I hereby officially announce my candidacy for a director position at the League of American Bicyclists. I am running in partnership with fellow candidates Bill Hoffman, John Brooking, and Khalil Spencer on behalf of the Coalition to Reform LAB (LAB Reform). Also see this statement from John and this statement from Khalil.



The board of directors did not appoint or nominate us, so we are petitioning the members for nomination. Fellow reform candidate and current director Bill Hoffman was nominated by the board and we (me, John, and Khalil) hope to meet him on the ballot. If you prefer, you can print this signature form and either submit it by mail, or scan it and submit it by email. If you are not currently a member, you must join the League before you can sign. Family memberships count for two votes. You can use the online form to pay by credit card, or print the form and mail it to the League office with a check or money order. As soon as you join online, you will see a confirmation page. Your membership number (an eight-digit number beginning with "5") will be shown following the word "Password". We greatly appreciate your support of our work to reform the League of American Bicyclists. Please feel free to contact me if you have any comments or questions about the campaign. Read on.

CONTENTS

1. About Me
2. Application for Nomination
3. My Goals for the League
4. How You Can Help

About Me

My name is Eli Damon. I am thirty-three years old and live in Amherst, Massachusetts. I am principally a math teacher and have been teaching for eighteen years, beginning with private tutoring at the age of fifteen. I have a B.E. in computer engineering from SUNY Stony Brook and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Umass Amherst .

I am an active member of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike), where my focus is on educating people about good cycling technique and advocating for cyclists' right to the road. I have been a League Cycling Instructor since 2008. I served on the Amherst Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee for six years.

I first learned to ride a bike, in the common sense, at the age of six or seven, but I learned to drive a bike in 2005. Due to a visual disability I cannot acquire a driver's license. I once thought of this limitation as a severe one. I made some trips by foot, bike, and bus, and relied on friends and family members with cars to give me rides for some other trips. For the most part, however, the difficulty I had in traveling prevented me from living what most people would consider a full life.  In the summer of 2005, my situation changed and I needed another way to get to my choir practice. I dug out a copy of John Forester's Effective Cycling, which I had never read and knew nothing about. From this book, I learned that I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, without the excessive thinking, planning, and worrying that I had formerly associated with bicycle travel. It was the most revelatory experience of my life.

I travel almost exclusively by bicycle. I have found that good cycling habits provide me with more freedom and flexibility than I could ever achieve through driving a motor vehicle. I have cycled in nine states and the District of Columbia, on a wide variety of roads under a wide variety of conditions. I have made trips of up to 200 miles. One of my 200-mile trips was to Fryeburg, Maine, for my instructor certification. My typical annual cycling distance over the past several years has been about 2,500 miles.

Over the past year, my life has been made very difficult by police officers in two nearby towns who disapprove of my controlling a narrow lane and even of my cycling on major roads at all. I have been stopped and threatened numerous times, arrested once, had my property seized twice, and charged with disorderly conduct twice and unlawful wiretapping once (because of the camera I had on my helmet the last time I was stopped). This experience has made my right-to-the-road mission extremely personal. These police officers left me in such a vulnerable state while traveling that I was virtually imprisoned in my home. It became impractical for me travel except within Amherst and for particularly important trips. My options for these important trips were either cycling with the risk of another disastrous police encounter, finding someone to drive me in a car, or in rare cases, taking a bus.

My case is far from unique. Over the past fifteen years, the League's efforts to overturn the widespread myths and biases regarding cycling (which partially motivated the abusive treatment I received from police officers) and defend cyclists' right to the road have grown increasingly lethargic. I must apologize to readers for these critical statements. I know that they might turn some of you off. But I believe that we must show loyalty to our fellow cyclists and support each other in times of crisis. It is unacceptable for our organizations to abandon us to political convenience. The League completely ignored my pleas for help and did not even communicate the problem to other League members to aid me in gathering support. In another case that is similar to mine, some of the League's leaders went so far as to spread misinformation about cyclist Reed Bates in what appeared to be an attempt to publicly discredit him and his supporters. Many other cyclists have been left to fend for themselves when their rights were threatened. I want to see the League return to its historic mission of educating the public about cycling and defending the right to travel. I want to see a League that is open, responsive, and loyal to its members. This is why I am running for a director position.

