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Main
Date: 19 Mar 2007 11:38:36
From: samsloan
Subject: Goichberg's List
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Goichberg's List
USCF President Bill Goichberg has been circulating of statements made
by Sam Sloan since Sam Sloan has been on the board which, according to
Goichberg, were clearly false.
However, upon examining the list, is can be seen that none of the
statements were clearly false. Many were completely true. Many others
still have not been answered and in other cases Sam Sloan opened the
door to inquiry which resulted in the development of new facts
previously unknown or undisclosed to the membership.
Let us take a look at Goichberg's list. Please note that this analysis
will not be posted on the USCF Forums because Goichberg has appointed
Goichberg stooges as moderators of the forums (it is even being said
that Goichberg himself is one of the moderators), as a result of which
Sam Sloan has been suspended from posting to the forums. In addition,
it is against the rules of the USCF Forums to call a liar a liar.
First, here is a direct quote from Bill Goichberg,
"Don't like to repeat myself, but public false statements by an EB
member damage USCF, and among those from Sam since he's been on the
Board are the following:
"Virtually all USCF financial records have been destroyed, Polgar
tournaments were rerated for political reasons, EB candidates were
allowed to run without paying filing fees, Polgar/Truong stole a
computer from USCF, Polgar didn't pay her Gold Affiliate fee, Polgar
never paid any money to USCF at all for anything, USCF paid Polgar
over $13,000 in 2003 to appear at the US Open, Grant Perks didn't want
Sam elected because he knew this would mean he would have to spend
time in jail, Jay Sabine went to New Windsor and led a team of high
school students who threw away USCF records, Bill Goichberg pestered
Erik Anderson to hold the US Championship but Erik didn't want to, the
majority of US Championship qualifiers come from CCA tournaments, only
one of the US Championship qualifying tournaments held in 2006 had a
TLA in Chess Life, Bill Hall didn't send out the email proposing
moderating committee appointees, the Board didn't vote to have such a
committee before members were nominated, the Board voted at Monrovia
to meet at the National Elementary, Dewain Barber didn't recommend at
Monrovia that the Board not meet at the Elementary and must have been
pressured by Polgar and Truong to say that, Bill Goichberg announced
that the US Championship would be in Oklahoma before the Board
approved the bid, the Board doesn't have the right to lower the dues,
no audited financials were available at Oak Brook, and too many others
to recall, all untrue and unsupported by evidence.
"Also, Sam took an email from
<mailto:[email protected] >[email protected], with Bill Hall's name and
address at the end, altered it to be from
<mailto:[email protected] >[email protected] with "Bill Goichberg"
at the end, and posted it in the Forums.
"I believe it is clear that all the Sam charges above are clearly
false; none are a matter of opinion.
"Bill Goichberg"
Now. Let us take a look at the above list, point by point:
1. Virtually all USCF financial records have been destroyed
This was revealed by Bill Hall on August 14, 2006 at the first meeting
of the board Sloan that attended after being seated on the board. Bill
Hall made this statement. Subsequently Bill Hall backtracked somewhat.
After several weeks of arguing about this, Bill Hall stated that the
records were not in the Crossville Landfill but were in 125 storage
boxes in a warehouse facility. The board then instructed Bill Hall to
inventory what was in those storage boxes and report back. Bill Hall
agreed to do so.
Nothing further has been heard from Bill Hall on this subject. No
inventory has ever been produced.
It is known that some of the contents of the former USCF Offices in
New Windsor NY were dumped in the New Windsor Landfill. It is said
that these were just overprinted issues of Chess Life. The old
building had 12,000 square feet. The new building has only 5,000
square feet. Obviously, not everything could have been kept. We still
do not know what has been kept and what has been thrown out.
For example, there was a binder in the cabinet near to Barbara Van Der
k's desk in New Windsor NY containing all of the contracts
involving the USCF. The binder went missing during the move to
Crossville and still has not been found.
