GRAFF, BALLAUER,
BLANSKI & FRIEDMAN, P.C.
Certified
Public Accountants
TWO
William
Fadel
Wuliger, Fade! & Beyer
The
Re: International
Local 18
2005
Election Protest
Dear Mr. Fadel:
Patricia Kohl’s protest letter dated
Also, Patricia Kohl falsely states that I said
that Pat Sink had the results of the election by district, and that I had
stated that I provided such results to Mr. Sink. When she called and asked
those two questions, she took me by
surprise and I accurately stated that I was not sure. RESPONSE:
Why would he be taken by surprise to such simple
questions and why was he not sure unless he had something to hide? Could it be
that he was not sure what Patrick Sink would want him to do? Patrick Sink is
responsible for the majority of his firm’s income from Local 18; the annual
audits of Local 18 finances, which is a substantial sum. This surely
constitutes a conflict of interest. Blanski’s firm cannot conduct a fair
unbiased election while incumbent candidates for officers are being opposed and
have control of his employment by Local 18. Also, Blanski did say Sink had the
results and had no problem giving them to me with the consent of the Election
Committee.
Also, Patricia Kohl erroneously states that I
did not call Warren Wright I did call Warren Wright but did not get through and
did not leave a message. RESPONSE: Blanski told
me he did not call Warren Wright even though he said he would but would not
tell me why he didn’t. Warren Wright told me he has caller ID (and voice mail)
which would identify if a call was missed even though no message was left.
Warren Wright said he had not had a call from Blanski. Warren Wright is an
honest man and will not lie. In Patrick Sink’s verbal response to the Executive
Board he failed to provide any statement from Warren Wright to refute my
statements. Furthermore, at the Executive Board meeting the Board failed to
question Warren Wright as to the accuracy of the statements I made. Phone records of Blanski and Wright would determine
who is lying.
I would
like to state that the Executive Board did not question anyone on any
statements included in my protest or the protest of other members of local 18.
A few board members did make statements of opinions. Mr. Sink purposely
denied the Board (as well as all protesters) written documentation of anything
on which they were expected to rule. When I filed my protest on
Also contrary to what Patricia Kohl states, I
did not call Pat Sink after I talked to her; nor did Pat Sink ever tell me not
to give the results to anyone. Also she more or less states that I gave the
results by district to Pat Sink. I did not tell Patricia Kohl that I gave the
results to Pat Sink. RESPONSE: BUT Mr.
Blanski does not say he did not give them to Sink,
only he didn’t say he did. He did tell me he gave the results to Mr. Sink and
had no problem giving them to me with the Election Committee’s permission. Why
did the request stop that day? Mr. Blanski stated he tried to call Mr. Wright, why did he
not pursue this? He says he did not call Mr. Sink. I would request that phone
records of Blanski, Sink and Warren Wright be reviewed and honesty can be
determined! I also cite Mr. Rosenblat’s statement “Included with her materials, Ms. Kohl
provided a copy of the 2002 election results broken down by district. That is
immaterial. Even if the results were provided to some in that way in prior
elections, the decision of the Union in those circumstances does not bind the
Patricia Kohl also alleges that the election
rules require the publication of the eligible list of candidates in the July
issue of the Buckeye Engineer. RESPONSE: It is clearly
stated in the By-Laws of Local 18, Article XIII, Section 13. Furthermore,
Article XIII, Section 11 states that “the Election Committee Shall
conduct the election in accordance with these By-Laws, the International Constitution,
such rules and regulations as may be promulgated by the Executive Board of this
Local
It should
be noted:
1. The July Buckeye Engineer did list the name
of every candidate that was nominated and correctly identified them as nominees
not as eligible candidates. The August issue listed only the names of the
candidates that were determined eligible by the Election Committee. This is
consistent with the practice of at least the past two decades. RESPONSE:
Again, two decades of wrongdoing is appalling; we
have paid legal council thousands of dollars for advice! Furthermore, this
means there has been decades to amend the By-Laws.
This practice was also approved during 1993 when
the Department of Labor supervised the election. RESPONSE: This practice was not “approved” by the Department of Labor in 1993. That
election was monitored; this issue was not one of the protests of the 1990
election which was the cause of the monitoring of the 1993 election.
2. It should be noted that the July issue of the
Buckeye Engineer is submitted for publication in June which is before the July
11th district meeting which is required for candidates to attend in
order to be eligible. RESPONSE: The By-Laws
must be enforced and if this is an issue, they have had decades to make amendments!
