ORTA leadership at its very best -- WOW, do they know how to IMPRESS!!!

Dennis Leone to Ron Catron, April 11, 2007
Subject: Re: LetterTo The ORTA Executive Committee

Thank you, Ron, for sending me a copy of the letter you wrote to ORTA. Here are 3 other amazing things regarding this issue:

1. I asked ORTA publications director Tom Seamon to please tell me why I wasn't informed that ORTA expected me to keep secret any column I write until AFTER ORTA publishes it. ORTA could not accept the fact that in the 6-8 weeks I am supposed to wait for it to appear in print (after I submitted it) that I shared with some retirees and RTAs that asked me to speak. The point is that I was never told about any gag order..........had I been told, I would have agreed, even though the whole notion is silly. I have not received a response to my question.

2. I asked ORTA President Don Bright if the rejection decision could be reconsidered given the above. He never responded. I also told him that I felt either he or Ann Hanning could have shown a little respect by calling me regarding this entire matter. In fact, neither has contacted me about anything in my first 19 months on the STRS Board -- not about any of the motions and initiatives I pushed for and advanced.

3. I asked ORTA's Ann Hanning, in writing, if I could write another column as a substitute since this one was rejected. No response. This is proof to me that ORTA really did not want to publish what I wrote in the first place.

I recall when I wrote my first column, ORTA had a disclaimer notice next to my column -- saying that my comments did not reflect an ORTA position. However, when fellow retiree Jeff Chapman wrote his column three months earlier, there was no such disclaimer statement with his column. After I complained about this, ORTA then put a disclaimer statement with Chapman's second column.

Dennis Leone