The new total for attorney fees for the board of directors property stealing fisaco is $217,339.55 through February 2006!  The president of the board, Ernie Padgette, would not provide copies of the invoices for January and February but they were procured anyway.  They totaled $74,524.90, along with the previous total of $142,814.65 through December 2005.  This is out of a total annual budget of approximately $300,000!  Hopefully the membership will now get their act together and take some action.

The board was supposed to get an audit committe together but Padgette has now said the board cannot find anyone qualified to do it.  He also said all documents between the board and the attorneys are covered under attorney client privledge and will not be availble to the membership!  Gee, I wonder why?  

Good luck in ousting that clown and getting the club back on track.

 Holy hell that's a lot of money!  Do you guys have some ideas how to recoup any of that cost?  MJD

Holy hell.  When can we vote this asshole out?

Glad I left that foul up of a club a year ago...what a clusterfuck.

The pistol range nazis locked stepped me out after my fourth year. No thanks.

Next chapter elections are in July, VOTE THE RASCALS OUT!!!

I belong to the Alexandria Cahpter and I hope you vote those bastards out. Make sure you tell them "Don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you" What a disgrace has anyone filed a complaint to the National Office?

Yes, the National IWLA has been involved trying to stop this crap!  This 'reason' given by our board for the property transfer was to protect the property from seizure by the National IWLA.  This turned out to be bogus and I suspect the board was trying to steal the property for their new organization they set-up, 'The Virginia Sportsman's Association', (VSA), though there is no concrete proof of this.  The lease had several clauses that would let the VSA seize the property by default, one was if the rent was late and another was for not being to be able to pay the taxes on the property.

Also, if everything was really for the good of the chapter, why refuse to release the attorney documents to the membership.  The board keep the expenditure of these funds a secret from the membership for over a year until they were ready to have a vote on the transfer of the property!  This is a violation of the by-laws of the chapter, Article IV 2.2 "The Board of Directors will not commit any funds that are not in the approved budget, without the membership's approval.".  VOTE THE RASCALS OUT!!!

If the board did something that was in violation of the chapter by-laws, can't they be impeached and removed?  MJD

Quoted: If the board did something that was in violation of the chapter by-laws, can't they be impeached and removed?  MJD

I don't know about IWLA, but in the GOP (down to the local level) if the Chairman spends funds not authorized by either the full committee or executive committee, he is held personally liable.

Also, and I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if the attorneys were paid out of IWLA funds and not personally by the President or Board members, then wouldn't the "client" be the IWLA organization and members - all of whom should then have access to any documentation.

Not enough chapter members seem concerned now that the property transfer has been withdraw to have a recall election.  I agree that the attorney client privilege should include the membership, but that is not what the board and the attorneys claim.  Again, not enough members appear concerned, they have gone back to sleep!

Damn, I was hoping to join this year, but I guess I'll look elsewhere.....

Hmmm... when I knew Ernie several years back before he moved out of Reston, I thought better of him
than that. Guess I was wrong.....

Ernie can be very charming and it is easy to be taken in by him!

This probbably has been covered but what is so wrong about this sale?

I belong to a club in southern VA, the Northern VA Gun Club, they do not own their land, instead the Northern VA Shooting Facility does.  The Gun Club has exclusive rights to lease the land from the Shooting Facility.  One of the theories here is that if anyone wants to sue the Gun Club, They will have a harder time leveraging the land in the lawsuit since it is not a part of the Gun Club.  Makes sense to me but I am not a lawyer.

It looks alright in theory but the problem was the sneaky way the board tried to do it.  They  violated the bylaws by not having the members vote to approve the funds for the attorney fees.  After keeping it secret for a year, they spring it on the members one month before the vote.

Ernie was caught lying to members about proxy votes.  When examined closely, many of their staements about the why and how of the property transfer were not valid and often contradictory. This includes the IWLA National trying to seize the property and about the procedure for admitting current chapter members into the new organization, the VSA.

The VSA's bylaws would have given their board of directors dictatorial powers and  they would be able to make decisions in secret without the knowledge of their members.  The lease agreement had clauses that would let the VSA very easily break the lease and confiscate the property.  The majority of members saw through this scheme by the board to seize the property.  When board saw they were going to lose the vote, they withdrew the proposal.

Myself, I trust the good sense of the chapter members over the board.