Ralph Lloyd to Tom Curtis on who votes for Montgomery, Petro & Blackwell

From Ralph Lloyd to Tom Curtis

Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 12:00 PM

Subject: Montgomery et.al.

Tom,

I really sincerely believe that anyone who votes for Montgomery, Petro, and Blackwell for whichever office they run for is either a blithering IDIOT or an escapee of the local nuthouse.

Ralph L Lloyd

Well Ralph,

Your analogy would seem to be true for those that have some knowledge about those three Republican candidates. But, for the most part, many of the people in Ohio remain ignorant of the damage these three have allowed and/or been party to, while in office for the past 10-15 years. How do you change that?

Consequently, those uninformed people possibly vote for whomever's political signs they see the most, or whatever reason they do such, without a clue as to who they are voting for. Isn't that simply pathetic?

Now, consider this?

This would be the same scenario for teachers who continue to join the OEA. They pay unreasonable dues each year, because they are required to. If they join their local union, they are required to also join the state (OEA) and national (NEA) unions. The OEA/NEA collect huge amounts of money from educators and then give it away to organizations not one bit paramount to education.

The leadership of these two unions takes home salaries, bonuses, benefits and such that are way out of the range of classroom teachers. (Gary Allen, OEA President, considering all legal peeks he is entitled to, takes home over $200,000 dollars per year. Over 100 other OEA employees take home over $100,000 dollars per year.) In otherwords, they are a parasite latched firmly to a teacher's income and will continue to be, until teachers become better informed and......Just Say NO!

It amazes me that teachers, with so much education, are led around like sheep by these two unions. I am not saying they have never done anything on behalf, because they have, but I am saying they are way over paid for their efforts and the dues are far above what they should be, if they can afford to give away millions of dollars each year.

Further and most important, the health care dilemma Ohio STRS retirees find themselves in today, is due to no other then the lack of responsibility of the leadership of the OEA and the STRS. They both promised teachers throughout they're careers that we would have a health care benefit second to none, for both our spouses and ourselves, if needed. Unfortunately, they somehow failed to fund such a plan. This being the case when they were advised to do such year after year. Why aren't teachers, both active and retired, hugely upset about this and demanding remuneration from these people?

CORE, the one organization that has been attempting to right this wrong for the past three years, once Dr. Dennis Leone and John Lazares brought this into the public eye, struggles to get the backing of the STRS membership as a whole.

Conni Ramser, who was elected to the board, by her OEA compatriots, to fill Jack Chapman's term, has attempted as vice-chair of the board to silence both Dennis Leone and John Lazares, two board members that have been elected by the membership. Conni Ramser who is OEA all the way, was appointed to the board by the OEA controlled board at that time.

Here we are (CORE), a handful of mostly STRS retirees and some actives, using our own personal funds, trying to help solve this problem for the past 3 years. A problem the OEA/STRS fiduciaries allowed to come about. They both failed their fiduciary responsibility to their membership. Yet, we are getting NO support by either the OEA/NEA/STRS in our efforts to solve this problem and call for restitution of our funds by those that willingly wasted them, when they should have been placing such in our health care stabilization fund, as did the OPERS.

All the OEA is worried about right now is the fact that they no longer control the STRS board and that is paramount to them, as it states in their by-laws. That is their main focus, their desire to continue to control the board. WHY?

After three years of holding meetings of the Health Care Advocacy Committee, which Bill Leibensperger of the OEA chairs, their recommendation is for others to pay for health care, again. How utterly ridiculous of them! This shows just how uninformed and ignorant the OEA believes their membership to be. Are they far wrong in their assumption? They act like they have been working on this problem for three years, when it is no more then a smoke screen for the fact that they did not fulfill their responsibility when they should have. If the membership and the legislature refuse to back the increases recommended by the HCAC, they can simply say, we tried but the people involved would not go along with it. They have no other plan. There is no plan B by the OEA. How encouraging!

BOTTOM LINE: The past four (Eugene Norris, Debra Scott, Jack Chapman & Hazel Sidaway) and one still active board member (Mike Billirakis), who were OEA executive committee members, are the ones responsible for this whole health care underfunding problem. They did not fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to fund the Health Care Stabilization Fund as they were repeatedly told to do, by various consultants all through the 90's.

Why are these people not being held responsible for the many misdeeds they permitted during their tenure on the board? WHY, because the retired and active teachers of today are not willing to educate themselves about this issue, band together and correct part of the problem. The time is present, when a court case against these individuals for failing their fiduciary responsibility to their membership is possible. CORE would take this legal action forward, but the membership of the STRS is not willing to fund that litigation. This would take one quarter to one-half million dollars to do.

Please pass this along to all concerned, which should be the entire STRS, membership.

Take care,

Tom Curtis

CORE Advisory Committee Member