A reply to "Scott Is Not For NYCC"

Last time: what's possible with a member-built rides app. Read it here.

Two candidates, YJ Chen and Bob Gilbert, have posted a letter about me at https://scottisnotfornycc.site/. They're right that members should hear both sides before voting. Here is mine, point by point, with dates you can check.

"Though invited to contribute, Scott refused."

I offered, more than once, and was kept out each time.

• In November 2024, three other volunteer engineers and I wrote to Michael Diener that the project had made virtually no progress in five months, and offered to help fix it. No board minutes mention the letter, and nothing changed.
• In January 2025 I posted a working rides app, with the club's ride history loaded, in the club's Discord. Colin Taber asked that the discussion move "offline, and not out here confusing everyone."
• In spring 2026 a director voted for more website money and asked that I, the elected Webmaster, oversee the project. Colin answered that I was too disruptive and not welcome. After that I was no longer invited to web committee meetings, and lost access to the project's workspace.

They want the labor, not the judgment.

Every time I gave the project my judgment, it was right, and the fix went in. My review of the paid developer's code found flaws that would have let any paying member change what they pay or take over the site. Their letter calls that "enabling a broken CI step." The tests were failing because the code had drifted from them, and that is what tests are for. Michael now tells the board that "every change must pass those tests."

What was turned down was the judgment itself: a say in what gets built and what it costs. The letter asks the Technology Director to "disagree and commit." Commitment comes after a decision you had a part in, not one made in a room you've been asked to leave.

Fixing a paid vendor's work for free.

Bob writes that the club required "a company, not an individual." The club paid that company. Since 2023 the website has cost $198,712. I had told the project in writing, in November 2024 and again in October 2025, that the work was not up to standard. A volunteer's job is to hold a paid vendor to what the club paid for, not to finish the vendor's work for free.

The letter says I refused to meet the developer to confirm the security issues. That's true. I wrote the issues up. Confirming and fixing them is what the club pays a commercial firm to do.

"If we did not migrate, we would not have one now."

The Drupal site had to be replaced. I have never argued otherwise. The question was how, and there were options:

• The November 2024 offer from four volunteer engineers.
• A working rides app, free to the club, from January 2025.
• In January 2026, Michael himself wrote to me that he'd like to explore "immediately stopping work on the Membership App" and putting all product and design effort into mine.

At the February 2026 board meeting, the board heard both presentations. The minutes record no vote. They say "Members were encouraged to work collaboratively."

Their letter now says Michael builds improvements with AI tools "at no cost to the club beyond our Claude subscription." That is the approach I brought to the board in February.

"Using club data without permission."

I was the club's elected Webmaster, and I asked the director responsible. In January 2025, shown the ride history app with the club's rides loaded, Michael wrote that it was "perfect as a stand-alone Ride History app." In October 2025 I asked him, "Do I have permission to use the NYCC look/style," and he answered "Makes sense." On Discord this week, Michael called the ride history app something "we had been collaborating on." It can't be a joint project and an unauthorized one.

I posted about tools.nycc.org, on the club's own domain, in the club's Discord in August, with board members active in the same channel. When I was asked in October to take it down, I did.

"Withholding GitHub admin access."

Michael already has admin on the website's code, the one project he works on, plus billing admin and the budget alerts. What I declined to do was make him an owner of everything else the club keeps there. I proposed what the club should do instead: list its critical systems, decide who decides access, and consider an outside IT firm as the second admin, so access follows policy rather than whoever wins an election.

My reason is security, not personality: code Michael wrote recently has security flaws, which I've raised with the President.

I've told the board in writing that if I lose, I'll hand every system I hold to Michael and the new Webmaster the day after the results, and help the new Webmaster get up to speed.

What I got wrong.

The letter says I never admit fault. Here are mine. In July I had club ride listings on nyc-rides.bike, a domain I own personally. That was a mistake, and I took it down the day I was asked. A bad API key of mine delayed Escape New York refunds; it was fixed the next day.

The full record, with sources, is at scottfornycc.site/the-record. If anything there is wrong, tell me at scottfornycc.site/help, and I'll correct it.

Voting runs Oct 30 to 5pm Nov 10. Log in to the club's ride site and look for the voting banner.

Scott