Document #25

Report of the Executive Committee

The Executive Committee met on October 13, 2001 at DFW. The minutes of that meeting were circulated to the Board and are in December QST.

One of the committee's actions was to endorse and forward to the Board the nomination of Evelyn Gauzens, W4WYR, as an ARRL Honorary Vice President. Board consideration of this recommendation is scheduled under Agenda Item 7.

At Minute 72 of the July meeting the Board instructed the Executive Committee to study the procedures and qualifications concerning election of Honorary Vice Presidents. A report and draft motion are contained in the Annex to Document 25.

At Minute 73 of the July meeting the Board adopted "as a major goal of our Advocacy activities legislative action granting the Amateur Radio Service [the] same level of protection from CC&Rs prohibiting or restricting Amateur Radio antennas as is presently available to other Services, and that a plan of overall strategy be developed by the Executive Committee to direct and focus the efforts of the various entities of the ARRL to achieve that goal."

The reference to "other Services" is subject to a certain amount of interpretation. The committee's understanding of the Board's intent is that we want amateurs, at base minimum and possibly with a few exceptions, to be able to erect an outdoor antenna that has roughly the visual impact of a television satellite dish or over-the-air television antenna. Because it is not as easy to describe the physical appearance of such an Amateur Radio antenna as it is to describe a satellite dish or terrestrial TV antenna, we would prefer that amateurs' rights be described in terms of "reasonable accommodation" as that phrase is used in PRB-1.

Legislative action became our only available alternative for seeking FCC action when the Commission denied our Application for Review in RM-8763 in late December. In so doing the Commission said, "However, should Congress see fit to enact a statutory directive mandating the expansion of our reasonable accommodation policy, the Commission would expeditiously act to fulfill its obligation thereunder."

On January 4 President Haynie convened a teleconference with the following participants: himself, First Vice President Harrison, Director Bellows, Executive Vice President Sumner, General Counsel Imlay, Legislative Affairs Manager Steve Mansfield, and John Chwat and Derek Riker of Chwat & Company.

No one underestimates the extreme difficulty of achieving such legislation. A draft has existed for almost a year and Steve Mansfield has been "shopping" it around the Hill without encountering much encouragement. Steve will have more to say about this at the Board meeting and will share some ideas he has been working on with regard to how we can make a more effective presentation.

Our proposed strategy for continuing to seek such legislation is:

1) Identify key target states where CC&Rs represent the most serious problems for amateurs. Initial suggestions included Arizona, California, Oregon, and Texas.

2) Identify specific legislators whose staffs would at least be amenable to sitting down with us to hear a description of our problem, look at our draft legislation, and give us an idea of how far they might be able to go for us -- in other words, if they can't support our draft what could they support? Initial suggestions included Rep. Greg Walden ,WB7OCE, and Sen. Ron Wyden, both of Oregon.

3) Identify opportunities for Congressional hearings at which we might be able to testify in order to illuminate this issue in national security terms. John Chwat is developing a list.

4) Identify representatives of the interests of homeowners' associations and developers with whom we can at least open a dialogue on the issue. (Initial work in this direction last year was not encouraging.) John Chwat is developing a list.

In addition to federal legislation, we propose investigating the possibility of seeking state legislation in key target states as identified above. It appears that in some states a more favorable environment exists in that homeowners' associations are held to a standard of reasonableness in their decision-making. This is the case in Florida and is the reason for the favorable Gorodetzer decision. However, it also appears that the standard, where it exists, arises from judicial action rather than from specific legislation. More study is needed in order to decide whether there may be an opportunity to achieve some incremental benefit at the state level. Messrs. Imlay and Bellows are working on a briefing paper on this subject.

Finally, while we cannot expect that any discussions we might have with the representatives of homeowners' associations or developers will identify common ground with regard to legislation, we may at least be able to identify some opportunities for "boiler plate" anti-antenna language to be removed from stock CC&Rs in those cases, such as large lots where natural vegetative screening exists, where it is clearly unnecessary.

For the Executive Committee
David Sumner, K1ZZ, Secretary