Riding along, with a thousand leather strips flapping in the breeze.
One of the biggest questions I’ve had since this whole brouhaha about ABATE’s financial crisis erupted was simply, “How the heck did we ever get to this point?”
Based on some information posted over on The Dandooligan blog and some materials Terry Howard sent me after the second of two charges against her were dropped, I feel like that question has an answer: No one was properly minding the store and when it could no longer be ignored it was too late to get a reasonable financial lifeline, so an unreasonable one was accepted. Terry arranged for the loan but she did so with the express thanks from the board of directors.
I think it’s really that simple. And by no one, I mean the board of directors and the officers. I largely exempt the general membership because we simply had no idea this was even going on, even those of us who attend meetings regularly. In fact, one of the documents Terry sent me was an email in which she told the board members, “Please keep this within the Board. We don’t need members panicking at this point.” I have no doubt her intentions at the time were good, and readily admit that hindsight is always 20-20, but gosh, maybe if the members had been made aware of the problem some other solution might have been found. There’s a saying I strongly believe in: All of us are smarter than any of us.
OK, so what’s done is done and can’t be undone. Now we need to move ahead, because Colorado motorcyclists still need some sort of lobbying group, a motorcycle rights organization (MRO) as they are known, standing up for our interests in matters of the law.
Clearly ABATE’s State Coordinator Bruce Downs believes ABATE should be that MRO. Not everyone agrees, however. Some believe ABATE needs to go away and a new MRO arise in its place. Making that happen would be a challenge, to say the least.
Anyway, backtracking just a bit, I want to refer you to The Dandooligan because Matt Wessels over there has put out some extensive information about this whole affair. I wasn’t even aware, because I hadn’t been following him closely, but that link above is to a piece written by Deb Craig giving a pretty deep inside look at ABATE’s inner workings. Supporters of Terry Howard–and I know there are a lot of them out there–will not like some of what she says because she does not paint a pretty picture of Terry, but at the very least the straight-out factual information she presents is quite interesting. Frankly, it doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of ABATE.
And that is the one thing that seems universal. There are the former rider training folks who dislike Terry Howard and ABATE for wrongs they feel were done to them. There are the Terry Howard supporters who don’t like ABATE because they feel the organization threw Terry under the bus. And there are the continuing ABATE members and supporters who nevertheless feel that the leadership has been, to use a very, very kind word, remiss in its duties. It makes it easy to understand the thinking of those who think ABATE needs to just go away.
I suspect that’s not going to happen. Let’s see what does happen. It’s going to be interesting.
Biker Quote for Today
Education is important, but racing is importanter.