Page 2
3. Also a number of acceptance letters are
generally not received until early July. For example, some acceptance letters
were postmarked June 28 and June 29 were not received until July of 2005. RESPONSE:
The By-Laws
must be enforced until such a time they are amended and if this is an issue,
they have had decades to make amendments!
The Election Committee complied the best way
possible by asking the
Patricia Kohl protests the fact that we did not
wait for the post office to count the secured ballots before they were
transported to the union hail. It is not clear as to how they would have
counted the ballots. RESPONSE: The USPS counts millions of pieces of mail every day! Suzette
Travis informed them when the question was asked that it would only take a few
minutes. They were not counting ballots; they were counting pieces of mail
received.
1. If the post office wanted to summarize the
receipts that they had received so far, the post office made it clear that they
did not have the total receipts for the last day of mailing. So if this method
was applied, the count would have been inaccurate. RESPONSE: This seems very simple so I must be missing something; they would be
counting pieces of mail we received and unless the USPS made errors that would
be accurate. Some mention was made that sometimes there were piece of mail in
our box that was not ours. That could easily be reconciled by counting those
pieces and subtracting that number from the number of pieces that were ours.
2. If the post office counted the ballots by
hand such a procedure would have imposed an unreasonable time restriction upon
the process. RESPONSE:
Again, Suzette Travis said they had a machine and it
would take minutes.
3. Observers had ample opportunity to inspect
the truck, and observe the complete procedure of transporting the ballots from
the post office to the union hall. RESPONSE: It is the
right of all candidates to ask for checks and balances. I should not have had
to ask, that the Committee would have demanded a count of what they were
getting.
4. It should be noted that the Election
Committee which consisted of a quorum decided upon the procedure of not
counting the ballots at the post office before the secured and locked bags of
ballots were transported to the union hall. Historically, the counting of the
ballots has always been performed at the union hail, not the post office. RESPONSE:
The Election Committee Rules states a quorum is 7,
there were only a total of nine Election Committee members who appeared for the
vote count, therefore, all did not go to the post office and I question if
there was a quorum. Again, this was not a count of ballots; it was a count of
pieces of mail received.
Patricia Kohl appears to be saying that I had
access to the mail and the post office box before the time that the Election
Committee picked up the ballots. That is absolutely not true, I only had the
authorization and ability to find out how many ballot kits were at the post
office in order for me to assess whether we had enough people working on the
day of the election. In accordance with the written instructions to the post
office no one had access to the post office box receiving the ballot kits. The
instructions to the post office were signed by Pat Sink and the Election
Committee (see attached). RESPONSE: No where in
Local 18 By-Laws, The Election Rules, or the
International Constitution does it give Blanski this privilege. The By-Laws
specifically states in Article XIII, Section 15, Item C, that “No one will have
access to the post office box until the specified time and date”. Patrick Sink,
a candidate, gives Blanski this privilege in his letter. This brings up the
question that, as a candidate, why is Pat Sink writing letters for the Election
Committee? Furthermore, in his letter, Sink refers to the number of the box
which means the box was rented prior to the letter. Who rented the box and
when? Who got the keys? Sink also directs the box be plugged on August 8, 2005.
Since we don’t know who rented the box, when it was rented, or who has the
keys, what was put into that box prior to August 8, 2005? A letter from Patrick
Sink representing the Election Committee is a violation of election laws.
Patricia Kohl also points out that she knew of
one member who received an extra ballot in his ballot kit. This happens
extremely infrequently. This year we were notified of three individuals who
claimed they received an extra ballot. Three was not enough to make a
difference in this election. RESPONSE: If they were
notified of three, we all know there were many more considering 14266 ballots
were mailed.
These occurrences were truly isolated cases. It
should be noted that during the verification of voter eligibility and the
counting of the ballots, no member tried to vote more than once. However, the
voter numbers and the tracking procedures are used to prevent a member from
voting more than once and when the ballots were removed from the secrecy
envelopes, there were no incidences of extra ballots. RESPONSE: A certain number of ballots were printed; each member was to receive 2
different ballots, one with Officers and Executive Board for each district, and
one with Advisory Board for each district. At the end when all 14266 envelopes
were ready to mail, there should have been a checks and balances of the
remaining ballots with equal numbers of each. This would not reconcile if 3
ballot kits contained 3 ballots. Blanski fails to state which
ballot the three members got extra, Officers and Executive Board, or Advisory
Board. Additional questions:
1. How many ballots were printed?
2. Where are the extra ballots?
3. How many ballots were returned as
non-deliverable?
4. Where are those ballots?
If you have any questions, please call.
Very
truly yours,
Michael Blanski
MB/ms
cc: Steve Rosenblat