July 11, 2006
Dear David:
I have received a copy of an email message you sent to Don Fotheringham yesterday, July 10th. I am amazed and appalled by your remarks. Since I was mentioned twice in your misrepresentations, I have asked Don for permission to respond to you.
Dave, what has happened to you? In the past several months you have gone up in the air and have come down on both sides of most of the key issues. Will the real David Eisenberg please stand up?
In your message to Don, you state: “The Exec. Comm. was requested to take action and investigate Smith’s way of managing and they chose not to and wanted to have a meeting to discuss the problem.”
Why do you make this statement when you know better?
Walt Ruckel, Keith Van Buskirk, Vance Smith, and I learned of this whispering attack against Vance for the first time on Tuesday, September 20, 2005. Letters from McManus (9/22/05), Jasper (9/22/05), and Waters (9/24/05) telling Vance that Council and staff members wanted him to step down, arrived only a few days after we learned anything at all.
It was obvious that the whole thing was staged. We later learned that Wasem, Crino, and others had been campaigning with you and others weeks, if not months, before we were included.
As an Executive Committee, we met quickly. It was our full intention to thoroughly look into this matter and we sent you the attached memo to Council members telling you we would do so in Orlando on October 29th when we could get both the Council and Executive Committee together.
Dave, poor Dave, don’t you remember your own letter to me dated October 13, 2005? You wrote: “I disagree with the Larry Waters reorganization plans for the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee. Mr. Welch, one of the wisest men I have been privileged to know, established the Executive Committee exactly for the purposes he intended and that which must be maintained. …I will not accept organization changes offered by Larry Waters.”
Even though you said you wanted the Executive Committee to deal with the matter, you turned your back on us. And now, in a letter to Rusty Barlow is stated: “There was, from this moment on, no Executive Committee.”
So, if I understand this right, one of the wisest men you have ever known, established the Executive Committee for the purpose of dealing with and selecting the JBS leader. But you are not pleased that Jack McManus, putting himself at the top, has completely done away with this Executive Committee? Again, is there a real Dave Eisenberg somewhere?
You go on in your email message to suggest that Rickert, Ruckels [sic], and Van Buskirk, by quitting the Council, “took from JBS a valuable source of funds which, in turn, caused new management to adjust to a lesser flow of funds.”
Why is that? Because three men leave, the Society financing stops? Why did you and the other Council members not step forward to fill the gap? Are we the only ones responsible to make financial sacrifice?
And are you suggesting that because the three of us left, the field Coordinator pool has been reduced from 22 to 15?
Dave, early on you told me on the phone that you would not support Art Thompson as CEO, and by his performance in Arizona he would not be capable of handling the job.
Well, Arizona still has no coordinator, and since Art was installed, now six additional areas are without one. Even though you exclaim how “satisfied” you are, don’t you think the other Dave Eisenberg was probably right that Art can’t do the job?
Dave, we on the Executive Committee patiently dealt with Jack when he jeopardized the Society by stating, among other things, that the Jewish religion was deadly. He made those comments to many audiences and even sold video tapes of himself doing so. At the time, you were appalled and you even told Jack in letters to him.
Now, as a Jew, you are saying that Jack was okay in saying that, and that JBS should be happy to allow Jack to continue speaking in such a manner. Again, will the real David Eisenberg stand up?
Dave, you were given a great honor to stand up and be counted as a member of the JBS Council. And if indecision and ambivalence were listed by Robert Welch as positive characteristics, you would be highly qualified for the position.
Sincerely,
Wayne Rickert
|
|
