Stop ODOD Abuse

COLUMBUS (February 13, 2009) - Following a concerted campaign of public pressure from media interest, advocacy groups, mediation by Ohio Representative Kevin Bacon and Leader shareholders across the country to Ohio's elected officials, ODOD has finally agreed to meet Leader officials on Thursday, February 19, 2009. ODOD will be represented by newly-appointed Chief Development Officer, Mark Barbash, and Candace Jones, Chief Legal and Ethics Officer. Ohio Rep. Kevin Bacon has been graciously working to facilitate a round table business discussion between Leader officials and Mr. Barbash to find a resolution, but with this settlement discussion now set, he will not attend.

[For the record, we began requesting a meeting with ODOD Director Lee Fisher on December 1, 2008 under the assumption that he could be an honest broker, having not been Director for most of the period in question. However, all our requests for meetings with ODOD business officials to find an amicable resolution have been ignored, until now.]

[Saturday, January 14, 2009: It has come to our attention that ODOD officials are claiming that certain Leader facts are not correct, although they are not being specific. Our commitment to you is that if any of our facts are incorrect, we will admit it and disclose that information to you in subsequent posts. We will continue to post the actual documents, and have chosen not to post, yet, ODOD's convoluted legal agreements (i.e., 412 Grant, OITP, JCTC) upon which ODOD seems to be justifying its attacks. One in particular, a coerced, invalid Cognovit Note is being referenced. Their documents are as full of irreconcilable contradictions (Read 2nd Comment in The American Thinker post below) as everything else about this story of public-private business development "partnership". The facts can speak for themselves.]

This will be the sixth (yes 6th) attempt to settle, perhaps the sixth time will be a charm. Here is a chronology of settlement discussions and their results:

Settlement #1-2005 - ODOD and Leader agreed to let the whole issue drop. Result: ODOD and Leader agreed not to pursue 412 Grant claims against one another. Participating in that April 1, 2005 (see notes linked) agreement were then Chief Legal Counsel John Barron, and Deputy Chief Legal Counsel, Robert Stempfer. For 18 months Leader did not pursue claims and ODOD stopped any attempts to collect. We had a contractual agreement. The matter was resolved.

Settlement #2-2007 - ODOD hired the Ohio Attorney General to collect, breaching Settlement #1. Leader protested, but met with Robert Stempfer, ODOD Bureaucrat-in-Chief, and the Attorney General's representative to discuss settlement. Although Leader protested the liablity, we were asked to propose a modest amount in settlement. We proposed $20,000. The Attorney General's attorney seemed satisfied. Result: ODOD never provided the agreement to sign.

Settlement #3-2007 - ODOD hired a different attorney from the Ohio Attorney General's office to collect, breaching Settlements #1 and #2. Leader protested any liability, yet under pressure from disgraced former Attorney General Marc Dann's attorneys, agreed to start paying $100 per month against a reduced amount. Result: ODOD never provided the agreement to sign.

Settlement #4-2008 - ODOD Attorney Candace Jones is assigned to collect, breaching Settlements #1, #2 and #3. Leader again protested any liability, but pragmatically agreed to allow ODOD to review Leader's financials every six months to ascertain ability to pay, essentially deferring the action until Leader's cash flow was more conducive to a payback. Result: ODOD never provided the agreement to sign.

Settlement #5-2008 - ODOD hired outside counsel to collect, breaching Settlements #1, #2, #3 and #4. ODOD filed a garnishment action, locking up Leader's bank accounts, but more egregiously, sent disruptive garnishment letters to a dozen Leader school and commercial customers; disturbing vendors as well in the process. ODOD even sent letters to prospective customers (e.g., Delaware City Schools). All attempts to settle this action fall on deaf ODOD ears, including multiple communications with Robert Stempfer, who assured Leader it would get resolved. ODOD's next action after the lull waiting for Mr. Stempfer to act on his promise was garnishment. Leader asked ODOD to dismiss the legal action and to send comfort letters to its customers, vendors and prospects that ODOD was not in the business of disrupting Ohio entrepreneurial companies or their services, including school health and safety alerting, and Port Columbus emergency alerting services. ODOD refused. Result: Failed settlement. ODOD pursues collection action and Leader decides ODOD is disingenuous and is forced to appeal to the court of public opinion.

In communications with ODOD's Candace Jones over the last two days, it is quite apparent that she has never run a business and has no sense of how disruptive her actions are to Leader business and customers (Finance/Economics 101: markets do not like uncertainty). She indicated that she believed Leader bank accounts were not locked up. When we told her they were, despite her statutory theories, she sloughed it off as Leader posturing. She downplayed the impact of the disruptive garnishment letters being sent to customers and prospects. We believe she really doesn't understand the disruptive impact of heavy-handed ODOD actions on a company's market of prospects and customers. Be that as it may, we are supposed to have a meeting next week.

Which Department of Development will show up? The one that serves the companies, shareholders and employees it solicits to assist in job creation? Or, an unelected, unaccountable group of bureaucrats who work only for themselves? We'll keep you posted.

-- Mike McKibben

P.S. Waiting in the wings during this meeting will be the man who has caused all these problems, we believe, Robert Stempfer, Deputy Chief Legal Counsel. Mr. Stempfer has been Deputy Chief Legal Counsel at the ODOD in multiple administrations. Whatever agreement we reach most surely will have to be blessed by Mr. Stempfer.

While Leader supports America's safety and security, ODOD officials change Leader's project numbers

We believe Mr. Stempfer oversaw the preparation of then ODOD Director Bruce Johnson's April 30, 2004 ODOD Report to the Ohio Legislature (page 27) which reported erroneously that Leader would create 153 jobs on the strength of one small $250,000 equipment grant* ... April 30, 2004, the same day he also oversaw the issuance of a letter to Leader declining to provide the full $5.2 million in assistance promised by Bruce Johnson on March 24, 2003, the raison d'etre for Leader's interest in ODOD assistance to begin with, and the source of funds required to create the 153 jobs (the Leader number was 159 in its application (page 4). Bottom line: ODOD padded its report to the Ohio Legislature with Leader jobs projections the same day that it denied the funding that it had previously approved that would create those jobs.

Indeed, Bruce Johnson's 2004 report was manipulating Leader's numbers and ODOD's promises, both to Leader and to the 2004 Ohio Legislature. And ever since, totally unbeknownst to Leader, ODOD has been trying to orchestrate circumstances so that Leader, an Ohio small high technology business, while supporting America's safety and security with vital communications services (read about some of these efforts that we can talk about publicly at www.leader.com), is left holding the bag for ODOD's misrepresentations, mistakes and missteps. Read more on this below.

- Candace Jones bio.
- Ohio Department of Development contact sheet.
- Robert Stempfer link at the Ohio Bar Association

* More to come on the collateral impact of this erroneous reporting to the Ohio Legislature in 2004.