[Rob Colatutto]

I don't know which regional this is refering to, but I know the regional that I was a ref at the past weekend did have other non-scheduled refs since most (all but 2) of the scheduled refs did not show up and thus we had 5 friday and 4 on saturday when FIRST recomends 6 as the bare minimum. I also know that at SBPLI there was only one match where a penalty flag changed the outcome of the match. This was in a quarterfinals match when team 467's driver had jumped forward and grabbed the joysticks during autonomous mode and there was no robot near that would have cauded the controls to fall down, so a 10pt flag was thrown for the advantage gained. The match ended up being 30 to 20 then and the penalized team lost, but hey, thats how things go and the team agreed with the call after they found out what the penalty flag was given for. Other than that one match all the teams who had flags still won or lost by more than the worth of thier flags, so no outcomes were affected and no one was upset to the extent that I was made aware of.
The rules do say that all ref decissions are final and during the match after any flag was given the head ref asked us what for and then approved them, so all decissions were official. Also, the event staff knew of all the refs who worked with in the past or were working with a team currently since SBPLI is a very home-grown regional once you have been there a few times you get known by the judges/regional dirrectors.
I know we were consistant with our flags throughout the regional and only a few flags were given out at the regional in comparrison with some other regionals I have heard about this year.
At SBPLI all of the refs were being fair, went by the rules and ref notes, and treated every team the same. No single team was given penalties for something another team was not given one for. If things went different at your regional, I'm sorry but all team obligations/pasts are known by the regional dirrectors and is approved of when people are permitted to ref and the rules do say that ref calls are final so you will just have to watch yourselves more carefully in the future. Also, did you ever try consulting this ref that you were having a problem with or go to the regional dirrector about it?
I'm not sure if the general attendants to regionals are aware of this, but after the friday of regionals, all the flags given out and penalties are reviewed by the head of all refs and then he comments to the regional head ref on what to change or if anything needs to be done differently. Controversial rulings are also sent back to him and he gives his final say on what the true ruling will be in the future, but advises the regional to continue ruling things the same way as they have been and to stay consistent through the regional. There are also a set of revised rulings that the event refs get for making decissions that not everyone gets to see and so you could be confused about one of the fine print rules that were in this book that your team did not see. In all, I'm sure the ref's ruling was fair and untill FIRST makes some 'mandatory' requirements for ref positions, things are as stands and you should have resolved the issue before the event started if it was that much of a worry to your team.