Winter Board Meeting

Having just returned from our winter board meeting at NAPS Headquarters, I was quite frankly surprised at some of the motions the board entertained. Most notably, a resolution from Utah to buy the three resident officers condos while they are in office, which was soundly defeated by the body at the convention, was re-introduced by a Board member at our meeting. In attempting to explain why he was re-introducing the motion, he alleged that the membership was not fully informed about the resolution at the convention.

Needless to say, the motion failed again. Two of the three resident officers voted No because they realize that it’s not right to go against the vote of the convention body. While some on the Board are persisting on wanting to purchase the condos, the motion was again defeated. One resident officer voted YES and the other two abstained, or refrained from voting, which was quite different from the first vote.

Members persisting who spoke in favor of the motion stated that, at a cost of 2.1 million dollars, it would be a good investment for NAPS. They cited NAPS’ purchase of our Headquarters building as an example. However, that is not a valid comparison. Our building was purchased for somewhat over 3 million dollars, which much less than its actual value at the time. The ideal circumstance had presented itself because the builder had defaulted, as had the bank which had financed it. When NAPS purchased it in the early 90s under the leadership of Vince Palladino, it was purchased from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which was quite anxious to get it off its hands. Additionally, Vince often recounted how, when NAPS showed up at the auction, we were the only ones who seemed to have the money needed to buy. Consequently, NAPS ended up with all four floors, whereas the original intention had been to purchase only one.

Those in favor of purchasing the condos contend that while the resident officers are serving NAPS, they would be required to pay $1,600.00 a month rent. Do the math: at that rate, it would take 46 years to pay for the condos. While I don’t think that investments that benefit NAPS are a bad thing, I know that I will never go against the membership wishes. I definitely will continue to vote NO on this issue. The board member who wants to vote Yes should not attempt to use the executive board to obtain, through the “back door” method, approval of a resolution that was defeated by the membership at the convention.

Jimmy Warden and I have been investigating the contracts of Martin Communications our publisher of the Postal Supervisor and soon to be ex-event planner for NAPS conventions. His last convention will be in 2014 at San Diego California. After examining all paperwork and bills submitted by Martin Communications we found a lot of irregularities. Our findings were turned over to the 3 resident officers at NAPS. They agreed to gather questions from the board to ask Ray Martin to try to find answers. This did not happen as they turned the questions over to him and he had to answer to the board. Jimmy and I led the charge with questions that Ray Martin did not answer correctly or could not answer at all, using such terms as “there were a few OVERSIGHTS,” “I DON’T REMEMBER,” “ABSOLUTELY NOT,” and other similar, evasive non- answers.

Our comparison check with another large printing firm using the NAPS bills submitted by Martin communications resulted in a finding that he has been overcharging us by 10-40%. When asked about this, Mr. Martin told me a contract is a contract and if I disagreed, I should get my lawyer and he will get his. To my surprise a board member who I had considered a friend, accused me of being unprofessional and having gone “over the top” in order to get answers. In my opinion I did not go over the top, what I was trying to do was get answers from someone who was not being truthful. The investigation will continue until we can get the truth.

–Tommy Roma