As to why this issue has not been discussed recently, it has become
obvious that Bill Hall is falling further and further behind in his
current work. In spite of having a staff of 23 working under him in
the Crossville Office, Bill Hall cannot seem to get simple and
trivially easy tasks performed. For example, Donna Alarie spent three
weeks asking Bill Hall to produce a simple email. When it was finally
produced, it was dated February 27, 2006. This was a task that should
have required not more than 15 minutes. The board has created a list
of Action Items which Bill Hall has committed to the board that he
will get done. New items keep being added to the Action List. Almost
none of the items on the list have ever been done or, if they were
done, they were done by somebody other than Bill Hall. There are now
more than one hundred items on the Action List. In addition to Bill
Hall not keeping up with the current work and in not accomplishing any
of the tasks on the Action List, he is often absent from the office on
one pretext or another. For example, in a board telephone conference
call on February 25, 2007, Bill Hall was directed by the board to
contact Erik Anderson and see if Anderson would be willing to
contribute to the US Championship Prize Fund. The board postponed any
decision on the US Championship for three days to give Bill Hall time
to perform this task.
Instead, Bill Hall was out sick for the next week. As far as the board
is aware, Bill Hall never did discuss the subject with Erik Anderson
and still has not done so.
In view of these circumstances, the board in no longer pressing Bill
Hall for information about the old missing records, because it is
obviously more important for him to do the current work. We are hoping
that Bill Hall will not fall any further behind in the current work.
We have abandoned all hope of any reconstruction of the old missing
financial records.
Bill Goichberg recently instructed Bill Hall not to attend the
National High School Championship in Kansas City but instead to stay
in the office and try to get some of the back work done.
2. Polgar tournaments were rerated for political reasons
Several months ago, Mike Nolan started attaching a notice on the MSA
to tournaments after they had been rerated. It so happened that as
Mike Nolan was doing this, I was looking at some tournaments Polgar
had played in in order to meet the activity requirement to play on the
US Woman's Olympiad Team. These were tournaments where Polgar had
played opponents rated around 1500 to 1600. Naturally, Polgar had won
all the games.
The date on the notice showed that these tournaments had been rerated
during the beginning of the USCF Committee Meetings at the 2006
Delegates meeting in Oak Brook IL. This led me to wonder whether this
was bring done to enhance the reputation of Miss Polgar. However, over
the next few days the same notice appeared on almost every tournament
report in the MSA. Therefore, I concluded that I was mistaken and it
was just a coincidence that the notice first appeared on a Polgar
tournament I was looking at.
I subsequently mate a motion at the November board meeting in Stamford
CT that this notice be removed. Mike Nolan agreed to do that. Instead,
however, what he really did is just change the wording a little bit. I
still believe that the notice should be removed from the USCf website.
It now reads:
"The ratings shown on this page are not official published ratings
and may change from time to time. Using them for pairing purposes in
tournaments should only be done if this has been advertised in all
advance publicity and is announced to all players at the tournament."
I believe that this notice should be removed. I see no point in
putting USCF ratings on the USCF website and then telling the readers
that these ratings are unofficial.
Mike Nolan has done a wonderful job on the MSA and on the various
programs he is working on which have automated the labor intensive
office jobs involving ratings, memberships and TLAs which previously
had to be done by hand. This has greatly benefited the USCF by giving
the office staff more time to play pinochle. I only wish that Mike
Nolan would sometimes tell the board what he is doing so that we would
not have these surprises.
3. EB candidates were allowed to run without paying filing fee
One of the first things I did after I took office on the board was to
fulfill a campaign promise to demand a reconstruction of the USCF
Finances to enable a determination of why the USCF lost two million
dollars from 1999 to 2005. Because of this, the office produced a CD
showing the general ledger accounts for that period.
I went through this entire records and I found a lot of questionable
things such as large checks written to Polgar for no apparent reason
plus checks Frank Niro wrote to himself plus a large going away
present check of about $3,000 that Frank Niro wrote to himself on his
last day in the office.
While I still have not found the missing two million dollars, one of
the odd things I found was that while checks representing candidate
filings were shown as having been deposited in January 2005 for six of
the candidates, the checks for the other three candidates were not
shown as having been deposited in the bank. The three checks for whom
the $250 fee was not deposited were all insider approved candidates.
No credible explanation has ever been provided as to why these three
checks do not show up in the general ledger accounts. I eventually
gave up asking about this. I am still hoping someday to get the answer
to this question.
4. Polgar/Truong stole a computer from USCF
I wonder why Goichberg puts this item on his list of charges that are
clearly false, when this one is clearly true.
With regard to the question of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong taking the
USCFs laptop computer on August 20, 2003, we have the statement by
Mike Nolan that as he was leaving the USCFs offices to go back to
Nebraska he observed that the laptop computer was still sitting on the
desk of the missing Executive Director Frank Niro and that just as he
was leaving the office Paul Truong and Susan Polgar were arriving. We
also have the statement that when Beatriz inello and Tim Hsnke
arrived in the office a few minutes later the first thing they did was
go to Frank Niro's desk to look at the laptop computer and see what
was in it, to only to discover that the laptop was missing and Paul
Truong and Susan Polgar had just left the office.
