Curtis 2nd Resp To Buser Resp; Re Col Dispatch; Gifts From Drug Companies

From Tom Curtis

11/19/05

Hello Steve,

Thank you for responding once again, concerning this very important issue. Your comments are thoughtful and forthright, as I would hope they would be. I hope I will receive feedback from each of the 11 board members on this issue, as it must be dealt with soon and put to bed, so the board can move on to the plethora of other issues that need attention. I hope my input will at some point be considered to be of value, by each and every board member and not just by a few. I know from your comments to the CORE group and me, you realize that we wish to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, but I genuinely feel that is not the case for others on the board. I believe CORE has been labeled as a problem by the OEA, ORTA and the STRS staff and board, which is simply untrue.

In my opinion, I truly believe that statements by the leadership of the three organizations I mentioned above to be purely POLITICAL. None of these people ever back up their negative rhetoric about CORE. That type of behavior is purely politically motivated, not true fact. These leaders want to have all of the power and credit for the good things that come about, but are in denial about their own inadequacies, as I believe you are fully aware. The OEA leadership has been and will continue to be upset that they no longer hold control of the board, as they did for far too many years. The OEA leadership has taken NO responsibility for the utter mess their five or more prior executive committee members, who sat on the board, have handed this new board. Each of those past board members left the board feeling they had done nothing wrong. That is true denial in my mind. I guess it will take indictments by the OEC to confirm that was the case.

The OEA leadership vehemently liabled Dennis Leone for writing his initial paper asking for reform of the STRS. They have never retracted any of their hurtful and maligning remarks made about that report, nor have they offered any apologies. In my opinion, the OEA's greatest concerned is about continuing the dedicated flow of income they receive from the active teachers. The leadership simply wants to continue to be paid very well, far above those they represent. To my knowledge, the OEA leadership has never had to be accountable for their spending. When they ran low on funds, the membership had to be more forthcoming with a greater dues structure. That type of thinking is pure union philosophy.

Again, CORE wishes nothing more then to be part of the solution. If we are constantly ignored and labeled as malcontents, then we can never be part of the solution and that is a very sad scenario.

It is my thought that if this issue of taking gifts from vendors could be discussed and thought out by email, it might help to reduce the amount of time for discussion once a motion would be made, received a second and discussed by the board. I hope each board member will respond, we shall see.

I realize this type of communication can be very time consuming for those that already have a full plate, but the membership has never felt as though they had an open avenue concerning discussion with board members. Board meeting time is precious and need not be filled with discussion about an issue that few other board members have knowledge of prior to the motion being made. How else are board members able to know what the people they represent are truly thinking, if they are unwilling to take the time to correspond with the membership.

CORE has tried another avenue, because the prior board would not respond to our questions. CORE asked for and was granted a monthly, two-hour meeting at first, with Damon Asbury and his executive staff. I chaired many of those initial meetings. I quickly found the meetings were mostly one-sided. We asked questions and desired detailed answers. Damon and staff only provided part of the story, much of the time. The result, we left with inadequate information. We then disseminated that information to the membership as best we understood it. We soon found Damon and his staff was criticizing us for attempting to distort the information they provided us. Which, if we did, we usually did because we were not given complete explanations. They attempted to discredit each of us in various statements made to us personally, through correspondence or in newspaper releases. The final blow was when Joe Endry, the chairman of the board, labeled us as a bunch of "malcontents." That shows just how unwilling these leaders were to utilize us as a resource. I really do not think the STRS executive staff feels we should have all of the information about many issues or topics. That is why after about 6 of those CORE/STRS meetings I resigned as chairperson and asked Dave Speas to accept such, which he did until he was appointed to the board by the Governor. I could not stand that type of atmosphere. They work for us, the membership, but THEY DO NOT GET IT and that has to be resolved as well.

In my opinion, the STRS leadership has worked at keeping the membership ignorant of the whole or true scope of how things have been handled. Reason being their fear of being found out. I would guess this is more then enough for now, thank you for working with the membership as we would hope each board member would due in the future. If a board member will not, we will attempt to replace them as their terms expire, because there has to be a clear line of communication between the board and the membership. Nothing else is acceptable!

Take care,
Tom Curtis


From: Steve Buser

Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005
Subject: Re: 111905 Curtis Resp To Buser Resp; Re Col Dispatch; Gifts From
Drug Companies

Dear Tom:

I agree. And I did not mean to suggest that I will not ultimately support such a policy. I just want to be sure there isn't anything we are missing on behalf of members. If it's all pluses and no minuses, it is a no brainer. - But sometimes when I think something is a no brainer, someone else shows me I am dead wrong.

By the way, my guess, and it is just a guess, is that the Board will be talking about the pluses and minuses of such a policy in the not too distant future. As for "when", I suspect Dennis and John will confirm that even though we seem to spend a lot of time on Board matters, it still takes us a long time to get to "new issues".

Steve

At 07:55 PM 11/18/2005, you wrote: Hello Steve,

I agree with what you have said and I am thankful that you would look at any decision in this manner. My only thought concerning this issue is that if an employee, or board member knows there is a "no tolerance" policy, concerning the acceptance of any kind of a gift from a vendor, one would think there would be little thought they would risk their employment and their good record by accepting such. I cannot fathom that vendors would ever stop offering gifts in order to gain business. What would be there incentive in doing so, loss of business? I don't think that would be enough to make it stop. Putting the employee or board member on notice of immediate termination would seem a far greater incentive. Does this make more sense?

Take care,

Tom Curtis