VCA Drama: what are the known facts?

[ViperTony]

Who's they? "they removed him from the board". They who? There were two board meetings prior to August. One meeting was held in Detroit in Jan (Tim was in attendance). A second board meeting, conference call, was held in May. Tim was not on the call. The board was never informed that Tim either quit the board or was removed. He simply evaporated from the board. No board action was taken to remove him and I've never seen a resignation from Tim while on the board. The board never had Tim or his letter as a discussion topic until last month. Whoever "they" are is not the board. We'll never get the true story because it would have to come from the ex-national president. Whatever "action" "they" took was done outside of the national board and not per the by laws. Which is not a surprise and common practice unfortunately.

The national board meeting minutes for the January 17th board meeting shows Tim in attendance as a board member.

 

[Bobpantax]

Thanks for the data Tony. The one thing that is clear is that there is a lot of incorrect data floating around out there. Perhaps the best way to proceed is for everyone to recognize that an apology was finally made publicly and privately. Can you also please clarify whether it was the entire Board that voted for the continuation of the JonB suspension last January? Thank you in advance for your response.

 

[BlknBlu]

Or maybe just dance around the real questions and watch everyone disappear rather than keeping folks updated. Even if the answer is it is under review, that is at least something. Too many people are fed up and have a right to ask WITH ANSWERS. The only questions being answered are secondary questions that really do not get to the root of the MASSIVE failure that occurred. As a member that was passionette about the club and it's members, my faith has now been extremely shaken and fear that a lot will be left under the rug for no one to see. Where does the Viper fit in to all this mess?

Last Post

Bruce

 

[ViperTony]

Thanks for the data Tony. The one thing that is clear is that there is a lot of incorrect data floating around out there. Perhaps the best way to proceed is for everyone to recognize that an apology was finally made publicly and privately. Can you also please clarify whether it was the entire Board that voted for the continuation of the JonB suspension last January? Thank you in advance for your response.

Here's the section of the meeting minutes related to JonB. I assume it's ok to post this if not then I suggest getting a copy of the meeting minutes from the current board:
EXECUTIVE SESSION – January 18, 2013

Lee Stubberfield called an executive session at 12:30 PM to discuss SRT support and Jon B suspension extension.
Reason for closed session was sensitive information about specific ex-member.

Out of Executive Session at 3:30 PM
Motion to offer change of Jon Brobst’s suspension to allow re-application of membership in 6 months as drafted by
Bill Corum:

Motion that the current suspension of Jon Brobst and PartsRack stand, but that Mr. Brobst be eligible to
make application for reinstatement of himself and/or PartsRack on or after July 1, 2013.

Upon such application, the issue will be presented to the entire national board of the VCA, a discussion of
the application will be fully considered, and all such members shall vote on any such application.
Whether or not the suspension is lifted or otherwise modified will be based upon whether Mr. Brobst
demonstrates to the board's satisfaction that there has been no material repetition of the behavior which
led to the suspension, violation of the terms of the current suspension, or other actions which are deemed
to be harmful or disruptive to the interests of the VCA including, but not limited to:

1. Communications with the manufacturer in a manner which is harmful or disruptive, or otherwise
maligns, the VCA, its directors, officers, or other members of the VCA;

2. Directly or indirectly publishing harmful or disruptive statements, or which otherwise malign, the VCA,
its directors, officers, or other members of the VCA; or

3. Any other actions which are otherwise viewed as harmful to the interests of the VCA or its members.

If Mr. Brobst chooses to make such application, he shall submit such application to the national board, in
writing, containing whatever information he believes may support such application and which he believes
should be considered.
Motion: Tim Wollenson
2nd: John Wojnar
Passed: Unanimous

As far as I know, Jon never made such an application to the board after July 1st.

 

[Bobpantax]

Thank you very much Tony. The action above was clearly approved unanimously. It is interesting that there was a unified Board on this issue as of January 18th. It means that this occured after there had already been earlier attempts to resolve the matter by a third party to have the suspension lifted. There must have been considerable data submitted to the Board to justify the continuing suspension under those circumstances on a unanimous basis - correct? Perhaps you can also shed some light on and clarify another data point. My understanding is that each of the Regional clubs has, or at least is supposed to have, its own separate non profit entity under its own state's laws with the local Regional officers responsible for their own respective Region's compliance with any applicable local law; any applicable Federal and state filings; and, their own respective Bylaws. From all the secession posts, it sure seems to confirm that view. Is that the way you and the Board viewed it?

Here's the section of the meeting minutes related to JonB. I assume it's ok to post this if not then I suggest getting a copy of the meeting minutes from the current board:
EXECUTIVE SESSION – January 18, 2013

Lee Stubberfield called an executive session at 12:30 PM to discuss SRT support and Jon B suspension extension.
Reason for closed session was sensitive information about specific ex-member.