We also have the statement by Susan Polgar admitting that she took the
laptop computer, but claiming that the board had authorized her to
take it. She has failed to identify which board, which board member or
which office employee authorized her to purloin the computer. What we
do know is that to this day the computer has never been returned.
The missing laptop computer obviously would have contained the
contracts with Polgar, a record of the emails exchanged with Polgar
and the financial information concerning the large amounts of money
that had been paid to Polgar while Niro was Executive Director. This
clearly provides the motivation as to why Polgar would want to take
that laptop computer.
The evidence is clear that Susan took the computer since she admits to
having taken it and so far no evidence has been produced that she had
the right, the authority or the permission to take it.
Clearly, the USCF membership has the right to know that Susan took the
computer. It is obvious that Bill Goichberg wants to ban me from the
USCF Forums so as to prevent the general membership from learning
about this.
5. Polgar didn't pay her Gold Affiliate fee, Polgar never paid any
money to USCF at all for anything.
The afore mentioned CD shows around 60 checks being paid to Polgar
entities such as Sysan Polgar Foundation, Polgar Chess Inc, and Susan
Polgar herself, but no checks ever being paid by Polgar to the USCF
for anything.
We have letters from Bill Hall admitting that as part of a settlement
after Polgar and Troung repe4eatedly threatened to sue that in
addition to giving money to Polgar, it also gave two and a half pages
of free Chess Life advertising to Polgar, a cover story in Chess Life
to Polgar and it paid Polgar for celebrity appearances where she had
only to show up and have her picture taken by Truong. The USCF also
paid Polgar to promote her own book.
If Bill Goichberg wants to dispute the claim that Polgar has never
paid the USCF for anything, not even the rating fees for tournaments
or memberships, he should produce a copy of any check from Polgar. So
far, he has not produced one.
6. USCF paid Polgar over $13,000 in 2003 to appear at the US Open
In December, 2003, shortly after Bill Goichberg became volunteer
acting Executive Director, he paid $13,358.36 to Polgar. This payment
was not disclosed to the Executive Board. The board was vehemently
opposed to paying any money to Polgar. Tim Hanke, who was VP of
Finance at the time, stated that Polgar should not be paid a penny.
This explains why Bill Goichberg never told the board that he had paid
this money.
I discovered this payment on the aforementioned CD that was provided
to the board at my request. While it is true that not all of the
$13,358.36 was for showing up at the 2003 US Open in Los Angeles, a
considerable part of it was. Among the items that Polgar demanded
payment for was airline tickets for herself, Paul Truong, her two
children and a domestic servant to take care of the kids, plus 14 days
in two hotel rooms in Los Angeles. She also demanded payment for a
celebrity appearance at a National Scholastic in Nashville in which
she demanded payment in the amount of more than $4,000 for a one day
appearance and $2 per book for book signings in which she promoted her
own book.
So, Bill Goichberg is corrects that the $13,358.36 was not only for
appearing at the 2003 US Open in Los Angeles (in which she did not
play but just attended the political meetings). It was for a few other
things too. On the other hand, the $13,358.36 was just one of many
questionable checks Polgar received, including a check for $2500 for a
simultaneous exhibition at the Newburgh Rotary Club.
7. Grant Perks didn't want Sam elected because he knew this would mean
he would have to spend time in jail
I did not make this statement and I did not call Grant Perks a
criminal. I did however say that many things that Grant Perks did were
illegal such as paying $7500 in per diem allowances in violation of
IRS rules. There is a difference between saying that something is
illegal and saying that something is criminal. For example, castling a
king out of check in chess is illegal but one will not go to jail for
that (unless possibly it was done to win the $25,000 first prize in a
Goichberg tournament).
I stand by my statement that many improprieties were committed by
Grant Perks during the two times that he was Executive Director. I did
not call him a criminal, however.
Incidentally, it is now clear that Grant Perks is one of the anonymous
moderators to the USCF Forums. He is probably Moderator2. This
explains why my postings to the Forum keep being deleted and why I
have been suspended from posting there.
8. Jay Sabine went to New Windsor and led a team of high school
students who threw away USCF records
It was widely believe that this was exactly what had happened. One
former board member and one current board member told me that this had
happened.
