Mentone Airport - Gary thread continued

[GyroRon]

MJ,

I am recovering from an operation myself. I don't know who called you a liar but I hope you are not referring to me as that was never my intent. I am trying to aquire 'the papers' because Jamie says he will be statisfied once he understands the relationship between the PRA and PRA Mentone. I know this has been spelled out here for him on different threads several times but my hope is that something on offical letterhead might help.

Personally, I was and am happy with the discription of how and why things were setup when Tom M posted it then when Ron posted Gary's letter then again when Tim Blackwell joined the board and posted, when you posted your findings on this thread and finally again when Tex A posted the answers.

I know anyone with a brain would think that me doing this again would just get the same results from Jamie/Maxie but I figgured it would be worth a try.

Everything I have researched so far indicates that eveything is setup according to IN state law and must be done so to maintain our non-profit status.

Crazy that anything like this has gone so far.
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Tim OConnor, Private Pilot Rotorcraft
PRA Member #38872
PRA Chapters Sunstate, 34 & 40
EAA and TUPA


Tim??????

The papers that MJ received, if they are the same papers that Jamie and I received from PRA, Do show that each organization is set up Legally and correctly. The paper ('s) we have continue to ask for is the one that shows the Legal relationship between the two. You seemed to understand it very well when you posted you would ask for a copy of the papers that show this. We (Jamie and I) do realize that both are set up properly, I believe they just stand alone,as Don has described in earlier post. If Don's description is what your referring to, Jamie fully understands that and I think agrees with Don as I do. Trust me!!! There is nothing I would love more than to have you prove Don wrong. This will also prove Jamie and I wrong. It's just that no one seems to have any paperwork joining the two at the hip or a copy of the PRA Mentone Bylaws. I would love to see that too.

The description that Tom gave sounds good but is lacking in fact. First he says it is an insult that you even ask for anything in writing. I still fail to see his stand on that. Even God left us with a written word to touch, feel and read to answer our questions and concerns. I don't think anyone thinks it an insult to God to ask for verification in the Bible. So unless Gary is of a much higher authority, there should be no problem asking for verification. Another, is his point that he does not have a receipt for his TV, and other items in his home because there is not question who they belong too. This is correct of course. But I would bet my river lot in Waycross, that I have the deed to, that he has a deed to the house these items are in. One other, That Glenn paid for the Fire Works show. As far as I know he did. Whether it was out of his own pocket as indicated or by donations collected for that very purpose. I do know but from what I have been told they were spectacular. How ever, I have talked recently with a current Board Member that was not happy at all that PRA could spend $2,000.00 on a fire works show, but not have the money to pay for a good Web site. So who knows?

A couple of things that just keep me wanting to know the answer is, I over heard Gary tell Dave Prater after one of the Board meetings that he would not step down from President of the PRA Mentone Board even if he was not re-elected President of the PRA Board. Gary also stated in a Board meeting, that when the Airport is paid off, PRA would still have to pay $1000.00 rent to PRA Mentone. He has since recanted that statement and at the last PRA Board meeting I attended assured the Board at that time PRA would not have to pay rent once the Airport is paid off. So you see why I feel like this paper work is needed if it does not exist already, and you got to admit, after all of this and no paper work yet. I think it is not there to be had. But once again I truly hope you can prove us wrong, and if not, help in correcting the problem.

Maxie_Wildes
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#422 Today, 12:45 AM
KenSandyEggo
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: San Diego
Posts: 1,310

"A couple of things that just keep me wanting to know the answer is, I over heard Gary tell Dave Prater after one of the Board meetings that he would not step down from President of the PRA Mentone Board even if he was not re-elected President of the PRA Board."

This just proves that a private group of individuals has purchased an airport with our money and wants to keep it for themselves in their names and no one is going to stop them. What kind of bull**** is this? How much more plain can this be? If Gary is voted out, Gary and his chosen friends still own the airport, no matter what the vote of the members is. Does this still possibly sound proper to anyone? Stinkier by the minute.
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#423 Today, 01:22 AM
scott heger
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Southern California
Posts: 141

My question is:
If the airport was sold tomorrow, what paperwork is in place to assure that money spent by PRA is going back to the PRA? Or where is the money going to go upon a sale?