Out of Executive Session at 3:30 PM
Motion to offer change of Jon Brobst’s suspension to allow re-application of membership in 6 months as drafted by
Bill Corum:

Motion that the current suspension of Jon Brobst and PartsRack stand, but that Mr. Brobst be eligible to
make application for reinstatement of himself and/or PartsRack on or after July 1, 2013.

Upon such application, the issue will be presented to the entire national board of the VCA, a discussion of
the application will be fully considered, and all such members shall vote on any such application.
Whether or not the suspension is lifted or otherwise modified will be based upon whether Mr. Brobst
demonstrates to the board's satisfaction that there has been no material repetition of the behavior which
led to the suspension, violation of the terms of the current suspension, or other actions which are deemed
to be harmful or disruptive to the interests of the VCA including, but not limited to:

1. Communications with the manufacturer in a manner which is harmful or disruptive, or otherwise
maligns, the VCA, its directors, officers, or other members of the VCA;

2. Directly or indirectly publishing harmful or disruptive statements, or which otherwise malign, the VCA,
its directors, officers, or other members of the VCA; or

3. Any other actions which are otherwise viewed as harmful to the interests of the VCA or its members.

If Mr. Brobst chooses to make such application, he shall submit such application to the national board, in
writing, containing whatever information he believes may support such application and which he believes
should be considered.
Motion: Tim Wollenson
2nd: John Wojnar
Passed: Unanimous

As far as I know, Jon never made such an application to the board after July 1st.

 

[ViperTony]

Thank you very much Tony. The action above was clearly approved unanimously. It is interesting that there was a unified Board on this issue as of January 18th. It means that this occured after there had already been earlier attempts to resolve the matter by a third party to have the suspension lifted. There must have been considerable data submitted to the Board to justify the continuing suspension under those circumstances on a numanimous basis - correct?

There was a 12/30/12 email vote to extend Jons' suspension by Marv. In that email, were two votes. One was to waive the 20 day meeting notice and another to extend Jons' suspension. Marv put together some kind of document detailing Jons' transgressions he believed violated the terms of Jons' suspension. I believe it contained posts Jon made that went against his terms of suspension. I and others didn't vote. In fact my words to Lee at that time were not pleasant on this. It made no sense to further suspend Jon especially through email and not even giving Jon a chance to defend himself in front of the board. It was reported at the Jan meeting that Marvs' email vote passed unanimously. Then it was reported not unanimous. Nobody could detail what the actual vote count was including Marv or Lee.

The 1/18 vote was troublesome. The only headway we were able to make as a group was to get everyone to agree to allow Jon to reapply in six months. The 12/30 suspension pretty much banished Jon for years with no re-application.

But there's more twists here. The 12/30 email vote is invalid. According to prior legal counsel, it takes the full board in attendance (or proxy) to waive the 20 day meeting notice and every board member must vote on it and every board member must be invited to the meeting. The fact that at least 5 board members didn't vote at all and one board member wasn't even on the 12/30 email list should invalidate the 12/30 extended suspension. The board has the legal opinion on this because of an invalid meeting that took place last month which raised this issue.

Technically, Jons' suspension should've been lifted on 1/1/2013.

 

[Bobpantax]

Thanks again Tony. Regardless of the legal efficacy of the January 18th vote, everyone agreed to it. While you were typing your answer, I added another question. For your convenience, here it is: Perhaps you can also shed some light on and clarify another data point. My understanding is that each of the Regional clubs has, or at least is supposed to have, its own separate non profit entity under its own state's laws with the local Regional officers responsible for their own respective Region's compliance with any applicable local law; any applicable Federal and state filings; and, their own respective Bylaws. From all the secession posts, it sure seems to confirm that view. Is that the way you and the Board viewed it?

 

[ViperTony]

Thanks again Tony. Regardless of the legal efficacy of the January 18th vote, everyone agreed to it. While you were typing your answer, I added another question. For your convenience, here it is: Perhaps you can also shed some light on and clarify another data point. My understanding is that each of the Regional clubs has, or at least is supposed to have, its own separate non profit entity under its own state's laws with the local Regional officers responsible for their own respective Region's compliance with any applicable local law; any applicable Federal and state filings; and, their own respective Bylaws. From all the secession posts, it sure seems to confirm that view. Is that the way you and the Board viewed it?

Our by laws covers this. We still have some current board members from the "old" board. What is their consensus on the above? Why do you ask especially if it seems apparent from all of the secession posts?

