Expletive Deleted

Fighting censorship at the LLR has become a full time job. After a year of tedious emails to the LLR and AIA, we finally have a comment section on the LLR website to address the proposed regulations. It all started last August when the letter I sent to the Board was not passed along to the board members. After inquiring on the status of my request, I was told that they had somehow forgotten to put it on the agenda but offered me the chance to present it to the Board in person in November.

I was asked to send any material I was going to present to them ahead of time - by the end of October - in written and electronic form. So I did. When I arrived at the meeting, some of the material had been inexplicably left out. Being prepared for the oversight and not exactly trusting the staff, I had my own copies and handed them out to the members.

The first item we discussed was my recommendation for a comment section on the website, similar to the Virginia Town Hall, so architects could discuss proposed laws before they took effect. When the meeting minutes came out (much, much later) this request and discussion was omitted. When I wrote to ask that they amend the minutes to add my request, they never replied. When I asked for an explanation, they never answered.

After some help from the AIA, they finally agreed to add a "comment section" on the LLR website. Because notification has been poorly done, very few comments were received. Now, nearly a year later, I am still trying to get my full comments on the web.

The LLR staff treats comments from architects like questions from school children. They titled the comments section "Questions and Answers." This condescending and arrogant attitude has been tolerated for so long that most architects are numb to it. Thank you sir, may I have another.

My recommendations were published without the final paragraph, my name was deleted, and a warning header added by the staff that says these comments "were posted for review only." What? Of course comments are for review. As for the "only" part, I guess they are letting me know that they do not intend to change their minds on the regulations no matter what state architects have to say. And that's probably true.

If you're going to publish comments, for goodness sake, credit the authors and don't edit the material. It's not your place to change architect's recommendations. And another thing,the staff should not provide answers before the board discusses the questions. Laymen are not qualified to discuss architect's regulations, Jan.

I will keep trying to clean this up, get an honest discussion going and get some laws that make sense, in spite of the $#&^&!! LLR. Censor that.