I don't think that their is much doubt that PRA Mentone is a non profit. But it seems that "our" PRA dues helped finance the purchase, runway repaving, and ongoing expenses by paying rent. Some kind of document showing that a orderly transfer of funds, and where it would all go would put this to bed. Hopefully this document was written before last week. I understand that some people would like this to all go away. A true leader would not be insulted, but just provide the "proof". The longer this does not happen, the more it looks like their is something to hide. It seems some longtime PRA members, and ex-board members still have unanswered questions. Why the continuing delay?

Scott Heger, Laguna Niguel, Ca N86SH
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posts taken from the quite large Gary thread...

[PRA]

Ken, Scott,
I keep reading where you and others refer to "our dues" payed for the purchase, paving of runway, and up keep of the Mentone Airport. I'll bet you don't have a qlue where the monies have come from.
There is a plaque on the wall here at Mentone with over 100 names of people who have donated, repeatedly, substancial amounts to the PRA Mentone Inc Fund since the purchase of the airport in May of 1995. Which, by the way, not all donations have been from just P.R.A. members. The downpayment was put up by certain P.R.A. members until the board of P.R.A. voted to purchase the airport and the donations came in.
Over the years all kinds of donations, both money and time, keep coming in for the improvements and up keep done at the airport.
All that I see some part of your membeship dues going for is rent to Mentone Inc, for the use of the building that the P.R.A. office operates from. Which by the way, membership dues paid rent for office space long before moving to Mentone.

As to your statement, Scott.

"Some kind of document showing that an orderly transfer of funds, and where it would all go would put this to bed."

I'd like to see that document also, before my husband and I donate anymore time and money to Mentone Inc.

So anyway, how many of you people posting here, do you think, have your names listed on this plaque here at Mentone?

Your ever so disgruntled office manager,
Pam Bundy

[Rotornut]

Well I know my name is not up there. MJ

[KenSandyEggo]

Pam, I seriously doubt that those donations come anywhere near $200,000. Even with that input, the PRA board has come out asking us to recruit more members and is raising the dues 5 bucks. I believe this is being done because we are cash-short, as evidenced by the lack-luster website, reduction in issues of the magazine and talk of more black & white and less color pages. It is no secret that our $1,000 rent payment to PRA Mentone is used to make the mortgage payments on the airport. What's the big deal about lending the PRA 50 thousand for a short while until the money could be transferred from the PRA funds? It was a sure thing with no risk, as the boards knew the money was there and it was going to be paid back to whomever put up the 50 thou to hold the airport until the paperwork was finished. It's made to sound as they did something heroic, risky and self-sacrificing by fronting the money until the PRA check could be written. You say that we have no idea of how much was donated by others. Why isn't it published then? That's a part of the corporation's income and legally, should be published.

I think it's boiling down to this. Gary and whomever decided to buy the airport with no input from the members to begin with. Whether it was a good deal or not, I don't think he had a right to do this, at least morally. A refundable deposit could have been arranged for a month or so, so that at least some feed-back could have been acquired from at least some of the members who sent in this money over the years. I doubt that there were too many citizens of the Mentone Public Community waiting in line to snap up an airport.

Let's say that this would have been too much work and couldn't be done. So the deal proceeds. The bottom line is that 50 thousand of PRA's money is given to the mortgage holder as a down payment and $1,000 per month payments are agreed upon to be paid by the members of PRA. At this point or near this point, there is no PRA Mentone. Gary decides to form a new board, hand-pick the rest of the board members, and place title of the airport in his and/or the remaining board's name. Where did he acquire the authority to do this? He acquired it by proceeding surreptitiously, so no one except a close circle of friends would be aware of it. Why wasn't it done out in the open with the stated reason of protecting PRA from liability? Why was the existence of PRA Mentone kept so secretive all these years? Why was there a several year fight necessary to bring this information into the open? Why did PRA Mentone resist admitting PRA Mentone existed even to PRA board members? Because he/they knew it was ridiculous on its face and wouldn't fly with anyone with some common sense.