 

[MoparMap]

For what it's worth, Tim makes $0 from the warehouse. He merely charges exactly what the space costs him, so he's not making any profit off of the club. I've also heard that several of the board members at the time were "annoyed" by Ralph's relationship with JonB and the push to let him back into the club and were considering writing some kind of letter to address the matter. Tim was the first to step up, but as many recall, there was another anonymous letter sent. If Tim had the guts to sign the first one, you would think he would have signed the second as well, so seeing as he didn't, it stands to reason that someone else wrote them. The fact that no one is stepping up to claim responsibility leads me to believe that it's because the people who wrote it don't want to be associated with it now because they want to stay in SRT's good favor (perhaps to form a new club?). That's like taking a sniper shot and someone, missing, but still going out to dinner with them because they're paying.

I don't necessarily condone the letter in a certain light. If the club had problems with Raph, they should have addressed the letter straight to him and left Sergio out of it. That's really no different than JonB going after someone's employer. From what I've heard of the board meetings (fairly little, I'll admit), a majority of the board at the time was in favor of writing a letter. If board members thought this was a bad idea and didn't speak up, the responsibility is on them for not trying to take the wheel earlier. It's potentially not any different than the mob mentality going on now. The mob mentality of the time was with the board being unhappy with Ralph's push to let JonB back in. The mentality now is the members being unhappy with transparency issues.

As far as the issues people have with Chris, it's a complicated matter I'll agree. There have been audits of VPA done in the past. Nothing has been found to be wrong, and in fact they were actually impressed that it worked as efficiently as it does (ask the club's former legal counsel, pretty sure they can give you the names of the auditors). People saying that Chris should be fired and comparing him to an employee stealing from the club are wild accusations that no one has proven. I think a better analogy is that he's a successful business owner that can ruffle feathers from time to time (not unlike JonB). As Bob and others have pointed out, the VPA is an excellent company for us. It works well, gets us good parts and good prices, and has good service. It stands to reason you'd want to keep that machine working well since it benefits us, and seeing as Chris is something like 30% or more of it, getting rid of him and moving all the parts elsewhere would be a pretty major step back and would potentially cost of a lot of unneeded money. However, I'll agree that he shouldn't have really had any communication with Chrysler regarding the JonB issue (ruffling the feathers). He's not a member of the board, so he shouldn't be making policies. The club owns VPA, so they should be the ones issuing marching orders, not the other way around.

 

[luc]

You wrote"...For what it's worth, Tim makes $0 from the warehouse. He merely charges exactly what the space costs him, so he's not making any profit off of the club." Is that a JOKE?. Maybe you need some help with accounting 101. As for Chris, you are making the same argument than Bob, Chris run VPA well and getting rid of him could cost some money. What a lame excuse, sometimes doing the right thing cost money. And frankly that's beside the point, Chris has a HUGE part of responsibility in the mess than the VCA has to deal with, most of it having to do with ETHICS and CHARACTER. Chris has proved that he is sorely missing those 2 qualities so, don't tell us that keeping him is a "good deal" for the club. What I find very disturbing and not a good sign for the future of the VCA is that most of the arguments made by peoples like Bob, MoparMap, Lee and others, are based on money, legal technicalities, and other niceties but NEVER on what is RIGHT or WRONG.

 

[Bobpantax]

Just curious since there have been some wild posts about this subject over the past few weeks. Personally, I think just from the MVCO thread, the answer is obvious.

Our by laws covers this. We still have some current board members from the "old" board. What is their consensus on the above? Why do you ask especially if it seems apparent from all of the secession posts?

 

[TowDawg]

I have said it before and I guess will have to say it again. Passing a financial audit means nothing. It just means there is not outright theft going on.
The question is what does the VPA make? Show the entire balance sheet and income statement, which unfortunately probably can't be trusted to be accurate at this point anyway.
This needs to include all of the MONEY (as in paid by check) to the VCA. ALL THE PROFITS GO THE VCA, remember?

These are all hypothetical numbers from here on out, but just used as an example of how something can pass an audit, but not be "right".
Let's say revenue was $1,000,000.
Actual parts cost was $400k.
That leaves $600k.
That part was easy. Now comes where it might be "legal" and pass an audit, but it's still screwing the club.
Of that $600k:
$35k goes to Herb. (I still think it's funny that VCA shows this as a savings because the VPA now pays it.)(This is a potential legality issue in another way regarding blatantly shifting costs from non-profit to a for-profit to lower the tax base for the for-profit.)
$60k goes to warehouse rental. (Whether this is "profit" or not to Tim doesn't matter. Maybe he owes too much on it and it's just covering his costs, it's $60K per year! Who else could he be renting it to? What is comparable rental space somewhere else available for? I don't know, but I bet you it can be found for less considering what property values there are now.)
$15k goes to legitmate other expenses. (power, boxes, shipping, etc)
$60k goes to cover the other two employees pay.
Now we have $430k left.
Technically, Chris could be getting all of that $430k in multiple forms (payments, "business" trips, remodeling of office space (maybe in his own house), buying anything he wants that "could" have a slight connection to work).

