permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>]

Michael Pilarski wrote:


> First, let me be very specific about my position. I am NOT a member of SSE 
> nor have I ever been. I don't have a horse in this race so to speak. I am 
> however concerned over the huge amount of negative publicity Kent Whealy's 
> letter has generated. I have a few contacts here and there who know bits and 
> pieces of what is going on. When those pieces are put together, a very ugly 
> picture emerges. I will post what I found and you can do your own due 
> diligence to determine whether this is accurate or not. Please understand 
> that I can't be 100% sure of this.

You certainly do have a stake in the future of SSE. We all do. Pretty 
cavalier to say you have no horse in that race.
> About 3 years ago, Kent had an affair with a woman and it became public 
> knowledge. Diane divorced him over it. To the best of my knowledge, Diane is 
> very much an innocent party in this, but she was the target of a lot of 
> Kent's subsequent actions.
>
> After the divorce, Kent was still running SSE and he started running it 
> roughshod over the directors guidance. He deliberately pushed issues to 
> emphasize his control of the organization. The board called Kent on some of 
> his more egregious misuses of authority. He agreed to back off on some of the 
> things. Then he went back to 'running the show' as he chose. Long story 
> short, it came to a head 4 months ago.
>
> The board was in a position that they had to rein him in because some of the 
> things he was doing were affecting employees and could have caused SSE to 
> lose not for profit status. He made some veiled threats and they responded by 
> dismissing him. I would point out that a not for profit is a corporation. 
> (emphasize that some parts of this paragraph are questionable) The directors 
> are responsible for the long term well being of the business. Kent was an 
> employee of the corporation. Long and short of it, when the directory was 
> published, Kent pulled the names and addresses and sent out his letter.
>
> He did raise some legitimate complaints. Those complaints need to be 
> addressed. I don't have all the answers. What I have is gleaned from quite a 
> bit of digging around. Just so we are clear, I don't think either side in 
> this is completely right. Just don't get the idea that Kent is the only 
> 'wronged' party.
>
> You have a very well known and publicly accepted leader of an organization 
> who has just been dismissed for serious problems in the way he was doing 
> things. What can he do about that? Well, in SSE, he can go to the members and 
> have them elect HIS CHOSEN board of directors. So what does the current board 
> of directors do? They change the rules of the game. They take away voting 
> status of the members and make the board of directors the final authority. 
> That removes the possibility of a palace coup taking place. This leaves Kent 
> Whealy with only one recourse. He appeals to the sse membership. Do you start 
> to see the maneuvering that is taking place? He can sue for wrongful 
> discharge. But in this case, the board has enough dirt on him to keep him 
> fired.
>
> As stated, take this with a grain of salt. It may or may not be entirely 
> accurate.

A big grain of salt. That's a lot of smut and hearsay. I will stand with Kent and help him regain control of SSE any way 
I can. My farmers market friends have been the victim of a smut campaign against us by a coalition of criminal thieves 
who sought to take over our market; when that failed they tried to get control of the county market house where the 
farmers market has its events several times a week. I know about this stuff, lies, smut, misinformation, divisiveness,
all with the goal of stealing something from someone. You think you can trust 
Rob Johnson and Cary Fowler and their
friends on the boards?