The alleged reasoning and logic of protecting the members from all 4,000+ of us getting sued is clearly ludicrous. The more it's repeated, the more insulted all the PRA member's intelligence should be. PRA is a corporation and therefore only the assets of PRA, Inc. would be at risk in an action. The concern expressed is that if there is an accident at Mentone, PRA would be protected from liability. If there is an accident, PRA Mentone would be sued and if the action were successful, the plaintiff would most likely take title to the airport property, exactly the same as if PRA, Inc. owned the property. The justification to prevent 4,000 of us from getting sued is ridiculous on its face. I have never seen or heard of 4,000 defendants sitting in a court room because of negligence committed by the officers of the corporation, and besides, there is inexpensive, readily available insurance to protect corporate board members from lawsuits. And as I said, only the assets of a corporation are at risk in a lawsuit, not my '71 Beetle or Ron's garden tractors.

Gary's overheard statement that if he is not re-elected, he is still going to remain president of the PRA Mentone board should be very disturbing to anyone with the least bit of logic and intelligence. In other words, he will remain the owner of the Mentone Airport, and as it is set up right now, there is nothing we can do about it. If Gary get's upset because he is not re-elected, there is absolutely nothing stopping him and whomever's name is on the title to sell the property and putting the moneys in their pockets. Pooh-poohing this issue by saying, "Oh, he would never do that" is so far from the point as to be invisible. Maybe he wouldn't, but the risk of that possibility should not exist and should have never existed in the first place.

The idea of the president of a board sitting on another board that votes money to be transferred is the clearest example I have ever seen of a conflict of interest. I ask someone for money, and I'm the one that approves it. Does that sound logical to anyone? At the most, it may be borderline legal (I doubt it), but ethically it clearly is not.

Gary's stone-walling on this topic for years, until forced into the open makes his motives clearly suspect. I question his statement that the PRA will continue to pay $1,000 per month after the mortgage is paid off, even though he later reneged. I question his original motivation and intent. That's "property-owner-profit-motivated" talk. He reneged after he realized this setup would be out in the open, and again wouldn't fly. It would have worked forever if all this hadn't been brought into the sunshine by the difficult efforts of Maxie and Jamie etal. "Why are we still making a mortgage payment when the mortgage is paid off?," would be the question tumbling from a lot of lips. Clearly, the office is not worth $1,000 per month in rent. This money would have been a secret gift to Gary to legally do what he wanted with it. Buy stuff for the airport, or buy himself a Hummer...whatever he chose. That possibility should not exist in even a half-assed run organization somewhere. It can't be assumed that a person handling substantial amounts of organizational moneys will "probably" do the right thing, unless you're a gullible fool and never read a newspaper or watched the news.

Ladies and gentlemen of the PRA, we can be left holding the bag for the airport we paid for. A private entity (PRA Mentone) was secretly formed and stayed secret for many years, took moneys from the PRA, bought a piece of property, put it in their name as rightful owners, (even though they proclaimed publicly and in print that it was PRA's property), took more money from the PRA to repave the airstrip and more money yet to make the mortgage payments. What person with half a brain would accept a deal as this in a home purchase? That's not even mentioninhg the $40 thousand dollars that was negligently misplaced and lost. Yes, I said negligently. The PRA board has a fiduciary duty to look after the assets of the corporation and to make sure this type of incident never occurs. To not follow up on the loss through legal channels to the best of their abilities is also repugnant to me. In a larger, well-run for-profit company, the negligent corporate officer(s) would most likely have been sued by the share-holders for recovery of the negligently lost money and failure to perform their fiduciary duties.....most likely successfully.