Like I said, an audit of the VPA would show all of that to be above boards (more or less).
The problem is that the VCA got nothing and Chris got a lot.
SHOW THE NUMBERS! HOW MUCH HAS THE VPA PAID THE VCA???
If the VPA technically has no profit after paying all of the expenses above, then the VCA gets nothing because there was no "profit" after Chris finished spending it all.
So how does this benefit the VCA?
As far as the VPA giving items to regions, JonB always did that (and STILL does). I'd also be willing to bet that JonB gave/gives more to the regions than the VPA does (and the VCA never gave him $50k to start a business).

 

[MoparMap]

In regards to accounting, my understanding from Tim himself is that he does not own the building that the parts are being stored in. He has a business that uses the warehouse, so he rents the building space from someone else to begin with. When VPA came about and they were looking for a place to keep stuff, he inquired about the extra space that was in the building his business was in. In effect he's subleasing the space for no profit is what I was getting at. Hence, if he's only charging what he's being charged, he's making no profit.

What exactly has Chris done that is wrong with VPA? I don't think he's stealing parts through the backdoor, that's all conjecture either way, so that's out. Hiring his son as editor? I'd question this some, but I'd also like to see some of the background on the situation to form a better opinion of it. Is he a journalism major? Maybe does a lot with graphics? If I remember some of the numbers being thrown around his salary is pretty minor anyway, but I'll agree that an open call should have been made for the position (if it wasn't). From the surface it looks pretty sketchy, but I'm not going to whip out my pitchfork until I understand how it came about.

From a certain standpoint, the Viper club is using it's own members and members' business connections to try to help everyone out. One example is the potential funding of the raffle car from a member's bank. Regardless of the stuff going on with the raffle, someone reached out from his own personal business connections to try to help the club, which is no different than Tim offering warehouse space for VPA parts. At the time, Chris got the parts and had to find a place for them. Tim, a fellow Viper owner, had some extra space and offered it to help out the club. Why are people getting so pissed about this? Would people prefer the club to do thorough investigations of every business they're thinking about using to make sure that no members are involved to keep things as unrelated as possible? Or would they prefer the club to get deals through its connections and be able to offer either lower membership dues or more for the money you do give? The same is true of C2C. They did the same job as JR Thompson for far less money and people have been pretty satisfied with the results. However, since it's a Viper club member running the business, it looks like the club is padding one member's pocket. It's all just the perspective you have. One the one hand, the club is trying to spend its money wisely, on the other hand their just giving all their money to a few members. The fact that the Marshalls run both VPA and C2C is a tough thing to approach since one family is now getting a large portion of the Viper clubs' business, but if they're doing a good job for a good price, why are we complaining? I agree that the financials should have been more readily available to help alleviate the concern with the situation though. If something looks sketchy, it's in everyone's best interest to try to explain the situation as thoroughly as possible to help remove doubt and ***** out the flames before it turns into an inferno. This was obviously not done, but just because something looks off, doesn't mean it really is. If you saw a hillbilly with no teeth or shirt driving a Viper down the street at high speeds, what would be your first impression? Would you think he worked hard and bought the car with his own money or would you think he saw the keys sitting in the car and took a joyride?

 

[Bobpantax]

You need to read my posts again more carefully. If you do, you may notice that they have resulted in the production of a considerable amount of data that anger, emotion and reckless accusations would never obtain. First the facts have to be ascertained - not an easy task with three differnt versions or more flying all over the place; then a dispassionate assessment of the facts is made; then decisions can be made. Some may disagree with that process. The ones that do always end up in a lawyer's office at some point in their lives wondering how they got there. LOL. One other point. In the real world of business, if an employer has a high performing employee who may have issues but can be controlled and disciplined, the employee is not just canned to the detriment of the business. But, if you feel strongly about it, you could offer to contribute the amount of money it would cost to implement your view to the VCA. I don't think that many members would want their dues money spent just to make the point.

You wrote"...For what it's worth, Tim makes $0 from the warehouse. He merely charges exactly what the space costs him, so he's not making any profit off of the club." Is that a JOKE?. Maybe you need some help with accounting 101. As for Chris, you are making the same argument than Bob, Chris run VPA well and getting rid of him could cost some money. What a lame excuse, sometimes doing the right thing cost money. And frankly that's beside the point, Chris has a HUGE part of responsibility in the mess than the VCA has to deal with, most of it having to do with ETHICS and CHARACTER. Chris has proved that he is sorely missing those 2 qualities so, don't tell us that keeping him is a "good deal" for the club. What I find very disturbing and not a good sign for the future of the VCA is that most of the arguments made by peoples like Bob, MoparMap, Lee and others, are based on money, legal technicalities, and other niceties but NEVER on what is RIGHT or WRONG.

