Been back in the office only a few hours after a couple days off andâshit howdyâthe stuff I missed. Take the board of directors coup at the Cascade Bicycle Club, throwing out director Chuck Ayers who has nearly tripled the group's membership and is widely credited with converting the bicycle group into a political powerhouse. And the board did it because, well, they wouldn't really say in their official blog post. But board chairman Chris Weiss went and trotted out his gripes over to the Puget Sound Business Journal. Here's what he said:
Ayersâ departure also is related to public comments made by another employee, David Hiller, advocacy director for the Cascade Bicycle Club. Weiss said the board discussed the comments with Ayers, but they did not stop.The most highly charged comments came in a January article posted by The Stranger news website about a proposal to toughen penalties for careless motorists culpable in accidents that kill cyclists or pedestrians.
âIâd love to hang these people up by their toenails at the edge of town and paint âkillerâ across their chest and let them hang there until the buzzards peck their eyes out,â Hiller was quoted as saying by The Stranger.
Weiss said the comments caused heartburn for the board and were counterproductive to the clubâs efforts to promote its cycling agenda.
That choice of words by Hiller (who is still at Cascade Bicycle Club)? Inflammatory. However, it's one quote of thousands he's given over the years and, in the context of our salty fish wrap, folks don't bat an eye. But who will bat an eye? Who would use it to dismiss the Cascade Bicycle Club? The people who read the Puget Sound Business Journal. Many of those folks are the political rivals of bicyclists. Those big business interests are the pro-road, anti-transit factions that have ginned up the notion that people who support transit and bicycles hate cars. Those are not the allies of Cascade Bicycle Clubâand they never will be the allies of Cascade Bicycle Clubâand trying to air dirty laundry with them is basically throwing a bicyclist under a bus SUV. Sure, the new leadership may want to distance themselves, but airing dirty laundry and meekly apologizing to your enemies doesn't build a base and provide political momentum. And building a base and momentum is what Ayers seemed to do so well.