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Date: 01 Jan 2009 06:14:28
From: samsloan
Subject: Questions for Candidates for the Board
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On Jan 1, 5:03 am, John Hillery wrote:
> Bunkum. The status of the building has been discussed ad nauseam on
> the USCF Forum.
That is not the answer to the question. This question came up at every
meeting of the board that I attended and no conclusive answer was ever
provided.
At the Stillwater Meeting on May 17-18, 2007, Bill Hall reported that
he had met with the Mayor of Crossville, J, H. Graham, in response to
our demand at the previous meeting that he do exactly that, and that
the mayor would not agree for us to sell the building. However, he
said that we could "burn it out" over the next 15 years. In other
words, provided that we stayed in Crossville for 15 years, he would
agree to let us sell "our" building.
As I was not satisfied with that answer, I made a motion that I had
also made at other meetings and that I had also said I would do when I
campaigned for election that the USCF retain counsel in Nashville (not
in Crossville) to make a determination and advise us as to our rights
to sell the building should we choose to do so. The other board
members refused to agree because attorneys cost money. Finally Joel
Channing agreed, provided that the attorney would cost no more than
$500. I said OK in that I case I move that the board retain counsel at
a cost of no more than $500. At first Joel Channing seemed to agree
but then he changed his mind and said that $500 was too much to spend
to see what our rights were with respect to a building supposedly
worth $650,000.
So, my motion was voted down 6-1.
So, we still do not know what our rights are with respect to the
building.
> There aren't any secrets about it. The LMA money was
> spent on operating expenses, as you can easily see from the annual
> financials. Bad management, but hardly a conspiracy.
Not so fast. For example, I discovered an unauthorized payment of
$13,356.36 to Susan Polgar made in November 2003 while Bill Goichberg
was executive director that neither the president nor the 2003 board
had known about or would have agreed with had they known about it.
There was then and still are no documents supporting this payment of
$13,358.36. Bill Goichberg still blames this on a low level clerk
named Linda even though Goichberg signed the check. That was the
biggest single check Goichberg ever signed while he was Executive
Director, so he certainly should have noticed it.
Any documentation supporting that payment would have been on the
laptop computer that Paul and Susan took from the USCF''s offices on
August 20, 2003. Goichberg still has not taken appropriate measures to
get that laptop computer back.
This is only a small part of a much bigger problem. In every year for
the years 1999-2003 which was when most of the $2 million was lost,
the delegates passed a budget calling for a surplus. Also, the
financial statements for the end of each of those years showed a minor
but affordable loss.
Nevertheless, by the end of 2003 it was discovered that the $2 million
that had been in the Oberweiss Fund according to the 1999 financial
statements was completely gone and missing by 2003, only four years
later.
Saying that it was due to "operating losses" does not answer the
question. What operating losses, when, where and why?
Why cannot we find out the answer to these questions?
We have recently learned that Frank Niro had the bad habit of playing
in extremely high stakes poker games in Foxwoods Casino where, he
reports on his website, a player lost $37,000 in a single hand of
poker in a game in which Frank Niro was playing. Was any of the USCF's
$2 million lost in high stakes poker games? We would like to know.
>Drug testing:
> Well, I actually agree with you about that, but how does this relate
> to "secret meetings"? I doubt the Board has even thought about this
> recently, except perhaps when Sloan was making a pest of himself.
When John Hillary said that I was "making a pest of himself", he
refers to the fact that when I was on the board for one year I
regularly reported to the outside world what had happened in the
closed sessions, even though they had been closed.
In fact, during my one year on the board there was never a discussion
in closed session of either of the two issues that are legitimate
closed session items, namely litigation and personnel issues.
Litigation never came up because there was no litigation involving the
USCF while I was on the board.
The current litigation is a direct and foreseeable consequence of
things done by Bill Goichberg and Bill Hall without board knowledge or
approval while I was on the board or, in some cases, before I got on
the board
Personnel costs and issues never came up because we never were able to
get even a list of all the people working for the USCF and what their
job duties were. Bill Hall refused to provide that information even
though I persistently asked for it, which is one of the reasons why
John Hillery says that I was "making a pest of myself".
To this day we still do not know how many people are working for the
USCF and how many consultants there are. Saying "look it up in Chess
Life" is not the answer, because Chess Life does not answer this
question.
So, perhaps the board can answer the questions now: How many employees
and contractors does the USCF have? Do you know the answer to this
question? (I doubt that the board knows, even today.) If you do know,
why cannot you tell us, the dues paying members?
Sam Sloan
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Date: 01 Jan 2009 20:41:20
From: Rob
Subject: Re: Questions for Candidates for the Board
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On Jan 1, 8:56=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 1, 8:47=A0pm, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > The land in Crossville cannot be sold, since we got
> > it for free. The building can be sold only to a business that meets
> > the zoning restrictions, which in practice probably means it can't be
> > sold -- which is utterly irrelevant, since the USCF is not going to
> > sell the building any time in the near future. (Are you still under
> > the delusion that the office is going to move back to New Windsor?)