If you need a short description of me for a print publication, you can use this 250-word version.

Application for Nomination

A candidate for a director position at the League of American Bicyclists can become a director either through appointment by the current board of directors or election by the members. To be elected the candidate must first be nominated so that their name will appear on the ballot. (There are no write-in votes.) The candidate can be nominated either by the current board of directors or, failing that, by petitioning the members and securing the signatures of at least 5%. To be appointed or nominated by the board of directors, the candidate must submit an application for nomination and a resume. Here is the application and resume that I submitted to the board of directors.

Dear League of American Bicyclists Board Members:

I am writing to request a nomination for a position on the Board of Directors for the 2011 election. I am aware that the official deadline for nomination applications has passed but I was confused by a deadline of September 18th that had been posted at the bottom of the League's home page. My resume is attached.

I am striving to become a board member because I am passionate about promoting cycling as a form of transportation. I have many ideas for inspiring people with the power and freedom that cycling can provide, and I would like the opportunity to implement those ideas on a large scale. My vision for the League is an organization that speaks loudly and proudly of this power and freedom, and takes decisive action against attempts to undermine this freedom. I envision a League of members who communicate, mobilize, and, act with mutual loyalty.

I will now address the qualifications:

1. Commitment to cycling, Knowledge of Bicyclists' Concerns

As someone for whom cycling is the primary mode of transportation, my commitment to cycling is deep, personal, and irrevocable. Ever since I discovered the true power of cycling, it has been a large and inextricable part of me. But I did not always understand the truth about cycling. Indeed, I had many misunderstandings that led to great fear and several serious injuries. Having overcome the misunderstanding and the fear myself, I have some familiarity with the concerns of other cyclists and would-be cyclists whose notion of cycling has been shaped by the same society as had shaped my notions before my revelation. In response to this revelation, I have taken on a new sense of the possibilities for my life and the lives of others, and have committed myself to revealing those possibilities to others.

2. Prior Involvement in Bicycling, Complementary Activities

See my resume.

3. Participation in League Activities and Programs

I am a League Certified Instructor and Safe Routes to School certified instructor. I provided crash space for an attendee of the 2009 National Bike Summit in Washington, DC, while I was working in Alexandria, Virginia.

4. History of Volunteer Service, Familiarity with the Role of the Board

In addition to my work as cycling instructor and advocate, I also served for six years on the Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts. I also served as a union steward for my department when I was in graduate school.

5. Professional Level Skills

Through my 16 years of teaching experience, I have developed very strong skill in teaching and a strong understanding of education in general.

6. Of "Good Moral Character"

I certainly believe that I am of good moral character, and so do most people who know me. Since this is not really a concrete subject, I cannot offer a concrete description.

7. An Ability and Willingness to Bring Substantial Resources

I will give whatever social resources I have and whatever financial resources I can afford.

My Goals for the League

I want a League that is open, responsible, and loyal to its members. The League has grown timid and lethargic in its mission to defend cyclists' rights and create confident and competent cyclists through education. It has grown secretive and insular in its internal operations. I aim to reverse these trends along with my fellow reform candidates.

Strengthen cycling education and right-to-the-road advocacy.

