In May, I wrote an article with the deliberately-inflammatory title I Have No Faith the USPSA Board of Directors Will Do Anything About Mike Foley. At the time, I felt like I’d been on this merry-go-round before: an incident happens, the board meets to discuss it, hems and haws for a while, and ultimately does nothing. I had no reason to think this time would be any different.

But it was. Today they announced the result of the vote to remove him from office.

In my original article, I expressed doubts about Karen Funston’s tenacity in conducting the investigation. As it was, the attached letter indicated that an outside investigator was brought in, who conducted the investigation and “concluded that it is more likely than not that Mr. Foley did conduct himself in a manner that was consistent with Mr. Cotter’s allegation.” So my doubt in that respect was not well founded.

I also expressed my skepticism that a vote would even be called, or if it were, that the 6 out of 8 votes would be found among a board that, up to that time, had seemed to be largely spineless and go along with whatever Foley wanted.

I was wrong about that too. The vote was called and came out 7-0 (with the VP abstaining because of his potential conflict of interest).

I knew there were potentially very real consequences to what I was writing, but after nothing whatsoever came about in 2018, I doubted anything would actually happen this time. But it has.

It’s regrettable that things happened this way at all. We as the membership failed to demand and organize a viable challenger in 2019, and got what we deserved for it. We shouldn’t forget that. But we can put it behind us and move forward, trying to learn the lesson and elect someone more suitable.