However, it has since been explained that although this was a
proposal, it was never carried out. Jay Sabine and his team of high
school students never even went to New Windsor.
I promptly publicly apologized to Jay Sabine for making this
statement. I do not understand why Bill Goichberg keeps bringing this
up months later. Jay Sabine has never complained about this.
Meanwhile, there is still no explanation as to what happened to the
financial records or whether they are in storage boxes or in a
landfill.
8. Bill Goichberg pestered Erik Anderson to hold the US Championship
but Erik didn't want to
Because Bill Goichberg refused to keep the board informed as to what
was going on and conducted one-man negotiations for the US
Championship, we do not know and probably will never know what went
on. However, the following facts are known:
a. At a meeting in Seattle in February 2006, Erik Anderson stated that
in the future he would be providing little if any of his own funds to
sponsor the US Championship. The money would have to come from other
sponsors.
b. Erik Anderson did not show up at the prize award ceremony at the
ch 2006 US Championship in San Diego and did not announce any
future US Championships. In all previous years, Erik Anderson had
personally handed out the prize checks and had announced the details
for the next US Championship.
c. Shortly thereafter, Erik Anderson told Bill Goichberg to stop
collecting qualifier fees for the US Championship and to stop
publishing announcements in Chess Life referring to tournaments as US
Championship qualifiers. As a result, by the June issue, no
tournaments were listed as being qualifiers to the US Championship.
d. Erik Anderson had an option to hold the next US Championship but
that option expired in May 2006. Erik Anderson never asked for an
extension and never stated that he was going to organize the next US
Championship.
e. At the board meeting in August 2006, Bill Goichberg admitted that
in spite of persistent efforts he had not been able to reach Erik
Anderson in a long time and did not even know where he was.
Nevertheless, he was convinced that Erik Anderson would do something.
(The tape of that meeting still to this day has not been posted to the
website, in violation of the by-laws.)
e. In October, 2006 Bill Goichberg posted on the USCHESS.ORG website a
list of qualifying tournaments to the US Championship. These included
five Goichberg Tournaments, one tournament organized by his political
ally Randy Hough, and the Grand Prix Winner which is usually won my a
winner of Goichberg big money tournaments. Goichberg made this
announcement without informing the board and without any vote by the
board. At that time, Bill Goichberg had still not concluded a
sponsorship deal to fund the US Championship.
f. At a board meeting on November 17-18, 2006, It was pointed out that
the AF4C website still and no mention of a US Championship, in sharp
contrast to previous years when AF4C had blasted all over everywhere
that it was sponsoring the US Championship. Bill Goichberg admitted
that he still had not concluded any deal with Erik Anderson to sponsor
the US Championship. The board gave Bill Gioichberg a firm deadline
of December 31, 2006 at midnight to conclude a deal or otherwise open
the US Championship to bidding.
g. On December 27, 2006, Bill Goichberg posted a list of 30 players
who had qualified to the US Championship, without a vote or permission
from the board to post this list and still having not secured the
sponsorship or the money to hold the US Championship.
h. On December 31, 2006 the board gave Bill a one week extension to
secure sponsorship for the US Championship upon a representation by
Bill that he was on the verge of concluding a deal.
i. On January 7, 2007, Erik Anderson called Don Schultz (but did not
call Bill Goichberg) to inform him that AF4C would not be sponsoring
the 2007 US Championship.
j. Shortly after the announcement of this, Bill Goichberg posted and
continues to post that it was all because of Sam Sloan that AF4C would
not be sponsoring the US Championship this year.
9. The majority of US Championship qualifiers come from CCA
tournaments.
Although a majority do not come from CCA tournaments, Bill Goichberg,
owner of the CCA, made the list of qualifying tournaments. The list
includes five CCA tournaments with two qualifiers each, meaning that
the players must pay entry fees to Bill Goichberg if they want to
qualify to the US Championship. Two more qualifiers come from Randy
Hough, a Goichberg ally and organizer of a minor tournament that would
never otherwise be on the list, one comes from the Grand Prix winner
who must play in Goichberg tournaments to have a chance to win. Most
of the rest are from major tournaments that Goichberg cannot ignore
such as the US Open and the National Open. Big tournaments like the
New Jersey Open and other major-non-Goichberg tournaments do not make
the list.
