When someone becomes commodore (or obtains any position of power & authority), their true nature is revealed. The good begin to help those around them, while the less scrupulous start abusing their new-found authority. Who saw Lukas's speech at the Tsong Marina inauguration? He sounded more like a politician than a grad student in M.E. Abusing the less powerful while simultaneously pandering to those above him, Lukas knows where his bread is buttered.
Other past commodores have also committed abuses, though in some cases they were not criminal acts--the commodore simply took advantage of the position and its inherent authority.
It would be in the club's interest to have a mechanism for investigating allegations against the commodore, and the ability to remove him/her if the allegations are supported. That means a procedure that won't expose honest individuals to retaliation. In theory, the club's constitution allows a recall, but that rule has never been tested and requires the participation of more general "club" members than have ever been together in the same room, making it a something of sham.
The Union can remove the commodore for various reasons (or no reason at all, just as the U.S. president can recall an ambassador at any time) and has done so in the past, although the Union doesn't like to get involved unless there's something in it for them. In fact, there is an official Wis. Union policy that covers the "Hoofer coup," as it has come to be known.
The policy reads: "He grabbed me from behind and slipped his hand down my..." Oh wait, that's from a complaint about something else. Here's the policy. It says "Dear Mom, I can't pretend to be straight any longer..." Oh wait, dang, that's from something else that I also found on the Hoofer computers. What the heck are people doing in here late at night? Okay, here's the policy. It says the Union can remove the commodore, or pretty much any other Hoofer employee, for any reason as long as it's not discriminatory. (If it is discriminatory, then they need to come up with an excuse that doesn't sound like discrimination.)
It's too late to remove Duddleston as commodore, but he can still be removed from the BOC. If anyone else witnessed inappropriate acts by him over the past year-plus, share the details here or on Facebook. Especially things like bad-mouthing people behind their backs that are easy for the commodore and other club leaders to perpetrate. Has Lukas dropped out of grad school yet? If not, that might be grounds to remove him--no one could possibly do an adequate job as webmaster while also working as a grad student in engineering.
The fact that the BOC must be led by students means in essence that club leaders will be inadequate for the job. This isn't the crayfish club, after all. It's the largest quasi-student-run "club" in Wisconsin.
NOTE: Lukas Duddleston is a current and former state employee and former presiding officer of the Hoofer Sailing Club, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