There are unexplained motives here, folks. Secret motives that should not be allowed to be kept in the dark and that we should be protected from. As almost every prosecutor or defendant's attorney if they're feeling confident, in a jury trial announces during their closing arguments, "Ladies and gentlemen, all I'm asking of you, after hearing what was presented to you, is one thing and one thing only. That is to use your COMMON SENSE. That's all.....one thing, just use your God-given COMMON SENSE."

[Dean_Dolph]

Originally Posted by KenSandyEggo

…………unless you're a gullible fool ……….

Ken, as a kid, did you ever play the game where you set in a circle with others and then whispered a message in the ear of the one next to you and that person in turn did the same until the message had been passed around to the last person. The last person then repeated what he/she heard. If you didn't then you missed some hilarious times! What I'm driving at is that there has been a bunch of stuff said here that has been passed on by others that may or may not have their facts straight or unintentionally misquoted someone. You can always choose who you want to believe, I guess.

Originally Posted by KenSandyEggo

……………Secret motives that should not be allowed to be kept in the dark………….

I agree that there may be other motives but they may not all be coming out of Mentone, did you ever think about that. Now I'm getting as paranoid as you! Where's my pills?!!

[KenSandyEggo]

Dean, that's why we should rely only on the written word to protect us.....something that seems to be missing here. That's all that was asked for, a written document so that we wouldn't or couldn't be sold up (or is it down?) the river if someone chose to. Something that is easily possible at this time. I don't think that there's any doubt that Gary and/or his friend's own the property on paper. That's what they set out to do. I don't think that there's any doubt that we the members were told, including in print that we owned the airport. We absolutely know that we paid for it, the repaving and the "lost" 40K.

To this day, do we really know whose name(s) are actually on the title of the property? We don't know whether just Gary's name is on it or whether any of the other PRA Mentone member's name are on it. Just because they are on the board, doesn't necessarily mean they share legal ownership. That would be an interesting piece of paper to see. We really don't know who exactly owns the airport except that it isn't us, the ones who paid for it.

Where's the paranoia in my post? I think I layed it out pretty clear and asked questions that are on a lot of member's minds. A situation like this never should have been allowed, but we had no control over it because it was done sneakily and under the table to keep us from knowing about it. I consider that fact.

[barnstorm2]

Ken, PRA owns the airport. Please see MJ's post when she had her accountant audit the paperwork.. As far as 'who said what said' that could go on forever on all parts, lets try and keep this to the facts, more manageable that way.

[PRA]

Ken,
It's obvious to me that you know nothing of what you write. I see you writing all kinds of accusations about Gary and other board members but you are the "gullible fool" here. You didn't even become a member of P.R.A. until May 1997. As a matter of fact, others that have been having a problem with all of this weren't P.R.A. members yet either. All this took place in 1995, yet you claim it all took place secretively. Well if you can get your hands on the June/July, August and September 1995 issues of Rotorcraft and read through them, as well as Gary's inside cover pages of each issue, you will see just how secretive this all was.
Be sure and get back with me once you have done your reading.
Pam

[GyroRon]

guys, reading Pams first post in this thread, it sounds like she is not the bad guy here! sounds like she wants the same thing that this whole discussion was started for.... for there to be a legal paperwork tie between the two inc's.

I don't think Maxie or Jamie has a Axe to grind, I don't think Gary is out to screw us, And I don't think there is some secret master plan to steal the airport. I DO think that there is a massive lack of communication between the board and the members, and I DO think like Jamie and Maxie that there needs to be only one board of directors for both.

That is the point of the whole thing, not to sling mud, not to dig up every little gripe about the PRA, not to dirty Garys good name or anyone else on the board. The goal is to make the PRA and PRA mentone one compnay with one set of board members. Then the airport is ours without any doubts.