10. Only one of the US Championship qualifying tournaments held in
2006 had a TLA in Chess Life
After the US Masters in which promising junior player 15-year-old
Daniel Ludwig was excluded from playing in the US Championship only
because he had failed to pay to Goichberg the $75 qualifying fee, Erik
Anderson told Goichberg to remove all mention of US Championship
qualifying fees from Chess Life magazine.
As a result, by the June 2006 issue, all reference to qualifier
tournaments had been removed from Chess Life. I failed to realize that
WITHOUT PERMISSION OF ERIK ANDESON, Bill Goichberg put all these
announcements back in subsequent issues of Chess Life.
11. Bill Hall didn't send out the email proposing moderating committee
appointees, the Board didn't vote to have such a committee before
members were nominated.
It is perfectly obvious that the list of mostly hand picked Goichberg
stooges was selected by Bill Goichberg. Bill Hall is on thin ice right
now. Almost the entire board has lost faith in him. After almost two
years on the job, it is difficult to think of anything that Bill Hall
has accomplished. So, Bill Hall has to do whatever Bill Goichberg
tells him. The only reason Bill Hall still has a job is that it is so
close to election time that the board is too chicken to make changes.
What was discussed and voted in at the meeting in Los Angeles was
completely different from what has taken place. In Los Angeles, it was
supposed to require a vote by two moderators to remove a posting from
the Forums and the committee was supposed to provide appellate review.
Instead, what has happened is that the committee members are also
moderators and any one of the 13 people who are either committee
members or moderators can remove a posting and there is no way to get
it restored.
The claim by Bill Goichberg that the board voted to approve this is
ridiculous.
12. The Board voted at Monrovia to meet at the National Elementary
I did not write that. What I did write was that all of the members of
the board said that we wanted to meet next at the National Elementary
Championship in Nashville on May 11-13, with the exception of Bill
Goichberg who said that he wanted one week to think about it.
13. Dewain Barber didn't recommend at Monrovia that the Board not meet
at the Elementary
That is correct. Dewain Barber made no such recommendation and said
nothing about this subject. The tapes of this meeting are available on
line, the first tape of any board meeting since Bill Goichberg became
president. Play the tape and see if you can find Dewain Barber making
any such statement.
14. Bill Goichberg announced that the US Championship would be in
Oklahoma before the Board approved the bid
That is right and here is the announcement which was made before the
voted even knew about it. The announcement was made on February 21,
2007. Both Don Schultz and I immediately protested and demanded a
conference call on this issue:
"To: USCF Exec Board
"This E-mail is confirm $50,000.00 donation from Frank Berry
to be used toward sponsoring the 2007 Frank K. Berry US Chess
Championship.
"The event is planned as a 9-SS May 15-23, 2007 to be held in
Stillwater, Oklahoma.
"Details will be determined later by the Organizing Committee and the
USCF Executive Board.
"Members of the Organizing Committee are as follows: Frank K. Berry,
Jim Berry, Jerry Hanken, Bill Goichberg, John Donaldson and Bill
Hall.
"Frank Berry hopes to make an additional $150,000 donation, but only
the $50,000 has been delivered. If this additional donation does not
occur, Frank would like for the USCF to contribute $15,000 to the
tournament in order to make it a more prestigious event. If Frank's
additional donation occurs, part of the money would be for a US
Women's Championship to be held in Stillwater this summer.
"The Organizing Committee reserves the right to add as many as 3 other
players to the May event.
"signed
"Frank K. Berry
"Jim Berry
"Jerry Hanken
"2-21-2007
"12:32 pm CST
15. The Board doesn't have the right to lower the dues
This is a questionable interpretation of the by-laws by Bill
Goichberg. The by-laws state that only the Delegates and not the board
or the office can change the dues. Bill says that this means that the
board cannot raise the dues but that it can have a long term dues-sale
which has the effect of lowering the dues.
I did not object because I have long felt that the dues were too high
and I wanted them lowered. However, I question Bill's interpretation
of the by-laws.
16. No audited financials were available at Oak Brook
I was mistaken about this because nobody gave me a copy of the
financials. I did not make it to the early committee meetings in Oak
Brook because Bill Goichberg had told the office not to provide me
with the travel expense money to attend the meetings. I finally made
it to the delegate meeting in Oak Brook Illinois entirely at my own
expense.
Thus, it can be seen that almost all of the statements by me which
Bill Goichberg claims were "clearly false" where in reality
substantially true.
