Dennis,

I felt exactly the same way that you did a couple days ago about Mr. McNeil until I received a phone call from him at my home. He was nice to you on the telephone today because you were ordering a scanner and that was all. He has denied the use of these scanners, which are AMA owned **safety** equipment to people that he sees as **political** opposition to his hold on the District V seat. He admitted directly to me that he fired Tony Stillman because he ran against him for HIS office, not becasue he did anything wrong as Frequency Coordinator. I couldn't believe the desperation and venom I heard in this man's voice as he talked about Red Scholefield and Tony Stillman to me. Realize that he wouldn't recognize me if I walked up and introduced myself. It would be painfully obvious to anyone who talks with this man about AMA business and his handling of affairs in District V that he is holding on for personal reasons, not to serve the modellers that pay dues into his AMA budget fund.
I have no axe to grind with this man. I have never met him personally. However, in 30 minutes of telephone conversation he did the best job of convincing me that we desperately need new leadership and custodianship of our AMA business in our District.
As far as Mr. McNeil being able to defend himself, I challenge you to call him again and ask the same questions that I asked him in an earlier post.

1) What did Tony Stillman do wrong in the position of Frequency Coordinator that you removed him from his post??
2) What previous job experience or training do you have that qualifies you to assist clubs resolve safety issues regarding Radio Control? How does your experience and training compare to the person you replaced as Frequency Coordinator?
3) What aeromodelling activities do you participate in on a regular basis?? (Notice I didn't ask you to ask him about radio control - just ANY modelling activitity; RC,CL,FF, or even paper airplanes)

These are all valid and appropriate questions to ask your elected representative who has the use of your dues dollars and is your link to the national organization.

As far as this thread getting negative, I have to agree with you there. The sad part is that the number of people with negative reactions from Mr. McNeil is growing!! All you have to do is challenge his handling of YOUR district's business in the slightest way and he cuts loose on total strangers with threats and warnings. So many people are venting their frustration with him because there is truly a problem and we cannot do anything about it until the next election.

We need to change our energies from talking about the problem, to talking about the solution. People on the outside of this will only listen to so much negative chatter before they tune out.

I am going to send an e-mail to Tony Stillman inviting him to begin participating in these discussions on RCU. Once we start talking about the future, we can change the tone of these threads to where they need to be to attract the voters.