>
> > What's really depressing is that, even after your one-year clown show,
> > there were still ~600 people willing to vote for you in 2007. Chess
> > makes you smart? I guess not.
>
> This is exactly my point. The land in Crossville cannot be sold and
> neither can the building we built on it.
>
> Since we are not allowed to sell it, we do not really own it.
>
> So, why are we carrying it on the books as an asset?
>
> And why was not this investigated before we built the building there?
>
> Sam Sloan
Samantha,
You wouldn't understand them even if it was described to you with
pictures.(unless they were of the same variety as the bondage cartoons
on your website.)
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Date: 01 Jan 2009 18:56:05
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Questions for Candidates for the Board
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On Jan 1, 8:47=A0pm, [email protected] wrote:
> The land in Crossville cannot be sold, since we got
> it for free. The building can be sold only to a business that meets
> the zoning restrictions, which in practice probably means it can't be
> sold -- which is utterly irrelevant, since the USCF is not going to
> sell the building any time in the near future. (Are you still under
> the delusion that the office is going to move back to New Windsor?)
>
> What's really depressing is that, even after your one-year clown show,
> there were still ~600 people willing to vote for you in 2007. Chess
> makes you smart? I guess not.
This is exactly my point. The land in Crossville cannot be sold and
neither can the building we built on it.
Since we are not allowed to sell it, we do not really own it.
So, why are we carrying it on the books as an asset?
And why was not this investigated before we built the building there?
Sam Sloan
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Date: 01 Jan 2009 17:47:51
From:
Subject: Re: Questions for Candidates for the Board
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samsloan wrote:
> On Jan 1, 5:03 am, John Hillery wrote:
>
> > Bunkum. The status of the building has been discussed ad nauseam on
> > the USCF Forum.
>
> That is not the answer to the question. This question came up at every
> meeting of the board that I attended and no conclusive answer was ever
> provided.
>
> At the Stillwater Meeting on May 17-18, 2007, Bill Hall reported that
> he had met with the Mayor of Crossville, J, H. Graham, in response to
> our demand at the previous meeting that he do exactly that, and that
> the mayor would not agree for us to sell the building. However, he
> said that we could "burn it out" over the next 15 years. In other
> words, provided that we stayed in Crossville for 15 years, he would
> agree to let us sell "our" building.
>
> As I was not satisfied with that answer, I made a motion that I had
> also made at other meetings and that I had also said I would do when I
> campaigned for election that the USCF retain counsel in Nashville (not
> in Crossville) to make a determination and advise us as to our rights
> to sell the building should we choose to do so. The other board
> members refused to agree because attorneys cost money. Finally Joel
> Channing agreed, provided that the attorney would cost no more than
> $500. I said OK in that I case I move that the board retain counsel at
> a cost of no more than $500. At first Joel Channing seemed to agree
> but then he changed his mind and said that $500 was too much to spend
> to see what our rights were with respect to a building supposedly
> worth $650,000.
>
> So, my motion was voted down 6-1.
>
> So, we still do not know what our rights are with respect to the
> building.
>
> > There aren't any secrets about it. The LMA money was
> > spent on operating expenses, as you can easily see from the annual
> > financials. Bad management, but hardly a conspiracy.
>
> Not so fast. For example, I discovered an unauthorized payment of
> $13,356.36 to Susan Polgar made in November 2003 while Bill Goichberg
> was executive director that neither the president nor the 2003 board
> had known about or would have agreed with had they known about it.
> There was then and still are no documents supporting this payment of
> $13,358.36. Bill Goichberg still blames this on a low level clerk
> named Linda even though Goichberg signed the check. That was the
> biggest single check Goichberg ever signed while he was Executive
> Director, so he certainly should have noticed it.
>
> Any documentation supporting that payment would have been on the
> laptop computer that Paul and Susan took from the USCF''s offices on
> August 20, 2003. Goichberg still has not taken appropriate measures to
> get that laptop computer back.
>
> This is only a small part of a much bigger problem. In every year for
> the years 1999-2003 which was when most of the $2 million was lost,
> the delegates passed a budget calling for a surplus. Also, the
> financial statements for the end of each of those years showed a minor
> but affordable loss.
>
> Nevertheless, by the end of 2003 it was discovered that the $2 million
> that had been in the Oberweiss Fund according to the 1999 financial
> statements was completely gone and missing by 2003, only four years
> later.
>
> Saying that it was due to "operating losses" does not answer the
> question. What operating losses, when, where and why?
>
> Why cannot we find out the answer to these questions?