 

[MoparMap]

I have said it before and I guess will have to say it again. Passing a financial audit means nothing. It just means there is not outright theft going on.
The question is what does the VPA make? Show the entire balance sheet and income statement, which unfortunately probably can't be trusted to be accurate at this point anyway.This needs to include all of the MONEY (as in paid by check) to the VCA. ALL THE PROFITS GO THE VCA, remember?
...

I completely agree with you that the numbers should be shown and would be incredibly helpful in this situation. However, I also tend toward the "innocent until proven guilty" mindset. Not showing the numbers doesn't mean that someone is guilty. It doesn't help their position any to not show them if they are in fact innocent, so they are only shooting themselves in the foot by not putting out any information. The statement I bolded is the main issue now though. It doesn't matter what is actually posted as likely no one will believe it. Hypothetically speaking, if everything is really on the up and up, what would it take to convince people of that? If the financials posted are 100% accurate and backed by unrelated third parties, does that mean everyone will shake hands and sing songs around the campfire? I highly doubt it, and my gut feeling is that they'll just try to find something else to attack.

 

[MoparBoyy]

In regards to accounting, my understanding from Tim himself is that he does not own the building that the parts are being stored in. He has a business that uses the warehouse, so he rents the building space from someone else to begin with. When VPA came about and they were looking for a place to keep stuff, he inquired about the extra space that was in the building his business was in. In effect he's subleasing the space for no profit is what I was getting at. Hence, if he's only charging what he's being charged, he's making no profit.

What exactly has Chris done that is wrong with VPA? I don't think he's stealing parts through the backdoor, that's all conjecture either way, so that's out. Hiring his son as editor? I'd question this some, but I'd also like to see some of the background on the situation to form a better opinion of it. Is he a journalism major? Maybe does a lot with graphics? If I remember some of the numbers being thrown around his salary is pretty minor anyway, but I'll agree that an open call should have been made for the position (if it wasn't). From the surface it looks pretty sketchy, but I'm not going to whip out my pitchfork until I understand how it came about.

From a certain standpoint, the Viper club is using it's own members and members' business connections to try to help everyone out. One example is the potential funding of the raffle car from a member's bank. Regardless of the stuff going on with the raffle, someone reached out from his own personal business connections to try to help the club, which is no different than Tim offering warehouse space for VPA parts. At the time, Chris got the parts and had to find a place for them. Tim, a fellow Viper owner, had some extra space and offered it to help out the club. Why are people getting so pissed about this? Would people prefer the club to do thorough investigations of every business they're thinking about using to make sure that no members are involved to keep things as unrelated as possible? Or would they prefer the club to get deals through its connections and be able to offer either lower membership dues or more for the money you do give? The same is true of C2C. They did the same job as JR Thompson for far less money and people have been pretty satisfied with the results. However, since it's a Viper club member running the business, it looks like the club is padding one member's pocket. It's all just the perspective you have. One the one hand, the club is trying to spend its money wisely, on the other hand their just giving all their money to a few members. The fact that the Marshalls run both VPA and C2C is a tough thing to approach since one family is now getting a large portion of the Viper clubs' business, but if they're doing a good job for a good price, why are we complaining? I agree that the financials should have been more readily available to help alleviate the concern with the situation though. If something looks sketchy, it's in everyone's best interest to try to explain the situation as thoroughly as possible to help remove doubt and ***** out the flames before it turns into an inferno. This was obviously not done, but just because something looks off, doesn't mean it really is. If you saw a hillbilly with no teeth or shirt driving a Viper down the street at high speeds, what would be your first impression? Would you think he worked hard and bought the car with his own money or would you think he saw the keys sitting in the car and took a joyride?

Interesting info from someone that joined the club in Jan... Tell Chris we said hi or tell him to just post stuff himself.

 

[MoparBoyy]

I completely agree with you that the numbers should be shown and would be incredibly helpful in this situation. However, I also tend toward the "innocent until proven guilty" mindset. Not showing the numbers doesn't mean that someone is guilty. It doesn't help their position any to not show them if they are in fact innocent, so they are only shooting themselves in the foot by not putting out any information. The statement I bolded is the main issue now though. It doesn't matter what is actually posted as likely no one will believe it. Hypothetically speaking, if everything is really on the up and up, what would it take to convince people of that? If the financials posted are 100% accurate and backed by unrelated third parties, does that mean everyone will shake hands and sing songs around the campfire? I highly doubt it, and my gut feeling is that they'll just try to find something else to attack.

How about the letter from Chrysler naming the guilty parties? What more do you need?

 

[MoparMap]

Mock all you want, but I haven't seen Chris in probably 3 months. Frankly, from what I heard at our meeting yesterday, the Marshalls are pratically being assaulted, so trying to get information from them is difficult at best. Their phone numbers and emails have been publicly posted, so you can imagine that they have probably had to disconnect or change most of their communication channels. Pretty hard to actually try to put numbers together for your business and send them out when you can't use your email due to the thousands of messages and probably death threats you get when you turn it on. Hard to make phone calls and hear from friends and family when you have to change your phone number just so you can actually use one.

