren.

My question is: Why are you surprised that now that Tim Redman is again president that the TLA fees have been tripled, when I told you months ago that if he got in he would do exactly that.

What don't you go back and re-read my reports on the May 21 meeting of the Executive Board, where I reported that Tim Redman said that TLAs should be taken out of Chess Life and moved to the USCF web site.

So, my question especially to those who worked so hard to have Bob Smith thrown out and Tim Redman re-instated as USCF President is: Why are you surprised?

Sam Sloan

PS And why are the transcripts of the May 20-21, 2000 meeting, where Redman recommended an increase in TLA fees, still not available, when they were supposed to be ready in six weeks?


Although Tim Redman and others have claimed that Glenn Peterson left the USCF "for personal reasons", information I have received indicates that this might not be true.

Glenn once told me that he would not be interested in any position with the USCF, other than Chess Life editor.

There seemed to be three possible explanations for his resignation:

1. Glenn's son is sick.

2. Glenn himself is sick.

3. Glenn is unhappy about the drastic changes in the USCF and in Chess Life brought on by the new Executive Board majority, including the big cuts in TLAs (tournament life announcements) which Glenn opposed.

However, I have just been informed that in late September, George DeFeis said that the assistant editor of Chess Life, Peter Kurzdorfer, had moved up to the editor's job while Glenn Petersen was moved upstairs to the position of Chief Technical Officer.

Apparently, what really happened was that Petersen was "kicked upstairs" and his reaction was to resign. This must have been a graceful way of removing Petersen as editor without firing him. The "official" story from De Feis perhaps came before Petersen had resigned, or before DeFeis knew about it.

I do not doubt that Petersen would resign rather than accept the drastic changes and reductions in Chess Life proposed by Tim Redman. For example, at the USCF Executive Board meeting on May 21, Redman proposed that Chess Life be cut to 40 pages and that the TLAs be removed entirely. Petersen spoke strongly against these proposed changes. Redman also proposed that School Mates no longer be published in paper edition and that it be moved online. Now that Redman is USCF president and in a position to implement the changes he proposed, this seems to be the most likely reason for why Petersen to resigned.

Also, it seems to be more than a coincidence that Barbara DeMaro was fired and Carol Jarecki resigned within a few days of the Petersen resignation, all this happening during the short period of time since Tim Redman became USCF President.

Sam Sloan
http://www.samsloan.com/chess.htm

This statement by Tim Redman is apparently not true.

Several sources have informed me that Glenn Petersen did not resign as Chess Life editor. Petersen was removed as editor by George DeFeis, who was obviously acting on the orders of the board including Tim Redman.

Although Petersen was told that he was being promoted, he declined the promotion and left the USCF instead.

Tim Redman scores zero on credibility, since he obviously knew the true situation when he posted this.

In view of this lie and other developments, I fell that the time may have arrived to attempt to have Tim Redman impeached or recalled as USCF President.

Sam Sloan


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