I do agree with Ken, there is no reason to keep them separate. If someone get's hurt at the airport let the insurance pay for it, or else they sue and win a airport. as long as the airport is the PRAs main asset then the elected officers of the PRA need to be the ones overseeing the way the airport is run and how it's business is handled. As it sits right now, only one or two of the ELECTED board members has any say so in matters concerning the airport. I believe all the people I voted for should be able to partake in the decisions needed concerning the airport. If it a matter of needed local people to be on the board to help with leaky pipes at the airport, then form a airport task group that can help out with those issues. If the home of PRA was in my backyard I would be glad to have my name on the list of people to call in a local emergency.

[PRA]

There already is an airport task group. For the last seven years their names consisted of Glenn and Pam Bundy. This summer we recruited Tim Blackwell, Don Shoebridge, Brian Sherwood and his daughters.
Are there any other takers?
--Pam

[barnstorm2]

Ron, I'll bet you have to have 2 boards or the state of IN will get pissed.

[Brian Jackson]

Originally Posted by PRA

...
Your ever so disgruntled office manager,
Pam Bundy

Pam,
I'm a new member, having met you and Glenn at the Mentone 04 convention. I just wanted to say the work you guys do there is appreciated. I've pretty much stayed away from this thread, but I think credit should be given where due. By the way, we never hear about "gruntled" employees

Be well, and give my best to Glenn.

Respectfully,
Brian Jackson

P.S., the PRA site is coming along nicely. Hope to have a rough draft webbed by the weekend! Just taking longer than I thought, but I hope everyone appreciates the quality.

[KenSandyEggo]

Well, as I can see from the apologist's posts, none of the issues have been addressed or answered, as usual. Where is the piece of paper known as a title or deed that has PRA, Inc. on it? Everyone has said that it says PRA Mentone, Inc. That is NOT the PRA. That is a self-appointed person who had no right to place the airport in his or anyone else's name. The double-speak here is insane.

Who said anything about people not working hard, when they joined, donating money and getting a plaque on the wall. Pam, am I full of it when I say the Mentone board was formed in secret? Am I full of it when I say the PRA members paid for it and yet it is in Gary's and whomever else's name that he decided on? I'd say that there is a clear lack of knowledge in Mentone about ethics, secrets, stubbornly hanging on to secrets that should have been in the open, and the proper way a corporation is run. I'm still waiting to have explained how a self-appointed clique of people can take money from another organization without anyone's authority except their own, buy an airport and put it in their name...all without telling anyone of course, until a crow-bar was put in place to pry the information out.

"Ken, PRA owns the airport." Then it should be an extremely simple matter to obtain a copy of the deed and show it to us and put this whole thing to bed, shouldn't it? After how many years, it still hasn't been done. I can't fathom any other reason than someone is trying to hide something. Why else? All anyone has seen are 2 separate incorporation papers. How can anyone take that as proof of anything regarding the airport? Many of you are sheepishly pulling the wool over your own eyes. By the way, since the airport is still not paid for, anyone joining the PRA up until that last dollar is paid off has the right to question where and how his dues are spent. I don't have a damn more lick of say-so in the EAA or AOPA than anyone that joined after me. More smoke and B.S. and avoiding the difficult questions. I know, I know...they're working on it...something that should have been worked on the day BEFORE the deposit was made on the property, not afterwards. Who caused this can-of-worms with their secretiveness, surreptitious Mentone board and refusal to produce a simple piece of paper in order to prove what they said by word and print is true. Now it's the fault of those asking the questions in order to protect all the mis-management, and we're supposed to prove that what they said is true when they refuse to and the evidence points otherwise? C-O-M-M-O-N S-E-N-S-E....wherefore art thou?

[PRA]

Ken,
I don't really follow most of what you're saying. But then again, I don't think you really do either.
Good night.
--Pam

[Heron]

Another stupid question from my cyber blabber . . .
Does PRA have any equity on this property and can use it to finance another just like it?
Ken you are crystal clear on your assertions.
Now lets buy an airport in Florida and have all year flying and Bensen Days and a gyro lab and . . . .can we?
Heron