[Board] A reply to Michelle

Sat Jun 18 10:39:42 PDT 2022

Yes, major changes were proposed and acted upon.

There's written proof of this.

I expressed disappointment and pointed out that rumors of "IRS issues" were
damaging and confusing. I still have no idea where this came from, but M17
and ARDC cannot both be telling me the truth.

There were *no replies* to these statements that were shared with everyone
on #dordroom.

I reached out to Woj in direct messages. No reply to repeated attempts.

The "zero trust" discussions were in writing. Active discussions about ORI
being fungible were in writing.

These decisions and judgments clearly did happen.

ORI has no issue with additional fiscal sponsors. Most of us in leadership
have done this before. If we'd been included, it would already be done.

What we do have an issue with is ARDC showing up with an unsolicited offer
of another round of funding, with a condition - that M17 dumps ORI as a
fiscal sponsor. This is unheard of, especially when the first grant isn't
complete and the sponsor has delivered quality service and has made a clear
long-term commitment.

It looks like a bribe, motivated by people with an agenda. The ARDC
president probably wants to cover up sexual harassment that was reported to
ARDC and ORI at the time it occurred, and has caused ORI an enormous amount
of drama and me a lot of unnecessary pain. We don't have time for this, so
we've adjusted and exited ham radio work. M17 was the only project we
thought worth doing.

Discussions about Demonstration Labs happened at HamCation and were also
brought up on the M17 Discord. I reminded you all about the deadline
several times. It would have been no problem to subsidize the trip if M17
appeared in a way that promoted the project.

Travel expenses can rapidly eat up a budget. ORI has never paid for DEFCON
travel for anyone, ever, including for board meetings and Village staffing.
Villages activity is not a justification for paying for travel. This is not
controversial or unusual or different from any other project. It's not an
insult or a setback or going to ruin anything. I pitched Demo Labs as a way
to subsidize the travel. It didn't happen.

That's it. That's the entire DEFCON issue. Early on, I explained that we
don't pay for things people would go to normally. If you were already going
to HamCation, it was expected that you would not use up the budget for
this. We expect good faith here. For non-ham conferences, you need to be
part of the speaking track or something like Demo Labs.

I think it's time for M17 to own up to the fact that you really did get
distracted with a second round of funding from ARDC. You really did start
in on a proposal. You really did accept the condition of dumping ORI to get
more money.

Ed really did get flustered when he realized I might be able to see the
typepad of the proposal when it was posted in a channel where I could see
it.

I got told that M17 was "pretty sure" that ORI would be kept around. Pretty
sure? Geez, thanks.

These things actually happened. They are not good things and show a
remarkably myopic view of M17, where supporters can be discarded when a
better deal comes along.

This is not how you win. Come clean and fix this. It's entirely up to M17.
If we hear nothing otherwise, we'll simply provide banking services from
here on out, no hard feelings.

-Michelle Thompson

On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 10:06 AM Stephen Miller <smiller at kc1awv.net> wrote:

> *I have conflicting stories from Ed and Steve. The ORI board has problems
> with what these two people did at Hamvention in Ohio in the US.*
> I never went to Hamvention. Not sure where this came from.
>
> *Ed and Steve were asked to apply to Demonstration Labs at DEFCON in order
> to justify travel expenses. This is a formal part of DEFCON and receives
> very good media exposure. Even after several reminders, they blew this off.
> They didn't do it.*
> Can you provide me with when and where the information for this was given
> to us?
>
> *This was discussed in person at HamCation in Florida, but Ed and Steve
> didn't really seem very interested.*
> If my interest seemed lacking, it's because a decision wasn't going to be
> made while on a trip for M17. I prefer to make decisions when 'in the
> office', as it were.
>
> *This was ended by our CFO not only because of the DEFCON charges, but
> also because of Ed and Steve's active effort to apply for a second round of
> project funding from ARDC, on their own, without including anyone from the
> current fiscal sponsor at all, and then lying about this funding proposal
> to both me and ORI's chief financial officer.*
> Neither of us started any application process to receive more funds from
> ARDC. A simple discussion to ARDC members by Ed while at Hamvention on
> whether or not additional funding would be possible was had. No formal
> grant request has even been started, to this day. The reason this
> conversation happened was due to information that we wanted to corroborate
> from Michelle, where it was stated by Michelle that ARDC could not accept
> ORI as a fiscal sponsor. No solid explanation was given to us by either
> side on that matter, however ARDC did wish to continue funding M17. I never
> lied to Michelle, or Steve Conklin. I find it extremely insulting that this
> assumption was made.
>
> *It's not a good experience at all for major changes to be started behind
> our back by your team leaders, and then to have people we are supposed to
> be working with lie about these activities, and then have to guess and
> wonder what is going on for weeks afterwards.*
> No major changes have been made, or even had decisions made upon. There
> was a discussion about getting funding for a salary for Wojciech, because
> of his current circumstances, and perhaps a second grant from ARDC, both of
> which was posted in our boardroom channel on Discord.
>
> I would greatly appreciate it if assumptions about lies or truth were
> discussed with the people in question. I have not received one email, phone
> call, text message, or letter from ORI about any of these allegations about
> what I may or may not be lying about. There seems to be many assumptions
> made about my participation and decision power within the M17 Project,
> without any sort of communication with ORI regarding it. Personally, I find
> this type of behavior disgusting. Never have I ever been accused of lying
> by the CEO of any organization I have worked with, professionally or
> otherwise. I can't believe that it was here, and in this situation which
> has clearly been blown significantly out of proportion.
>
> --
> Steve Miller
> KC1AWV
> _______________________________________________
> Board mailing list
> Board at lists.openresearch.institute
>
> http://lists.openresearch.institute/listinfo.cgi/board-openresearch.institute
>
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