Yesterday I wrote an endorsement for a candidate for USAT Triathlon's board of directors. I endorsed Lew Kidder in the Central Region.

That has created a bit of a row over on our forum, and a letter to me from a competing candidate. Democracy at work.

I like it when candidates take their ideas to the people. It's not overly helpful, however, to speak in generalities. The large former Austrian running for governor of my fair state, for example, says, "I cannot be bought," and "I'm going to Sacramento to clean house." That's nice, but what does that really mean?

So here's a sample platform. Nothing set in stone, nothing too thought out, but more than, "I want to make our sport more fair and safe," or "I want to increase triathlon's rate of participation."

Here are five thoughts I had this morning, with resolutions attached. Try them on for size:

1. The "race experience' is too expensive. Our one-day license fee of $9 is outrageous considering the raw cost to fund that insurance (not even a third of that amount). Add this fact: the roughly $4 million in revenues our federation takes in will exceed costs by more than $1 million. So let us engineer our one-day fees to appear reasonable, and to pay back RDs who keep their entry fees down.

RESOLUTION: The one-day license fee should be equal to 10% of the RD's entry fee charged one month prior to the event, not to exceed $10. (Examples: RD charges $145, your one-day license is $10, RD charges $80, your one-day fee is $8. RD charges $55, it's $5.50).

2. We need new races. There is a shortage of races in many areas of the country, requiring athlete registration many months in advance, the closing out of races too early, and the driving up of entry fees.

RESOLUTION: A grant system will be enacted for new races taking place in new venues. These grants will not be for additional races in the same venue, but for brand new races on courses in which there is no current race. There will be a given number of awards each year, depending on the funding the board devotes to this program. (Example: $10 per head of race finishers for 50 qualifying venues). "Qualifying" means entirely new venues and new races, with a predetermined set of "A" standards having been met (including, but not limited to, a given number of port-a-johns per number of athletes; results posted in a given time frame; sufficient number of officials; and results turned in to USAT for ranking purposes).

3. Our federation is not doing much to help RDs drive down the cost of racing. In fact, it's doing the opposite. By acting as a one-stop solution, USAT is offering free insurance to RDs, who then pass that cost along to end-users. That's fine, except that the cost passed along is well in excess of the cost of the insurance. In other words, if the RD went out and got his own policy, he could charge an extra $5 and not require that non-USAT annual members pay $9. The net result is that races cost more. This is eminently forgivable, however, if USAT were to help RDs offset the cost of extra insurance by saving them money somewhere else. USAT needs to spend a LOT more time and money making racing easier, cheaper, more profitable, and less risky for RDs. As it is now, the "How to be an RD" series on Slowtwitch has no analog on USAT's site. That's silly. How is that almost 20 years after its inception our national federation is doing nothing to help prospective or current RDs put on a race?

RESOLUTION: Stop pushing RDs to USAT sponsors for goods and services. Ferret out, and publish, the cheapest sources for swim caps, race numbers, banners, swim buoys, cones, barricades, water bottles, finish line inflatables, and so forth. Use USAT's clout to make special deals with the manufacturers of these goods, and also for services (Examples: online registration is a big expense for an RD. There are several companies offering this service. Has USAT worked to drive down the cost of online registration, passing this along to the RD? Has it found the cheapest source for swim caps, or race buoys, alerting RDs of their existence?).

4. We ought to be spending a LOT of money on our sport's Race Director Congress. Historically, USAT has required that this be self-liquidating, that is, that money taken in from RDs equal money paid for the congress. Teaching RDs, in a convention setting, how to put on races; alerting them to the best deals on goods and services; and inviting those goods/services vendors to attend; ought to be a very high priority. USAT has to spend money on certain initiatives. How about funding one or two fewer mid-level pros who'll never medal in an international competition anyway, and putting that money into a first-class RD congress?

RESOLUTION: Generate a first class congress. Spend what needs to be spent. Don't worry about breaking even. If you build it, they will come (and if the congress is good enough, RDs from other endurance sports milieu will attend as well).

5. Races that fill seven months in advance don't need USAT's help. Brand new races do. What is USAT doing to help these races survive and flourish?

RESOLUTION: Create a first-year race schedule and trumpet that to USAT members. Instead of simply using USAT's magazine to pump up the numbers in USAT's national championships and worlds qualifiers, use the magazine, and the website, and flash emails, to alert members of first-year races.

As you can see from these five sample resolutions, they're skewed toward helping RDs put on races more inexpensively. This benefits you. Wouldn't you rather spend $60 for a triathlon instead of $160 for a race of that same distance? I would.

How about voting in a candidate who understands that, and has the intuition and initiative to make that happen?

A dozen years ago an inneffective board of directors made bad decisions, and our sport shrank to a third of its former size in five short years. We're in danger of doing it again. No one person can stop that from happening. But a very few thousand annual members can.