To: Joe Chargualaf
Lemon Lake and the Red ROC Disc Golf Club
We petition the PDGA to withdraw their support of Lemon Lake and the Svitkos including rescinding their designation as the Midwest PDGA Disc Golf Development Center. We further petition the PDGA to partner with the Red ROC Disc Golf Club at Lemon Lake as we spent 14 years building the 4 Championship courses as well as a multitude of other area courses.
Why is this important?
After 14 years, thousands of man-hours and dollars the Red ROC Disc Golf Club successfully built 4 championship disc golf courses at Lemon Lake County Park in NW Indiana. Jay and Deb Svitko conspired to wrest control of this complex from the Red ROC Disc Golf Club in 2013 and they were successful in no small part because we, as a club were exhausted from that effort and successfully hosting 2 World Championships in 3 years. The Svitkos are on a mission to re-write history in their favor and have taken credit for our accomplishments. They do NOT help Grow the Sport and need to be removed.
The Red ROC Disc Golf Club started the first course at Lemon Lake (red) in 1998. Over the next 14 years we expanded it to the complex it was in 2013 with a multitude of volunteers herded by Hall of Famer Brian Cummings. We designed all the courses, built the paths, installed tee signs and ran tournaments and leagues there all those years. We paid for built and installed all the benches on the course. We paid for many of the concrete teepads when the parks dept ran out of money and poured them all....96 teepads in 5ish years.
Long time club member Jay Svitko and his wife were voted off the worlds steering committee (they were self appointed) in early 2013 (unanimously) but continued to act in that capacity without authorization of the club or the tournament director Brian Cummings. We were always 1 step behind and very frustrated as we were juggling the 2013 Worlds including course prep and the multitude of tasks that go into running an event of that magnitude....our 2nd Pro Worlds in 3 years. Push was coming to shove and angry words were exchanged but as the Worlds was rapidly approaching cooler heads prevailed and for the good of the event we chose to engage in that battle after the worlds. By then it was to late. The 'Flight Center' was supposed to be a club store but suddenly it was Jay and Debs store (this coincided with both of them suddenly being unexpectedly unemployed). The parks manager is mainly interested in the path of least resistence and her immediate superior in the parks dept retired in 2013 as did her boss about a year prior. Brian and the exhausted club took some time away from Lemon Lake after the worlds and the new parks dept folks aligned with Jay and Deb...possession being 9/10ths of the law and the new people at the parks department were only hearing from the Svitkos.
They won't allow us to run leagues there (they called the police once when we tried) let alone tournaments. They took over all the tournaments we ran by name and made them there own. They started the Indiana Disc Golf Museum because Indiana disc golfers would not let them have the Indiana Disc Golf Hall of Fame. There should be SOMETHING in the museum for Brian and the club but there isn't. Brian installed his first course in NW Indiana in 1986 and MANY more. Since our ouster from Lemon Lake the RRDGC has continued to grow the sport by installing more courses and continuing to improve the ones already in the ground. Freedom Park in Lowell , Rivers Edge in Munster, Riverside in Hammond, Purdue Calumet in Hammond, LRCA Church Camp in Winfield, Countryside in Portage, and 50 Acre Park in Evergreen Park, IL are some of the courses we've built and developed since 2012.
The courses at Lemon Lake are being poorly maintained according to the standards we set as a club. If you played in one of our Worlds (2010 and 2013) and played again in the Masters (2018) you would notice the deterioration.
Browse the posts in the petition for some first hand accounts of basic disc golf codes being broken ie: Call the Number on the Disc Before You Put it in Your Used Disc Bin....
When the PDGA awarded Lemon Lake a $5000 grant and the title of 'PDGA Midwest Development Center' in 2015? Brian Cummings was not invited to the ceremony....the architect of the complex. This award went to folks that don't play disc golf, the Svitkos.
This is an excerpt from my recent email to the current PDGA Director:
Below is a quote from a recent PDGA news letter. I take issue with the untruths propagated in this statement. The heart and soul of Lemon Lake are Brian Cummings and the Red ROC Club members that built it over a 14 year span. Jay and Deb's hostile takeover occurred after and during the 2013 Worlds. They've run about 6 tournaments a year for less than 5 years not 'well over 100 tournaments'. They did NOT run the 2010 Worlds and the 2013 Worlds. If Jay and Deb are your soul source of information than you are being mislead and engaging in shoddy journalism.
