Month: May 2015

On April 30, 2015, Aaron Park posts an “Apology to Steve Frank”
http://www.rightondaily.com/2015/04/the-background-of-the-cra-coup-part-1-apology-to-steve-frank-and-celeste-greig/

“I think I owe Steve Frank … an apology.”

“Yeah – I screwed Steve Frank … over…”

“For that, I apologize to Steve Frank…”

Two days later, May 2, 2015, Aaron is singing a different tune. Park in now accusing Steve Frank of extortion.

Why? Steve Frank sent a private email to John Briscoe about the Parks releasing personally identifiable information, then Aaron gets a copy of the email, posts it on his blog, and says, “Where I come from – we call this extortion.”

Frank is a personal friend of one of the folks that had their banking information published on the Internet from April 17 to April 24. Per California and from what I can ascertain, Federal law, CRA is obligated to report that private information was released, notify the individuals, etc.

Mr. Frank is trying to give John Briscoe—who per his resignation letter is CRA President until his two weeks is up—an opportunity to do the right thing. Clearly John has no interest in this or he wouldn’t forward this private communication to the Parks.

Park concludes his blog by saying, “…you read it here first!”

Sorry Aaron. I published this here on April 26th.

Furthermore, said act of releasing personal information has been reported to the FBI, Attorney General of the State of California, and local law enforcement. Some media outlets are also aware of this situation. This too is a fact and one that CRA does not take seriously.

facts-subborn_things_that_just_wont_go_away

The question is not whether this has been reported to the FBI, because I know it has. The issue is that CRA has not been the ones doing the reporting. Both John Briscoe and Tom Hudson have failed to express a willingness to do their duty under the law and report this. They may not like it, but it’s part of the job as President of a corporation.

On this blog, I keep using the phrases “fiduciary responsibility” and “a reasonable person” for a reason. These are legal terms. And whether by criminal or civil action, I think that the four of you (Park, Park, Briscoe, & Hudson) will be hearing that phrase a lot more sometime soon.

That Steve Frank is acting in a caring way for a friend should be praised not ridiculed. Steve has been patiently trying to give CRA time to distance themselves from the actions of the Parks but CRA has not moved. I think May 30th will be too late to avoid implicating the whole Board.

Response to Aaron Park’s posts of April 17th: Part 2

This portion is edited from a longer email that I sent to a Park supporter about a week ago.

Let’s take the Santa Clarita delegate issue.

Aaron claims that Santa Clarita RA Bylaws require members to be in the club for 90 days before they can be Convention delegates. The Credentials Committee could have caught this if they were provided the records; but George refused them access. Nevertheless, let’s say Aaron is right in this instance, here are things that might have happened.

1. Santa Clarita could have voted to suspend their Bylaws by a super majority and allow these folks to be delegates. This is perfectly legal under Robert’s Rules. What if this did happen but the Secretary forgot to put it in the minutes. Credentials gets a clarification and everything is good. No fraud just bad minutes.
2. Santa Clarita could have been made aware of the Bylaw issue and called a special meeting to suspend Bylaws, again everything is good.
3. Santa Clarita can’t fix the issue for whatever reason, and as a result, only part of delegates can be seated. This can be brought before the Convention and if Convention votes to do so, they can seat all delegates. Again, everything is good, no fraud just sloppy parliamentary procedure, do better next year.

But since George locked Credentials out of the records we automatically get claims of fraud. Why can’t it be something lesser such as I described above?

Nothing deceitful is happening, just people in a volunteer group that don’t know how to run a meeting under Robert’s Rules. Why must we vilify everyone just because they made a mistake? It looks to me from the minutes that Aaron posted that Santa Clarita had trouble finding folks that were willing to go to the convention in Sacramento so they opened it up to anyone willing to go. This is no conspiracy.

My club is only a few minutes away from Sacramento and we couldn’t get enough people to be delegates. I imagine that it would be even harder when you live on the other end of the state.

To me, Aaron’s whole premise is backwards. Investigate first, look at evidence and then if a pattern emerges you need to see if it is human error or purposeful deceit. I submit that often it is hard to tell the difference.

Aaron’s posts on April 17th were part of a campaign blitz not a detailed factual analysis of wrong doing presented to the Board. It was an emotional campaign piece designed to make an impression on readers to influence their vote. “Sell the sizzle not the steak” is an old advertising axiom.

If there was a campaign to show wrong doing in CRA, it would be rolled-out much slower, more deliberately and more detailed. Also a case would need to be made for a pattern of wrong doing not a single instance. Such a campaign would not be presented in a matter of hours but over a few weeks.

I have said this before, I don’t hate the Parks. I think they have made some poor decisions recently. Sometimes I agree with them and sometimes I don’t. By the way, I did vote for George as Membership Secretary at the last convention. Of the two candidates, he was the better choice. This might be a surprise to some folks who are reading my blog but like I have stated before, I go with principle over people. When people fall short of principle I have to call them on it.