• The League's training program (currently called Smart Cycling) has a solid foundation, but when it comes promoting its core principles, its voice has grown fainter and more timid. The training program must forcefully emphasize the following.
  1. Cycling is an extremely safe, efficient, easy, carefree, reliable, and flexible form of transportation when conducted assertively and according the standard rules of the road for drivers of vehicles.
  2. The required skills and habits can be acquired with little difficulty by nearly anyone, and will enable those people to cycle anywhere, at any time, under any conditions, for any purpose.
  3. Cyclists can avoid all of the problems that they face or fear that they will face in traffic by acquiring these skills and habits.
  4. Cycling in this manner does not endanger or inconvenience others and, in fact, improves traffic conditions for others.
  The training program should put a greater emphasis on traffic-handling skills, particularly the all-important topic of choosing a lane position. Care should be taken to ensure that all instructors (even those who are not actively teaching) fully understand the importance of taking an assertive lane position and are comfortable with asserting themselves in traffic so that they can transfer this understanding and confidence to their students. Topics that are less relevant to or more easily understood by beginning cyclists should receive less emphasis. Some topics that are now taught in introductory classes should be relegated to more advanced classes. This is the philosophy behind Keri Caffrey and Mighk Wilson's Cycling Savvy program, which they run in Orlando, Florida. I am very impressed with this program. I believe that it could form the basis of an overwhelmingly successful revision of the League's training program. Instructors should be encouraged to be flexible with their class format in order to best serve the needs of their students. I find that skill and understanding must be absorbed slowly over time, so a traditional monolithic one-or-two-session course might be less than ideal. Zealous promotion of this training program is needed to attract students and instructors.
• In addition to its training program, the League should establish a program of public education to propagate the core principles of effective cycling. Directors and officers should thoroughly understand and support effective cycling and promote it when speaking publicly. The League should not promote or accommodate the agendas of those who believe that cyclists are inferior to motorists and are best served by showing deference to motorists on the road.
• The League should establish a program specifically to educate police officers and transportation officials about effective cycling and its application to their official duties.
• The League should show loyalty to cyclists by defending those whose right to the road is threatened. Having experienced such threats myself without receiving the support I needed, I want to ensure that others will not be left to suffer through such experiences alone in the future.
• The League should rejuvenate its campaign to aid state and local cycling advocates in opposing proposed discriminatory laws and repealing existing discriminatory laws, particularly those that restrict cyclists' movement on the road and access to various roads, and replacing them with laws that strongly affirm the right of all people to travel freely on the public roads by as simple a mode as they wish.
• The League should rewrite the criteria for its Bicycle Friendly Communities awards. Awards should be granted to communities that truly support cycling as a legitimate and practical form of transportation. They should go to communities that send a clear message to residents and visitors that cyclists are drivers of vehicles and are expected to act like it for the safety and convenience of all. They should be given to communities that treat cyclists as an integral part of traffic with full access to all roads and parking facilities. They should not be given to communities that pass discriminatory laws or use discriminatory law enforcement practices. They should not be given to communities that build thoughtlessly designed roads with "features" that endanger cyclists or promote dangerous behavior among cyclists.

Facilitate communication among members and between leaders and members.

• Currently, League members cannot access the membership list for the purpose of informing other members and soliciting feedback from other members about issues and candidates. Members must be guaranteed access to the membership list so that they can communicate with each other about the League's operations and candidates for League offices.
• The League has a number of channels for communicating en masse with its members (e.g. magazine, newsletter, blog, Facebook page). Currently, these channels are mostly used to send irrelevant, insipid, "feel good" messages. These channels should be used to report on genuine advocacy issues and League operations, relay important messages from members, solicit feedback from members, and mobilize members to take action.
• It is important for League directors and officers to be accessible and responsive. As a director I will conscientiously attend to all such communications. Members and others with concerns regarding cycling should feel free to contact me before, during, and after my term of directorship.
• Directors should make themselves prominent figures of cycling advocacy, creating public awareness of who they are, what they stand for, what the League is up to, and what work they are doing both as part of the League and as individual cycling advocates. This brings public awareness to the League's work and to cycling advocacy in general. It brings more ideas to the League from members and other cyclists about what the League can do to further its goals, and brings more ideas from members and other cyclists about what these members and cyclists can do to further their goals. I have often been frustrated by a desire to work toward a goal, such as defending the right to travel, without knowledge of how to best work toward that goal. This is why I have started reporting on the work I do via my blog. By documenting and publicizing my work, I can help others who share my goals to find ideas for advancing those goals. I can facilitate communication between us so that we can effectively work together in service of those goals.