Seriously though, actually think about it. If you owned a business and offered its services to the club at good rates, don't you think you'd be doing the club a favor? If suddenly everyone started attacking you because they think you're in the club's pocketbook, what would you do?

 

[MoparMap]

How about the letter from Chrysler naming the guilty parties? What more do you need?

I'm honestly asking this as I haven't read the letters in a long time, but what exactly is Chrysler saying they're guilty of?

 

[MoparBoyy]

Seriously though, actually think about it. If you owned a business and offered its services to the club at good rates, don't you think you'd be doing the club a favor? If suddenly everyone started attacking you because they think you're in the club's pocketbook, what would you do?

I'd prove them wrong.

 

[MoparMap]

I'd prove them wrong.

And what if no one will believe anything you say?

 

[Bobpantax]

The Chysler letter does not say they are guilty of anyhting. It sets forth two issues:

1. A conflict of interest which Chrysler wanted eliminated. Basically, that the Marshall family should not be involved in both the VCA ( Mary's role) and the VPA ( Chris's role).
2. "Peculiar behavior". Widely thought to be the letters to Sergio about Ralph and some negative posts on this site regarding Chrylser, SRT and/or Ralph.

All of the harsh financial allegations seem to be generated by current or past VCA members. So far, I have not seen any credible proof of any of them posted. For instance, the trip to the Ring was alleged as improper. But Chris went there on behalf of the magazine and if I recall correctly we were all very pleased with the article about the Ring record. It might be useful if the VPA obtained an audited financial statement from a well known CPA firm and, assuming it got a clean bill of health, then had a simple letter issued by the auditing firm stating same that could be posted on this site. Since VPA is a for profit business, it would not make much sense for its financials as a whole to be all over the net. That would give an unfair advantage to its competitors who would undoubtedly NOT post theirs'.

 

[Brian GTS]

I've remained quiet on these matters for the most part, but regardless of what Chris Marshall may have done right in his EARLY YEARS, he was one of the leaders that put this club in the awkward position it is today. You can defend Chris all you want based on some of the "good" things he has done, but he in no way shape or form should be a paid employee of the VCA at this point. Supposedly, VCA owns VPA....so why does he still have his hands in anything related to VCA??? I don't get it.

A lot of members feel animosity toward Chris for his negligence and no doubt it is going to hurt the VCA and VPA sales. I don't understand why the VCA doesn't finish "cleaning up"....instead, it seems as if some are still "protected" and the VCA will witness members exiting left and right because of it.

 

[MoparBoyy]

And what if no one will believe anything you say?

There is a good reason for that. He has been proven to be a lair. People are looking for facts and not his spin on the facts.

He has refused numerous times to let the *** see the books of the VPA. That would have been a good place to start.

Try reading this thread, it's a perfect example of how members are treated of this club and how they think they owe no answers to anyone on this very forum.

http://forums.viperclub.org/threads/650766-***-Meeting

I suggest you read this thread as well:

http://www.viperalley.com/forum/anything-goes/104898-jon-b-parts-rack.html

 

[TowDawg]

Seriously though, actually think about it. If you owned a business and offered its services to the club at good rates, don't you think you'd be doing the club a favor? If suddenly everyone started attacking you because they think you're in the club's pocketbook, what would you do?

The highlighted portion is another major issue. Chris doesn't OWN #$%^. He WORKS FOR the VPA, which is OWNED by the VCA. How in the hell does he think it's OK to not supply ANY and ALL information that is asked for? Even if not to all members (as it should be), but certainly to the ***.

 

[MoparBoyy]

The highlighted portion is another major issue. Chris doesn't OWN #$%^. He WORKS FOR the VPA, which is OWNED by the VCA. How in the hell does he think it's OK to not supply ANY and ALL information that is asked for? Even if not to all members (as it should be), but certainly to the ***.

This. even CM needs to get that into his head.

 

[MoparMap]

The highlighted portion is another major issue. Chris doesn't OWN #$%^. He WORKS FOR the VPA, which is OWNED by the VCA. How in the hell does he think it's OK to not supply ANY and ALL information that is asked for? Even if not to all members (as it should be), but certainly to the ***.

I agree that Chris should answer to the board, VCA has the leash on VPA. My wording wasn't necessarily the best for the situation at hand, but I think it still applies. You're performing a service for the club and suddenly everyone is accusing you. I thought when VPA was originally set up it was actually done on a volunteer basis, but as the business grew it became more of a full-time job. Regardless, this just puts more of the burden on the board. Since the board should really have the final word on VPA dealings, if they were letting things slide it's on them. He might be providing numbers to the board for all we know, but the agreements signed by the them may prevent them from publicly disclosing them to their full extents. As mentioned before, putting the financials of a for-profit all over the internet isn't going to help the business. It's not much different than all the letters that have been flying around. The matter between the club and Ralph should have been handled privately between only them. Dragging the entire automotive world into this just makes everyone look bad. It's just like a fight within a family. Do you want everyone on the street to know you and your wife are having problems? Or would you rather try to work things out and move on?