At the US Amateur Team East on February 17-18, 2007 in Parsippany NJ,
I was presented an award for being the "Shining Light on the US Chess
Federation", precisely because of my emails and postings which have
revealed what is going on in the inner sanctum of the US Chess
Federation which no insider has ever revealed before. Bill Goichberg,
who arrived at the event shortly after I was presented with this
award, protested vehemently but it was too late as I had already
received the award.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 19 Mar 2007 12:25:47
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Goichberg's List
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Goichberg's List
USCF President Bill Goichberg has been circulating a list of
statements made by Sam Sloan since Sam Sloan has been on the board
which, according to Goichberg, were clearly false.
However, upon examining the list, is can be seen that none of the
statements were clearly false. Many were completely true. Many others
still have not been answered and in other cases Sam Sloan opened the
door to inquiry which resulted in the development of new facts
previously unknown or undisclosed to the membership.
Let us take a look at Goichberg's list. Please note that this analysis
will not be posted on the USCF Forums because Goichberg has appointed
Goichberg stooges as moderators of the forums (it is even being said
that Goichberg himself is one of the moderators), as a result of which
Sam Sloan has been suspended from posting to the forums. In addition,
it is against the rules of the USCF Forums to call a liar a liar.
First, here is a direct quote from Bill Goichberg,
"Don't like to repeat myself, but public false statements by an EB
member damage USCF, and among those from Sam since he's been on the
Board are the following:
"Virtually all USCF financial records have been destroyed, Polgar
tournaments were rerated for political reasons, EB candidates were
allowed to run without paying filing fees, Polgar/Truong stole a
computer from USCF, Polgar didn't pay her Gold Affiliate fee, Polgar
never paid any money to USCF at all for anything, USCF paid Polgar
over $13,000 in 2003 to appear at the US Open, Grant Perks didn't want
Sam elected because he knew this would mean he would have to spend
time in jail, Jay Sabine went to New Windsor and led a team of high
school students who threw away USCF records, Bill Goichberg pestered
Erik Anderson to hold the US Championship but Erik didn't want to, the
majority of US Championship qualifiers come from CCA tournaments, only
one of the US Championship qualifying tournaments held in 2006 had a
TLA in Chess Life, Bill Hall didn't send out the email proposing
moderating committee appointees, the Board didn't vote to have such a
committee before members were nominated, the Board voted at Monrovia
to meet at the National Elementary, Dewain Barber didn't recommend at
Monrovia that the Board not meet at the Elementary and must have been
pressured by Polgar and Truong to say that, Bill Goichberg announced
that the US Championship would be in Oklahoma before the Board
approved the bid, the Board doesn't have the right to lower the dues,
no audited financials were available at Oak Brook, and too many others
to recall, all untrue and unsupported by evidence.
"Also, Sam took an email from
<mailto:[email protected] >[email protected], with Bill Hall's name and
address at the end, altered it to be from
<mailto:[email protected] >[email protected] with "Bill Goichberg"
at the end, and posted it in the Forums.
"I believe it is clear that all the Sam charges above are clearly
false; none are a matter of opinion.
"Bill Goichberg"
Now. Let us take a look at the above list, point by point:
1. Virtually all USCF financial records have been destroyed
This was revealed by Bill Hall on August 14, 2006 at the first meeting
of the board Sloan that attended after being seated on the board. Bill
Hall made this statement. Subsequently Bill Hall backtracked somewhat.
After several weeks of arguing about this, Bill Hall stated that the
records were not in the Crossville Landfill but were in 125 storage
boxes in a warehouse facility. The board then instructed Bill Hall to
inventory what was in those storage boxes and report back. Bill Hall
agreed to do so.
Nothing further has been heard from Bill Hall on this subject. No
inventory has ever been produced.
It is known that some of the contents of the former USCF Offices in
New Windsor NY were dumped in the New Windsor Landfill. It is said
that these were just overprinted issues of Chess Life. The old
building had 12,000 square feet. The new building has only 5,000
square feet. Obviously, not everything could have been kept. We still
do not know what has been kept and what has been thrown out.
For example, there was a binder in the cabinet near to Barbara Van Der
k's desk in New Windsor NY containing all of the contracts
involving the USCF. The binder went missing during the move to
Crossville and still has not been found.