"US Masters Brings PDGA Major Back To Lemon Lake
Lemon Lake County Park and the Lemon Lake Flight Center in Crown Point, Indiana, have seen more than their fair share of high-level PDGA events. In the last decade alone, Jay and Deb Svitko, the heart and soul of the complex, have run well over 100 tournaments, including multiple A-tiers, dozens of B- and C-tiers, and the 2010 and 2013 PDGA Professional Disc Golf World Championships."
The Red ROC Disc Golf Club started the first course at Lemon Lake (red) in 1998. Over the next 14 years we expanded it to the complex it was in 2013 with a multitude of volunteers herded by Hall of Famer Brian Cummings. We designed all the courses, built the paths, installed tee signs and ran tournaments and leagues there all those years. We paid for built and installed all the benches on the course. We paid for many of the concrete teepads when the parks dept ran out of money and poured them all....96 teepads in 5ish years.
Long time club member Jay Svitko and his wife were voted off the worlds steering committee (they were self appointed) in early 2013 (unanimously) but continued to act in that capacity without authorization of the club or the tournament director Brian Cummings. We were always 1 step behind and very frustrated as we were juggling the 2013 Worlds including course prep and the multitude of tasks that go into running an event of that magnitude....our 2nd Pro Worlds in 3 years. Push was coming to shove and angry words were exchanged but as the Worlds was rapidly approaching cooler heads prevailed and for the good of the event we chose to engage in that battle after the worlds. By then it was to late. The 'Flight Center' was supposed to be a club store but suddenly it was Jay and Debs store (this coincided with both of them suddenly being unexpectedly unemployed). The parks manager is mainly interested in the path of least resistence and her immediate superior in the parks dept retired in 2013 as did her boss about a year prior. Brian and the exhausted club took some time away from Lemon Lake after the worlds and the new parks dept folks aligned with Jay and Deb...possession being 9/10ths of the law and the new people at the parks department were only hearing from the Svitkos.
They won't allow us to run leagues there (they called the police once when we tried) let alone tournaments. They took over all the tournaments we ran by name and made them there own. They started the Indiana Disc Golf Museum because Indiana disc golfers would not let them have the Indiana Disc Golf Hall of Fame. There should be SOMETHING in the museum for Brian and the club but there isn't. Brian installed his first course in NW Indiana in 1986 and MANY more. Since our ouster from Lemon Lake the RRDGC has continued to grow the sport by installing more courses and continuing to improve the ones already in the ground. Freedom Park in Lowell , Rivers Edge in Munster, Riverside in Hammond, Purdue Calumet in Hammond, LRCA Church Camp in Winfield, Countryside in Portage, and 50 Acre Park in Evergreen Park, IL are some of the courses we've built and developed since 2012.
The courses at Lemon Lake are being poorly maintained according to the standards we set as a club. If you played in one of our Worlds (2010 and 2013) and played again in the Masters (2018) you would notice the deterioration.
Browse the posts in the petition for some first hand accounts of basic disc golf codes being broken ie: Call the Number on the Disc Before You Put it in Your Used Disc Bin....
When the PDGA awarded Lemon Lake a $5000 grant and the title of 'PDGA Midwest Development Center' in 2015? Brian Cummings was not invited to the ceremony....the architect of the complex. This award went to folks that don't play disc golf, the Svitkos.
This is an excerpt from my recent email to the current PDGA Director:
Below is a quote from a recent PDGA news letter. I take issue with the untruths propagated in this statement. The heart and soul of Lemon Lake are Brian Cummings and the Red ROC Club members that built it over a 14 year span. Jay and Deb's hostile takeover occurred after and during the 2013 Worlds. They've run about 6 tournaments a year for less than 5 years not 'well over 100 tournaments'. They did NOT run the 2010 Worlds and the 2013 Worlds. If Jay and Deb are your soul source of information than you are being mislead and engaging in shoddy journalism.
"US Masters Brings PDGA Major Back To Lemon Lake
Lemon Lake County Park and the Lemon Lake Flight Center in Crown Point, Indiana, have seen more than their fair share of high-level PDGA events. In the last decade alone, Jay and Deb Svitko, the heart and soul of the complex, have run well over 100 tournaments, including multiple A-tiers, dozens of B- and C-tiers, and the 2010 and 2013 PDGA Professional Disc Golf World Championships."