 

[TrackAire]

For what it's worth, Tim makes $0 from the warehouse. He merely charges exactly what the space costs him, so he's not making any profit off of the club. I've also heard that several of the board members at the time were "annoyed" by Ralph's relationship with JonB and the push to let him back into the club and were considering writing some kind of letter to address the matter. Tim was the first to step up, but as many recall, there was another anonymous letter sent. If Tim had the guts to sign the first one, you would think he would have signed the second as well, so seeing as he didn't, it stands to reason that someone else wrote them. The fact that no one is stepping up to claim responsibility leads me to believe that it's because the people who wrote it don't want to be associated with it now because they want to stay in SRT's good favor (perhaps to form a new club?). That's like taking a sniper shot and someone, missing, but still going out to dinner with them because they're paying.

I don't necessarily condone the letter in a certain light. If the club had problems with Raph, they should have addressed the letter straight to him and left Sergio out of it. That's really no different than JonB going after someone's employer. From what I've heard of the board meetings (fairly little, I'll admit), a majority of the board at the time was in favor of writing a letter. If board members thought this was a bad idea and didn't speak up, the responsibility is on them for not trying to take the wheel earlier. It's potentially not any different than the mob mentality going on now. The mob mentality of the time was with the board being unhappy with Ralph's push to let JonB back in. The mentality now is the members being unhappy with transparency issues.

As far as the issues people have with Chris, it's a complicated matter I'll agree. There have been audits of VPA done in the past. Nothing has been found to be wrong, and in fact they were actually impressed that it worked as efficiently as it does (ask the club's former legal counsel, pretty sure they can give you the names of the auditors). People saying that Chris should be fired and comparing him to an employee stealing from the club are wild accusations that no one has proven. I think a better analogy is that he's a successful business owner that can ruffle feathers from time to time (not unlike JonB). As Bob and others have pointed out, the VPA is an excellent company for us. It works well, gets us good parts and good prices, and has good service. It stands to reason you'd want to keep that machine working well since it benefits us, and seeing as Chris is something like 30% or more of it, getting rid of him and moving all the parts elsewhere would be a pretty major step back and would potentially cost of a lot of unneeded money. However, I'll agree that he shouldn't have really had any communication with Chrysler regarding the JonB issue (ruffling the feathers). He's not a member of the board, so he shouldn't be making policies. The club owns VPA, so they should be the ones issuing marching orders, not the other way around.

MoparMap,

Here are some things you can do to help put out correct information. (that's one of the biggest issues right now, lack of info and nobody willing to answer the questions). Since you are local, can you find out exactly how many square feet of VPA warehouse we are actually renting? Another helpful contribution would be to take actual photos of the VPA warehouse (inside and out) and also showing the VPA inventory. Detailed photos with an actual square footage of the VPA warehouse would tell us a lot in regards to the rent being paid. We may not be overpaying. We may be overpaying. Proof is what is needed. Now here is the kicker, if nobody is willing to post up the exact VPA square footage and pictures of the inside of warehouse....well then, guess what most peoples conclusion will be.

Your analogy of Chris being a successful business owner is not correct, he owns nothing, he is an employee of the VCA (at least that is how it has been explained to the membership). As an employee, he has to answer to his bosses (I would consider that to be the membership and the ***'s). Not disclosing financials and refusing to answer profit, income, etc questions to the ***'s....how long would you last at any job if you were insubordinate? Past performance a reason to keep your job?......how did that work out for Bernie Madoff or the executives of Enron?

You mentioned that Tim rented extra warehouse space so the VPA could sub rent it from him. If there was extra warehouse space, then why didn't the VPA just rent it directly from the property owner? Look at the building, it's not the Taj Mahal of freaking warehouse space. It is off the beaten track, not fancy and older buildings. It makes no business sense as to why we need to sub rent from Tim. This also put Tim in a financial conflict of interest position (whether he is making a profit or not) since we are making payments directly to him. In doing such, he cannot write letters to anybody complaining about Ralph, Parts Rack, etc since he has a severe financial conflict of interest. You do see how he has a financial interest in the VPA doing well and keeping Parts Rack out of the picture, don't you? Even if he is making 0 profit, if the VPA was to fail then according to your description he would be stuck with a $5000.00 a month lease payment to the landlord.

None of these questions or doubts would have ever come up if the financials and information was provided when asked. There is no argument to that.

