On September 20, I made
a formal request to Ken Ryder to substantiate his inaccurate and deceptive
claims of costs related to my filing as a member of the Village District of
Eastman as an intervenor in hearings before the Public Utilities Commission of
New Hampshire. My filing was as a citizen of the state of New Hampshire and was
totally separate and independent of my wife's filing as a member of the Eastman
Community Association.
Mr. Ryder's efforts to
integrate any costs associated with my filings as a NH citizen are no different
then if he targeted some random citizen of Grantham. An inappropriate abuse of
power beyond his responsibilities and authority. Clearly Mr. Ryder's actions
warrant disciplinary action on the part of the ECA Board and perhaps
termination.
Date: September 20, 2014 at 10:14:57 PM GMT+2
Cc: Maynard Goldman <magold@comcast.net>, Phil Webber <webberphil@aol.com>, Beverly Austin <blaneyaustin@hotmail.com>, Karla Karash <karla@karash.com>, Morris McInnes <morris.mcinnes@comcast.net>, Sheila Shulman <sshulman@buffalo.edu>, Andrea Sodano <andysoda@yahoo.com>, Garth Rand <overcliff@comcast.net>, Peter Kershaw <peterckershaw@gmail.com>, "George Niles" <george.niles2@verizon.net>, Brian Harding <Brian@eastmannh.org>
Subject: Re: Request for Financial
details (Claimed) of PUC intervenor costs
Mr.
Ryder,
I have
received your September 20th response to my earlier request for the specific
financial details of the four separate actions required because of the Petition
by the VDE and ECA to have the VDE acquire the Eastman Sewer Company. The four
specific actions were:
1) The
filing and processing of the VDE/ECA Petition to the PUC for the
acquisition of the Sewer Company by the VDE. Previously, members of the ECA
Board and officials of the ECA community estimated that this type of
transaction cost the community $15,000.
2) Robert
Logan filed as a resident of the town of Grantham and as a member of the VDE.
My rights as a citizen of Grantham have absolutely nothing to do with the ECA.
You deliberately included whatever cost you and the ECA chose to expend in
objecting to my pursuit of my rights as an intervenor. I want to know
explicitly what those costs were as they pertain to me as a NH citizen. Under
no circumstances do you have the right to embed any VDE costs (which included the VDE Commissioners and
the VDE General Manager violating the New Hampshire State Right to Know
law) with all ECA direct costs or those the ECA perhaps required as it
pertains to members of the ECA. There was nothing whatsoever in Robert Logan's
claim that explicitly was filed against the ECA. If ECA chose to spend any
money in my filing as an intervenor versus the VDE I am entitled to know any
such costs.
3)
Geraldine Logan filed as a member of the ECA, independent of any other party.
Lumping together individuals who have totally separate claims as one cost is
misleading and improper for a General Manager and an officer of any entity to
do. If you do not recognize that in your position, you ought not to continue to
occupy that position.
4) Phil
Schaefer and others formed an entity, which filed its own petition addressing
it's own set of issues.
Again
that filing and the cost thereof are separate and independent.
In my
correspondence to you, I stated that you had discriminated against us,
specifically my wife and I. I believe the aforementioned facts lay out
explicitly much of the reason why I made that statement and why I consider it
valid particularly given the fact that you have now refused unequivocally to
give me the specific data to which I, my wife and others are entitled to:
·
the
proper accounting of the claimed costs for the specific FOUR (4) separate
PUC actions on the part of the ECA.
Given
the four separate actions I have enumerated above, you as an Eastman salaried
official have a responsibility to enumerate the explicit actions of the four
actions for which ECA money was spent. Failure to do so is a failure to fulfill
your responsibility. If you are unable to fulfill your responsibilities then
you ought to resign.
Demonstrating
a totally different approach to accounting and financial reports, you have
produced a claimed “Golf Income Statement”. That statement, among other things,
extracts the cost of payroll taxes, benefits etc. of direct golf employees who
work exclusively on the golf course, in the pro shop or on the golf grounds
from the claimed “Golf Income Statement”. This approach extracts explicit
golf costs for the purposes of deceiving ECA members into the unsubstantiated
claim that ECA golf makes a profit. When you use two different accounting reports
based on totally different and opposite assumptions, you are being
discriminatory in one of the financial statements and against the parties who
are victims of your differentiating accounting approaches.
