Tom Curtis on CORE meeting & candidates 1/19/06

From Tom Curtis
January 21, 2006

Thank you Mary Ellen and Molly,

I was so very pleased with everything that took place on Thursday with our two meetings. We had a great turn out. Blin Scatterday thanked CORE more then a few times for inviting ORTA and indicated to me that CORE & ORTA needed to be working together. He said we can get a lot more accomplished that way and I agreed. I felt his comments were sincere and feel that we have begun to put aside some of our differences. Ann Hanning also thanked CORE and complimented us on our program, as did Lou DiOrio. All three of them spent some time talking with Tom Hall afterwards. I feel as though we made two good choices in the candidates CORE endorsed. As you know, I already felt that Tom Hall was a strong candidate, but I was very impressed with Mark Fredrick, as were most others. Mark Meuser only came to find out what our questions were and who the competition was. OEA is so transparent and arrogant, but best of all, as John Curry said, they are running scared.

I verbally thanked Joyce Baldwin for all of her help numerous times the past two days. I will follow with a nice thank you to Joyce and copy to Damon. I will thank her for all of her efforts in helping us to have a very professional setting for our interview meeting room. She said she would again reserve the Sublett Room for us in February. I told her we would confirm if we needed the front section again as soon as we would know. I also thanked Matt for setting up the microphones and taking care of our audio needs. He said he found it very interesting to listen to the candidates. I will send a separate note to Damon commending Matt's fine handling of our audio needs.

I have arranged to send Joyce the other 5 candidates' names and an invitation for them to come to the STRS and speak to CORE on February 16th. She will mail a letter to each person. The letter will ask them to respond by email, phone or snail mail by the 31st to me. I will keep you informed of the responses I receive.

If all of what I have said above works for both of you, I will get those notices handled this weekend. If you have something to add, please let me know.

Mary Ellen you took great minutes. The two of you are the best! It is a pleasure volunteering with both of you. What a machine!

Sincerely, Tom Curtis