Dave, I agree with you 100%, and also call for both to resign.
Kevin WA7FWF #19623
On 7/12/2020 12:03 PM, David Swanson via AMSAT-BB wrote:
Director Thompson,
You and Director Stoddard harassed and intimidated members of the board pre-2019 election. Fact. The pre-2019 Election board hired attorneys to deal with your intimidation and harassment. Fact. Every member of the pre-2019 Election board signed a letter, stating they were aware of the legal expenses. Fact. After you and Director Stoddard were elected to the board in 2019 you continued to harass and intimidate officers and board members of AMSAT. Fact.
No matter what type of spin you put on this, no matter how many times you repeat your lies, you and director Stoddard are in the wrong here, and should resign immediately.
Members of AMSAT that are reading this and wanting to know what they can do, it's simple. Do not vote for the candidates endorsed by Director Thompson and Director Stoddard in 2020. Call on Director Thompson and Director Stoddard publicly to resign. If they do not resign, do not return them to the board in 2021. With these simple steps AMSAT can return spending your membership dollars on keeping amateur radio in space, instead of defending against disgruntled former volunteers with bones to pick.
-Dave, KG5CCI
On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 12:30 PM Michelle Thompson via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
Yes, I can try. You are correct. There is, and definitely should be, latitude for ordinary day to day budgeted expenditures.
An unauthorized expense is when money was spent for something it was not allocated for, or if the amount spent goes over a set amount.
Both cases occur here. There was a $4k overage to a consulting firm. The first $10k was properly authorized. But, officers just kept spending past the limit.
Hiring a law firm needs to be carefully documented, especially when historically legal expenses are often zero.
Authorized and expected costs include things like trademark and regulatory consulting and review.
Anything out of the ordinary, an unusual or unanticipated reason, or something regarding liability, loss, and many personnel decisions, needs authorization.
The authorization for FD Associates appears in AMSAT meeting minutes.
Hiring Hurwit does not appear in the minutes.
A variety of unusual and personally motivated expenses followed.
Targeting individual members (the denial of access, the NDA runaround, the false claims of conflicts of interest were all advised by Hurwit) and then attempting to move these expenses to "overhead", is an unauthorized and improper use of member money.
Mentioning us by name in payments, and grossly mischaracterizing mild complaints and requests for help as deserving of a nuclear response, is an unethical use of money.
The board needed to go on the record about this contract, given the very unusual nature of the expenses which did not fit into a budgeted or recurring category, but they did not.
I understand you may discount my opinion.
That is why we hired a corporate governance specialist who reviewed everything. She also wrote the demand letter that finally got me and Patrick access to records in early February, four and a half months after we were supposed to start our terms.
She reviewed the additional documents we now had access to and explained that some expensss were unauthorized and improper.
We made our case to the board, looking to resolve this. They were silent and completely uncooperative, until recently.
The change happened when we asked to see copies of all the Hurwit checks.
I campaigned for transparency. Without financial transparency, many other things simply don't work well.
I'm optimistic there can be meaningful improvement.
-Michelle W5NYV
On Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 09:14 Rich Gopstein rich@ourowndomain.com wrote:
Could you clarify "unauthorized"? Not disclosing the expenditure after the fact is different from authorization. Just trying to understand why the expenditures were not authorized. I took a look at the bylaws, and it's clear that officers can be given latitude to make expenditures on behalf of AMSAT without board approval for each expenditure (as you would expect - it would be impractical for the board to have to approve every expenditure).
Rich KD2CQ
On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 11:20 AM Michelle Thompson via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
The unauthorized expenditures have been admitted to.
Months of attempts to call a board meeting and address it internally
have
been made.
This failed.
Legal advice was sought. We proceeded carefully, and documented what we did along the way.
This worked.
Patrick and I are in the clear.
The officer and employee who signed these checks are not.
They claim the entire board knew about it.
There are no records of this contract. It was not disclosed to us when
we
joined. Adding in denial of access, we have problems only an election
can
solve.
Unlike other things we do, this isn't rocket science.
Speaking up to give members a chance to get a functional board, before
an
election, is simply the right thing to do.
I didn't select the weekend the nominations to the board were announced.
Preferring I resign instead of allowing a large amount of unrepentantly unauthorized spending to continue is a mistake. Understandable though. This is upsetting. Please try not to shoot the messengers too many times.
Members should get real value out of the membership. They should not
have
to pay for secretly hired law firms. Especially for such trivial and easily resolved reasons.
Criticism isn't an existential crisis. Unauthorized spending definitely is.
If members agree with spending their money this way, then they will vote to return the same people to their jobs.
I have faith in great potential for improvement. There are candidates
that
will follow the law and the bylaws and were willing to step forward. Robert, Howie, and Jeff.
We are fortunate to have a choice. This year it makes a big difference.
Michelle W5NYV
On Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 00:52 Alan via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org
wrote:
I read the recent allegations by Directors Stoddard and Thompson of improper behavior on the part of some AMSAT Officers and Directors with
concern,
but
also caution. Concern, because nothing remotely similar has occurred
in
the
30+ years I have been a Member and sometimes Board Member. Caution,
because
the nature of the accusations and particularly the timing during a
holiday
week in the AMSAT election cycle had all the hallmarks of a cynical political hit. That is now the most plausible explanation. If they
believed
the serious allegations to be true, it was irresponsible not to have brought them to the attention of the Members before now. These accusations
were
either carefully crafted for maximum political effect, or to put the
most
charitable face on it, represent genuinely honest concern but
egregious
errors in judgement by the accusers.
I call on Directors Thompson and Stoddard, in light of these
unwarranted
accusations, to apologize publically to both those they have so
grievously
misrepresented, and to the Members for the harm they have caused
AMSAT.
It
would be honorable to resign because of how badly they have broken
trust
with the organization and its Members. Lacking that, at a minimum they should pledge not to seek reelection. If as they claim they represent
a
vision with wide support, surely they can find genuinely qualified candidates to replace them without their baggage.
Hopefully AMSAT Members will consider carefully which current Board candidates have either expressed support for these failed Directors,
or
been endorsed by them. There are other, better, proven candidates.
Alan Biddle WA4SCA Past Board Member and Corporate Secretary
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Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite
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Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb