12/21/13
I just sent this e-mail to the President of CalChess, our State affiliate of the U.S. Chess Federation:
"Hi Tom,
I had hoped we could reach some sort of tentative agreement or get close to a tentative agreement by yesterday, December 20, so I could forward the information to my parents for a vote on whether they would feel secure under the arrangements we agreed to or were close to agreeing to. With the Grade Level three weeks away and school out with many of my parents leaving the area for the holidays I could not in all good faith continue negotiating. I need to let the Weibel parents and players know if the Team will attend. I thought we were getting close and you were negotiating in good faith, but then yesterday morning you sent me a different proposal than your previous one. Interestingly that proposal related back to the original and I was at a loss for words. I begged you to clarify which proposal we were working on as well as to inform me as to the names of the three members of the CalChess Scholastic Council besides Lynn Reed. I asked you to do so with all deliberate speed. I have not heard back from you. The deadline has passed. Sadly, you leave me no choice but to notify my parents that Weibel will not be attending the State Grade Level this year as we did last year when it was organized by Elizabeth Shaughnessy.
I want to assure you that I still have a desire to have Weibel attend the State Championships as we have since 1989 and before Salman Azhar, as organizer, turned on our players and parents in 2011. Weibel had only missed the 2005 State Championships before that. You know that was because the organizer at the time unilaterally switched the meet after getting approval from CalChess for a date he said he would hold then. I had contracted my Regionals for a month after the original posted day so my players could attend the States. The organizer set his new date to the same day I had set my Regionals. The CalChess Board objected. The organizer, who was also the CalChess treasurer walked off with all the money. The CalChess, under its lawyers advice to get back their treasury held by the organizer, finally voted approval to support the conflicting date. You also know that the Regionals not only drew more than twice the number of players as the so-called Sate Championships, but the CalChess Board members,minus one, attended the Regionals and not the States they had been contractually forced to hold. I can’t remember if it were you or Eric Hicks that was forced to remove the famous picture of then Board President Elizabeth Shaughnessy shaking hands with me at the Regionals.
Where to now? Do you want to respond to my earlier requests and inform me which proposal we are working on in hopes that we might be able to achieve an agreement for you to present to your Board and for me to present to my parents before the April 26 and 27 CalChess Scholastic States?
--
Chess is Forever!
Alan"
As I noted in an earlier e-mail, where Weibel parents can attend Salman Azhar's organized events if they disagree with the vote of the vast majority of our parents for the last two years if they do not identify themselves as Weibel students on their forms or wear our T-shirt, they cannot have this freedom at the State Championships. This event has a Team competition. This translates to it is mandatory that players formerly compete for a school even if they are not members of the schools chess program. While I would like to have Teams at these events I agree with the action of the parents and I hold that as members of this Team we have no choice but to respect their decision. Weibel Team members cannot attend the Grade Level next month since they will have to identify themselves as competing for our Team. As you read in the letter above, I still have some hope that Tom Langland, the CalChess President, would like to continue looking for a solution in time for the April State Championships. As is always the case, members who do not adhere to a competitive Team policy cannot remain on the Team. This is why we have a small competitive Team and a large Chess Club.
I am inserting a summary of the reasons for the parents' votes that I forwarded to Tom Langland, CalChess President, to remind him what happened. Following the summary are links to the letters describing the disturbing events at the 2011 CalChess Grade Level. The Lu, Show and Zhou families sent these to the U.S. Chess Federation. After a year of not responding I was able to get the Executive Director of the U.S. Chess Federation, Bill Hall, to explain, at least why he took no action. It pretty well boiled down to the fact that there were no rules in the tournament rules to cover the actions take by the organizer.
Here is my summary to Tom Langland:
Salman, in the public arena, attacked one of our parents and her child, refused to intervene when one, a fourth grade Weibel child, was being yelled at by a parent from another school. Then, in my opinion, Salman went off the deep end on our child's father for getting justifiably upset for Salman's refusal to intervene immediately. Salman even went as far as to unilaterally remove the abused child from the playing hall in the middle of his game to punish his Dad even though we had a parent waiting for the child to finish his game. I remind you that the parent who screamed at and threatened my player never had his son removed from his game and that father kept sneaking back into the hotel. Our parent left the hotel when asked. He only wanted to wait across the street from the hotel to wait the outcome of his son’s game. Of even more concern, as identified in one of the four complaints our parents wrote to the USCF, was that Salman left the child alone in a darkened hallway after pulling him from his game without supervision while he went outside to find his father. I reiterate—the problem is not between Salman and myself. The problem is that when a person in authority, teacher, police officer, parent or chess organizers becomes upset with someone as Salman apparently did at me and takes his anger out on others in the ugly manner he did—that person should not be handling children no matter how efficient an organizer he or she is.
To read a more extensive summary I posted in the U.S. Chess Federation's Chess Life Online:
http://www.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=235943&sid=e36f324f4c9d4566aa5a0dee76a0ad9a#p235943
Links to the letters from Mike Lu, Susan Wang (Michael & Sharon Lu's parents) and Zhi Zhou (Anthony Zhou's father) as well as Christy Lin (Serafina Show's mother):
http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/COMPLAINTS-AGAINST-SALMAN-AZHAR
Miscellaneous:
Don't forget to checkout the NorCal House of Chess' camps and tournament over the holidays.
Mark the Age Level Championships, February 9, on your calendar.
Once again:
Have a wonderful holiday season!
Chess is Forever,
Alan
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