>
> We have recently learned that Frank Niro had the bad habit of playing
> in extremely high stakes poker games in Foxwoods Casino where, he
> reports on his website, a player lost $37,000 in a single hand of
> poker in a game in which Frank Niro was playing. Was any of the USCF's
> $2 million lost in high stakes poker games? We would like to know.
>
> >Drug testing:
> > Well, I actually agree with you about that, but how does this relate
> > to "secret meetings"? I doubt the Board has even thought about this
> > recently, except perhaps when Sloan was making a pest of himself.
>
> When John Hillary said that I was "making a pest of himself", he
> refers to the fact that when I was on the board for one year I
> regularly reported to the outside world what had happened in the
> closed sessions, even though they had been closed.
>
> In fact, during my one year on the board there was never a discussion
> in closed session of either of the two issues that are legitimate
> closed session items, namely litigation and personnel issues.
> Litigation never came up because there was no litigation involving the
> USCF while I was on the board.
>
> The current litigation is a direct and foreseeable consequence of
> things done by Bill Goichberg and Bill Hall without board knowledge or
> approval while I was on the board or, in some cases, before I got on
> the board
>
> Personnel costs and issues never came up because we never were able to
> get even a list of all the people working for the USCF and what their
> job duties were. Bill Hall refused to provide that information even
> though I persistently asked for it, which is one of the reasons why
> John Hillery says that I was "making a pest of myself".
>
> To this day we still do not know how many people are working for the
> USCF and how many consultants there are. Saying "look it up in Chess
> Life" is not the answer, because Chess Life does not answer this
> question.
>
> So, perhaps the board can answer the questions now: How many employees
> and contractors does the USCF have? Do you know the answer to this
> question? (I doubt that the board knows, even today.) If you do know,
> why cannot you tell us, the dues paying members?
>
> Sam Sloan
Another example of your "wear-them-out" tactics. All of this drivel
has been repeatedly debunked. So you wait a few months and make the
same nonsense claims again, until everyone gets tired. For example,
the USCF employees (I don't say consultants, since that can change
rapidly) _are_ listed in Chess LIfe, and your refusal to believe the
information says more about your mental state than about the USCF. If
by "the current litigation" you mean the suits by and against Polgar,
they have nothing to do with anything done during your misbegotten
term on the Board. The land in Crossville cannot be sold, since we got
it for free. The building can be sold only to a business that meets
the zoning restrictions, which in practice probably means it can't be
sold -- which is utterly irrelevant, since the USCF is not going to
sell the building any time in the near future. (Are you still under
the delusion that the office is going to move back to New Windsor?)
What's really depressing is that, even after your one-year clown show,
there were still ~600 people willing to vote for you in 2007. Chess
makes you smart? I guess not.
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Date: 01 Jan 2009 14:08:39
From:
Subject: Re: Questions for Candidates for the Board
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On Jan 1, 4:07=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Randall Hough
>
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Just one point: You've been repeatedly reminded that Linda Legenos was
> > hardly "a low level clerk," but you continue to repeat that canard.
>
> OK. I apologize.
>
> She was a high level clerk.
>
> However, the decision to pay the $13,358.36 to Susan Polgar was
> ultimately made by Bill Goichberg. He signed the check and he should
> stop passing this off as a decision made by Linda Legenos.
>
> Sam Sloan
I agree with Sam Sloan - and I reported this years ago. First the paid
d
Director of this realm of USCF approved the issue, then, upon USCF's
difficulty in reviewing and its simple contractual arrangement, a
second opportunity existed for both the Director of the department and
Bill Goichberg to arbitrate anything amiss.
Nothing occurred at the time neither has an issue arisen from this
from USCF's financial arbiters or lawyers, why a contracted agreement
should not be performed.
As usual, Sam Sloan ONLY attributes blame to others accompanied by
dismissive and diminishing statements.
More recently a not-friend of mine noticed that Sloan was exhaulting
over the issue of the matter of reporting the ChessCafe lawsuit
against USCF, which I had reported in more detail than he had a month
earlier. The Sloan had not noticed what I wrote to 60,000 chess fans,
and couple or three dozen here, since noticing things that others do
is not his forte.
This is ultimately why the Sloan is not a suitable person for office,
He is a, to use a psychological term, a psycho-phant, which is to say
that unless he is some center of the issue, it seems not to exist for
him.
In the above, he failed to notice yet again what is plain to plainer
folk.
Phil Innes
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Date: 01 Jan 2009 13:07:32
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Questions for Candidates for the Board
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On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Randall Hough
<[email protected] > wrote:
> Just one point: You've been repeatedly reminded that Linda Legenos was
> hardly "a low level clerk," but you continue to repeat that canard.
OK. I apologize.
She was a high level clerk.
However, the decision to pay the $13,358.36 to Susan Polgar was
ultimately made by Bill Goichberg. He signed the check and he should
stop passing this off as a decision made by Linda Legenos.
Sam Sloan
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