In the
PUC case, you lumped together costs of separate individual actions as well as
the process of the PUC filing. In the Golf Income statement financial report,
you have extracted direct costs to create an artificial profit.
Perhaps
you are familiar with Jeffrey Skilling who did essentially the same thing with
financial reports, deceiving Enron employees and Enron owners based on
financial statements that were not acceptable by any generally accepted
accounting practice. Skilling however somehow got Arthur Anderson to
approve those financial statements as being acceptable for GAAP purposes. You
on the other hand failed GAAP this year-- another indication of your
inadequacies in your position. Appropriately in Skilling’s case, two other
officials including Ken Lay were found guilty. In the Eastman case who else is
culpable?
1) Are the members of the
Finance and Budget Committee culpable because they supposedly oversee Eastman’s
financial reports?
2) Are the members of the
Audit Committee culpable because they approved the Auditor’s Report and to my
knowledge chose to do nothing?
3) To what extent are ECA
Board Members culpable, now that they are fully aware because of my postings
and correspondence with you?
4) If indeed the new Council
Chair, George Niles is a CPA, to what extent is he culpable given the ethics
requirements of a CPA? Mr. Niles is well aware that considerable sums well in
excess of the already defined $750,000 have been spent on the Center. Of course
Mr. Niles is not alone in his knowledge of those sums-- so too are all the
Board Members, some members of the Finance and Budget Committee and assumedly
the Audit Committee.
Are all
of the above parties negligent in their responsibility as it pertains to
demanding that all significant sums spent on the Center in FY 2011, 2012
and 2013 be provided to community members?
You have
stated ".... by the Board of Directors who I am responsible to....".
If indeed that is the case, then there are about 1440 ECA owners who need to
know you are not responsible to them. Let's be very clear about that Ken-- we
are paying you and if you are not responsible to us then we need to get rid of
the people who have taken that responsibility away from us.
I
do realize that Maynard Goldman is proud of the fact that he does not have to
comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley or with the NH Right to Know law. Regardless, it
is time the general public as well as the New Hampshire Real Estate Board began
to become aware of how poorly financially, Eastman is run. Poor or no ethics may
not be a crime, however it demonstrates a total lack of respect for a
constituency.
Respectfully,
Bob Logan
On Sep
20, 2014, at 8:44 AM, Ken Ryder wrote:
Mr. Logan,
My report to
Council in January 2014 was requested at the September 2013 Council Meeting
(see last page of the attached Council minutes). At no time during my
presentation in January (see attached power point slide) did I mention the
name(s) of any intervener in the matter before the PUC. When I was
specifically asked by a Council member who the intervener’s were, I referred
the Council member to the PUC website which as you know, is a matter of public
record. Your assertion that my intent was an “…attempt to improperly
discriminate against us as members..” is not true. My intent was to
provide a summary of information that was requested by a member of the
community during a Council meeting (see attached Council Minutes). The
chart I displayed at the January 2014 Council meeting and my statements only
stated the facts on what had been expended.
Since you
addressed this email to me, I am not going to address Mr. Goldman’s statement
in Happenings. As the General Manager of Eastman, I’m not responsible for
the content of communications from the Board of Directors or any individual
Board members.
I have
attached invoices related to direct expenditures from the ECA’s General Fund
related to the transfer of the Sewer Company to VDE. Unless directed to
do so by the Board of Directors who I am responsible to, I have no intention of
detailing those invoices as you have requested. I do not believe it is
necessary to expend additional Association resources necessary for me to
provide you the level of detail you have requested.
Respectfully,
Ken
Ken Ryder,
General Manager / CEO
Eastman
Community Association
Contributed by Bob Logan who is the CEO of a
consulting practice since 1993 which provides expertise on improved business,
financial and operational performance as well as leadership.
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