@thebionicman The lobbyist we used to have seemed really good. Any time we wanted to try to accomplish anything on the legislative front, one of their first questions was who are the stakeholders we need to discuss this with. Unfortunately, the recent bill in Kentucky, the lobbyists weren't as forthcoming.
Why don't you start a thread to discuss them? Maybe you can teach us all how it should work?
I considered starting a new thread, but thought this one would be easier to follow since it has the relevant background/story.
I'm just shy of 30 years as a surveyor in the profession, and I've done what I can during that time. I've served at all levels of state associations, and I've served on various licensing boards for states. I've also worked with attorneys, lobbyists, and committee chairs for, with, and on behalf of those entities.
There are 2 types of people that "want to serve": 1) those that think their service will affect change; 2) those that think their service will result in personal gain. At some point, the narcissit in each individual always wins. Not one of those people were nearly as important as they thought they were, and neither was I.
Be a good surveyor. Be competent. Have high standards and be able to meet those standards. That is what is important for promoting and growing the profession.
You can't buy that, or barter/trade to acquire it, or get someone else to do that for you.
Being dependent on 3rd party advocates is foolish because they don't have your best interest at heart. Their best interest, their livelihood is membership, dues, and more membership, and more dues.
Our best interest is "will we have a profession/job in 1, 5, 10, X years" because of what they did to us instead of what we did for ourselves.
The state was not looking to address anything. The state (legislators) would not have been involved at all, as they weren't manufacturing a problem to solve, except for being deceptively dragged into it by false claims.
Either you don't know how laws get made, or you are being disingenuous with your remarks.
Some lawmaker was pitched an idea, felt strong enough about said idea to sponsor said bill (risking personal and political capital to do so, maybe even persuading a co-sponsor?), which was run through fiscal, economic, and legislative analysis, assigned to committee, and published for everyone to see.
So, none of that happened? The state wasn't involved? At all? The legislator(s) weren't involved? At all? None of the people that got the bill published weren't involved? At all?
Surely, you jest?
These are real-world difficult decisions being made by people who are actively working to better the profession, not a bunch of armchair quarterbacks grumbling on the internet.
As evidenced by: your remarks about your group dropping a lobbyist; your group twice shutting down an opportunity to revise, refine, improve legislation; and the overall tone/bias of your description of an incident that may be hearsay...
It would not be difficult to conclude that your association, its leadership, and its members are not equipped to handle legislative endeavors successfully.
You can be butt-hurt all you like, and you can even blame it on me if it makes you feel better.
But it doesn't change the fact that your association, your leadership, and your members are out of their league.
@michigan-left Well we have similar experience. All I can say is in my involvement we retained those whose opinion/knowledge is valuable to the process, and we control them not the other way round.
Sounds like you have had representatives that control your organization or act on their own. I agree that would be a terrible way to operate.
Either you don't know how laws get made, or you are being disingenuous with your remarks.
Some lawmaker was pitched an idea, felt strong enough about said idea to sponsor said bill (risking personal and political capital to do so, maybe even persuading a co-sponsor?), which was run through fiscal, economic, and legislative analysis, assigned to committee, and published for everyone to see.
So, none of that happened? The state wasn't involved? At all? The legislator(s) weren't involved? At all? None of the people that got the bill published weren't involved? At all?
Surely, you jest?
The fact that you can get all that floating around in your head from a two sentence response tells me that your advice of having whiskey for clarity isn't all that smart. You can get to far on the other side of clarity and start making junk up. There was no statement that the legislators were not involved. As a matter of fact if that whiskey were working the way you think it does you might have been able to read the "...except for..." in my statement. It might amaze you, but there are also details about the matter that you don't know anything about because drinking whiskey doesn't make you clairvoyant. So all this BS is just made up stuff stored in your head next to the little pink elephant.
As evidenced by: your remarks about your group dropping a lobbyist; your group twice shutting down an opportunity to revise, refine, improve legislation; and the overall tone/bias of your description of an incident that may be hearsay...
I'll just address the "improve" portion of your raving as the rest is just garbage. I guess since you know it will improve legislation you must be privy to the research conducted into the matter. That is pretty impressive since several people have requested the research from the bill sponsor and still haven't received it. Amazingly enough, there was also not one single item drawn from the 'research' that was mentioned in the recording of the committee meeting to support why the bill was useful. So at this point speculating that the proposal would 'improve' the legislation is just your bias.
You can be butt-hurt all you like, and you can even blame it on me if it makes you feel better.
This one is just a bucket full of crazy. I don't know what you think you'll be blamed for, but if you next claim is "nobody understands me", I'll fall over laughing.
By the way, racketeering is an actual criminal act that covers many different things. If the state surveying societies were doing so, they would not be continuing for very long as there would be someone with an overinflated ego who thinks they know better than everyone else (although I can hardly imagine such a person might exist) that would have already gotten an investigation going on that front.