Re-democratize the process for selecting directors.

• Currently, almost half of directors are appointed by the board of directors with no input from other members. All directors should be elected by the members.
• Currently, candidates for elected directorships can only be put on the ballot by a nomination from the board of directors or, failing that, by petitioning the members and securing the signatures of at least 5%, an outrageously high percentage. (10% is needed for a referendum petition.) This percentage should be greatly reduced. Before 2004, only fifty signatures were required.
• Currently, the board does not publish applications for nomination, their criteria for selecting candidates for nomination, or their reasoning for nominating the candidates that they choose to nominate. The board's nomination process should be entirely open. The board should be required to publish all three of these items.
• Beginning next year, each region of the country will NOT be granted a local representative on the board of directors. Each region of the country should have a local representative on the board of directors who is elected by members in that region.
• Currently, the League's specification of the petition process is vague and is not integrated with the rest of the process for selecting directors. The requirements for a petition should be specified precisely and the process should be made an integral part of the election process.
• Currently, directors are permitted to deviate from the bylaws to suit their purposes. Directors whose actions deviate from the bylaws should be disciplined. Recently, the board deviated from its election schedule twice: once to accelerate its nomination phase, possibly to prevent discussion of its choices, and again to delay announcement of the nominations, possibly to hinder efforts at a petition. When director Tim Young first contacted me on 09/08/2010 to inform me of the board's decision on appointments and nominations, he made no mention of the fact that the announcement was a week late, nor did he mention the petition process. I immediately called him to ask about the petition process. The due date for election petitions is listed as 10/15/2010 and nominations were scheduled to be announced on 09/01/2010, giving us 45 five days to gather signatures. He claimed that he did not know anything about the petition process. If this is true, then he is grossly derelict in his duty as a member of the governance committee. If it is false, well... I did not hear from him again until 09/13/2010, when he sent me an email message that merely pointed me to League's bylaws. I called him again to ask for more details but he did not respond. Other candidates received similar treatment. Tim Young also made discouraging comments to me about the possibility of petitioning.

How You Can Help

• Sign the online petition. The board of directors did not appoint or nominate us, so we are petitioning the members for nomination. Fellow reform candidate and current director Bill Hoffman was nominated by the board and we (me, John, and Khalil) hope to meet him on the ballot. If you prefer, you can print this signature form and either submit it by mail or scan it and submit it by email. If you are not currently a member you must join the League before you can sign. Family memberships count for two votes. You can use the online form to pay by credit card or print the form and mail it to the League office with a check or money order. As soon as you join online, you will see a confirmation page. Your membership number (an eight-digit number beginning with "5") will be shown following the word "Password".
• Spread the word. Contact League members, cycling instructors, cycling advocates, cyclists, friends, and family members. Tell them about the reform movement and our campaign. Ask them to sign our petition and vote for us in December (assuming that we are successfully nominated). Here is a sample letter you can use.
• Learn more. Stay informed. Keep in touch. Read more about the Coalition to Reform LAB, our election campaign, and my fellow reform candidates. Subscribe to the LAB Reform blog. Join the LAB Reform Yahoo group. Contact me or any of the other candidates and share your thoughts. Feel free to contact me by mail, phone, email, or by submitting a comment on this blog entry. (No carrier pigeons, semaphores, smoke signals, or yodel calls, please.)
• Vote for us in December. If our petition is successful, then you can vote for us (Bill Hoffman, Eli Damon, John Brooking, and Khalil Spencer) in the election, which is scheduled to be held from 12/01/2010 until 01/15/2011. Ballots can be cast online at the League's website. When casting your ballot you will be asked to select up to ten candidates and rank them according to your preference. (How the results are determined is explained on the League's election page.) We hope that you will indicate the four of us as your first, second, third, and fourth choice candidates. If you are not currently a member, you must join the League before you can vote. Family memberships count for two votes. You can use the online form to pay by credit card or print the form and mail it to the League office with a check or money order.