As to why this issue has not been discussed recently, it has become
obvious that Bill Hall is falling further and further behind in his
current work. In spite of having a staff of 23 working under him in
the Crossville Office, Bill Hall cannot seem to get simple and
trivially easy tasks performed. For example, Donna Alarie spent three
weeks asking Bill Hall to produce a simple email. When it was finally
produced, it was dated February 27, 2006. This was a task that should
have required not more than 15 minutes. The board has created a list
of Action Items which Bill Hall has committed to the board that he
will get done. New items keep being added to the Action List. Almost
none of the items on the list have ever been done or, if they were
done, they were done by somebody other than Bill Hall. There are now
more than one hundred items on the Action List. In addition to Bill
Hall not keeping up with the current work and in not accomplishing any
of the tasks on the Action List, he is often absent from the office on
one pretext or another. For example, in a board telephone conference
call on February 25, 2007, Bill Hall was directed by the board to
contact Erik Anderson and see if Anderson would be willing to
contribute to the US Championship Prize Fund. The board postponed any
decision on the US Championship for three days to give Bill Hall time
to perform this task.
Instead, Bill Hall was out sick for the next week. As far as the board
is aware, Bill Hall never did discuss the subject with Erik Anderson
and still has not done so.
In view of these circumstances, the board in no longer pressing Bill
Hall for information about the old missing records, because it is
obviously more important for him to do the current work. We are hoping
that Bill Hall will not fall any further behind in the current work.
We have abandoned all hope of any reconstruction of the old missing
financial records.
Bill Goichberg recently instructed Bill Hall not to attend the
National High School Championship in Kansas City but instead to stay
in the office and try to get some of the back work done.
2. Polgar tournaments were rerated for political reasons
Several months ago, Mike Nolan started attaching a notice on the MSA
to tournaments after they had been rerated. It so happened that as
Mike Nolan was doing this, I was looking at some tournaments Polgar
had played in in order to meet the activity requirement to play on the
US Woman's Olympiad Team. These were tournaments where Polgar had
played opponents rated around 1500 to 1600. Naturally, Polgar had won
all the games.
The date on the notice showed that these tournaments had been rerated
during the beginning of the USCF Committee Meetings at the 2006
Delegates meeting in Oak Brook IL. This led me to wonder whether this
was bring done to enhance the reputation of Miss Polgar. However, over
the next few days the same notice appeared on almost every tournament
report in the MSA. Therefore, I concluded that I was mistaken and it
was just a coincidence that the notice first appeared on a Polgar
tournament I was looking at.
I subsequently mate a motion at the November board meeting in Stamford
CT that this notice be removed. Mike Nolan agreed to do that. Instead,
however, what he really did is just change the wording a little bit. I
still believe that the notice should be removed from the USCf website.
It now reads:
"The ratings shown on this page are not official published ratings
and may change from time to time. Using them for pairing purposes in
tournaments should only be done if this has been advertised in all
advance publicity and is announced to all players at the tournament."
I believe that this notice should be removed. I see no point in
putting USCF ratings on the USCF website and then telling the readers
that these ratings are unofficial.
Mike Nolan has done a wonderful job on the MSA and on the various
programs he is working on which have automated the labor intensive
office jobs involving ratings, memberships and TLAs which previously
had to be done by hand. This has greatly benefited the USCF by giving
the office staff more time to play pinochle. I only wish that Mike
Nolan would sometimes tell the board what he is doing so that we would
not have these surprises.
3. EB candidates were allowed to run without paying filing fee
One of the first things I did after I took office on the board was to
fulfill a campaign promise to demand a reconstruction of the USCF
Finances to enable a determination of why the USCF lost two million
dollars from 1999 to 2005. Because of this, the office produced a CD
showing the general ledger accounts for that period.
I went through this entire records and I found a lot of questionable
things such as large checks written to Polgar for no apparent reason
plus checks Frank Niro wrote to himself plus a large going away
present check of about $3,000 that Frank Niro wrote to himself on his
last day in the office.
While I still have not found the missing two million dollars, one of
the odd things I found was that while checks representing candidate
filings were shown as having been deposited in January 2005 for six of
the candidates, the checks for the other three candidates were not
shown as having been deposited in the bank. The three checks for whom
the $250 fee was not deposited were all insider approved candidates.
No credible explanation has ever been provided as to why these three
checks do not show up in the general ledger accounts. I eventually
gave up asking about this. I am still hoping someday to get the answer
to this question.
4. Polgar/Truong stole a computer from USCF
I wonder why Goichberg puts this item on his list of charges that are
clearly false, when this one is clearly true.