George

 

[TowDawg]

Along with a lot of other things, I hate that people say Chris is offering a "service" to the VCA, like he's doing everyone a favor.
He was unemployed, handed a business, and used our money to start it. The VCA did him a service. He has no other job.

Again, I have NO problem with people being paid to do the work. I DO have a problem with all of the secrecy (not just on this exact issue) and specifically with Chris based on his actions.

 

[MoparMap]

MoparMap,

Here are some things you can do to help put out correct information. (that's one of the biggest issues right now, lack of info and nobody willing to answer the questions). Since you are local, can you find out exactly how many square feet of VPA warehouse we are actually renting? Another helpful contribution would be to take actual photos of the VPA warehouse (inside and out) and also showing the VPA inventory. Detailed photos with an actual square footage of the VPA warehouse would tell us a lot in regards to the rent being paid. We may not be overpaying. We may be overpaying. Proof is what is needed. Now here is the kicker, if nobody is willing to post up the exact VPA square footage and pictures of the inside of warehouse....well then, guess what most peoples conclusion will be.

Your analogy of Chris being a successful business owner is not correct, he owns nothing, he is an employee of the VCA (at least that is how it has been explained to the membership). As an employee, he has to answer to his bosses (I would consider that to be the membership and the ***'s). Not disclosing financials and refusing to answer profit, income, etc questions to the ***'s....how long would you last at any job if you were insubordinate? Past performance a reason to keep your job?......how did that work out for Bernie Madoff or the executives of Enron?

You mentioned that Tim rented extra warehouse space so the VPA could sub rent it from him. If there was extra warehouse space, then why didn't the VPA just rent it directly from the property owner? Look at the building, it's not the Taj Mahal of freaking warehouse space. It is off the beaten track, not fancy and older buildings. It makes no business sense as to why we need to sub rent from Tim. This also put Tim in a financial conflict of interest position (whether he is making a profit or not) since we are making payments directly to him. In doing such, he cannot write letters to anybody complaining about Ralph, Parts Rack, etc since he has a severe financial conflict of interest. You do see how he has a financial interest in the VPA doing well and keeping Parts Rack out of the picture, don't you? Even if he is making 0 profit, if the VPA was to fail then according to your description he would be stuck with a $5000.00 a month lease payment to the landlord.

None of these questions or doubts would have ever come up if the financials and information was provided when asked. There is no argument to that.

George

I admit, I do keep forgetting that the business is not Chris's and keep referencing it as such. That is my fault, and I'll own up to that. I agree that he should answer to his bosses, but the focus then shifts to the bosses. On the one hand, if you have an employee that gets results, but might not always be the easiest to work with, you're in a tough situation. There are a few approaches. One is probably the most noble and involves trying to hire only the most respectable and trushworthy people to help, but as we all know this is likely the least common occurance. On the other hand, you can hire the most weasly sharks in the water that will do anything for a buck so you can pad your wallets as fat as you can get them. Then you can fall somewhere in the middle where you hire people you like that also perform. You might like one a little more than another and put up with some more flak from some as long as they are doing their job effectively.

I also wonder some about the sublease so to speak, but I also don't necessarily know the full situation. It could be that a full independent setup from the club (as far as the building owner is concerned) might carry extra costs for whatever reason, but this would be just speculation. Kind of like it might be cheaper to get more space than to get a new space, even though it's in the same building, but as mentioned, this is just a guess on my part. And I have no idea about the warehouse either or its location. I had asked once previously because I was on a bit of a deadline and was going to see about just picking some parts up myself since I was local (back before all of this erupted). I never got an answer, but it didn't really matter to me and Chris said he would deliver stuff to me at get togethers if I wanted. I think part of the issue might be that there are two businesses in the same building. The location and contents of the building aren't necessarily just the club's, so it could be a bit of a potential disclosure issue. For all I know they could have nuclear warheads on the racks next to body panels and all employees are sworn to silence, though I would imagine this pretty unlikely. All the same, Tim's business is entitled to some degree of privacy, so it would have to be handled appropriately. Frankly I'm guessing it's largely just picked out of convenience. It makes sense for Chris to keep the parts near him since he's running the business, and since Chris and Tim are friends, it makes it easier for Chris to deal with warehouse issues when his line of contact is a buddy.

I know this could easily turn into shady deals, but I also just look at it as two good friends helping each other out. We have family friends that have a factory in town with a lot of spare room in their shipping area. They let us keep some of our cars there because they know we have cool cars that we want to keep out of the weather. I've shipped several parts there as well because they have a loading dock and it helps cut shipping costs. I see the same thing when I look at VPA and the warehouse. Chris got way more parts from Chrysler than he was expecting and Tim offered him some room because they're friends. I don't think this has to turn into a wild backdoor mafia chop house for Viper parts. I guess I just try to see the better in people, but I never even had the remotest thought that Tim was trying to make a buck off the club.