With regard to the question of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong taking the
USCFs laptop computer on August 20, 2003, we have the statement by
Mike Nolan that as he was leaving the USCFs offices to go back to
Nebraska he observed that the laptop computer was still sitting on the
desk of the missing Executive Director Frank Niro and that just as he
was leaving the office Paul Truong and Susan Polgar were arriving. We
also have the statement that when Beatriz inello and Tim Hsnke
arrived in the office a few minutes later the first thing they did was
go to Frank Niro's desk to look at the laptop computer and see what
was in it, to only to discover that the laptop was missing and Paul
Truong and Susan Polgar had just left the office.
We also have the statement by Susan Polgar admitting that she took the
laptop computer, but claiming that the board had authorized her to
take it. She has failed to identify which board, which board member or
which office employee authorized her to purloin the computer. What we
do know is that to this day the computer has never been returned.
The missing laptop computer obviously would have contained the
contracts with Polgar, a record of the emails exchanged with Polgar
and the financial information concerning the large amounts of money
that had been paid to Polgar while Niro was Executive Director. This
clearly provides the motivation as to why Polgar would want to take
that laptop computer.
The evidence is clear that Susan took the computer since she admits to
having taken it and so far no evidence has been produced that she had
the right, the authority or the permission to take it.
Clearly, the USCF membership has the right to know that Susan took the
computer. It is obvious that Bill Goichberg wants to ban me from the
USCF Forums so as to prevent the general membership from learning
about this.
5. Polgar didn't pay her Gold Affiliate fee, Polgar never paid any
money to USCF at all for anything.
The afore mentioned CD shows around 60 checks being paid to Polgar
entities such as Sysan Polgar Foundation, Polgar Chess Inc, and Susan
Polgar herself, but no checks ever being paid by Polgar to the USCF
for anything.
We have letters from Bill Hall admitting that as part of a settlement
after Polgar and Troung repe4eatedly threatened to sue that in
addition to giving money to Polgar, it also gave two and a half pages
of free Chess Life advertising to Polgar, a cover story in Chess Life
to Polgar and it paid Polgar for celebrity appearances where she had
only to show up and have her picture taken by Truong. The USCF also
paid Polgar to promote her own book.
If Bill Goichberg wants to dispute the claim that Polgar has never
paid the USCF for anything, not even the rating fees for tournaments
or memberships, he should produce a copy of any check from Polgar. So
far, he has not produced one.
6. USCF paid Polgar over $13,000 in 2003 to appear at the US Open
In December, 2003, shortly after Bill Goichberg became volunteer
acting Executive Director, he paid $13,358.36 to Polgar. This payment
was not disclosed to the Executive Board. The board was vehemently
opposed to paying any money to Polgar. Tim Hanke, who was VP of
Finance at the time, stated that Polgar should not be paid a penny.
This explains why Bill Goichberg never told the board that he had paid
this money.
I discovered this payment on the aforementioned CD that was provided
to the board at my request. While it is true that not all of the
$13,358.36 was for showing up at the 2003 US Open in Los Angeles, a
considerable part of it was. Among the items that Polgar demanded
payment for was airline tickets for herself, Paul Truong, her two
children and a domestic servant to take care of the kids, plus 14 days
in two hotel rooms in Los Angeles. She also demanded payment for a
celebrity appearance at a National Scholastic in Nashville in which
she demanded payment in the amount of more than $4,000 for a one day
appearance and $2 per book for book signings in which she promoted her
own book.
So, Bill Goichberg is corrects that the $13,358.36 was not only for
appearing at the 2003 US Open in Los Angeles (in which she did not
play but just attended the political meetings). It was for a few other
things too. On the other hand, the $13,358.36 was just one of many
questionable checks Polgar received, including a check for $2500 for a
simultaneous exhibition at the Newburgh Rotary Club.
7. Grant Perks didn't want Sam elected because he knew this would mean
he would have to spend time in jail
I did not make this statement and I did not call Grant Perks a
criminal. I did however say that many things that Grant Perks did were
illegal such as paying $7500 in per diem allowances in violation of
IRS rules. There is a difference between saying that something is
illegal and saying that something is criminal. For example, castling a
king out of check in chess is illegal but one will not go to jail for
that (unless possibly it was done to win the $25,000 first prize in a
Goichberg tournament).
I stand by my statement that many improprieties were committed by
Grant Perks during the two times that he was Executive Director. I did
not call him a criminal, however.
Incidentally, it is now clear that Grant Perks is one of the anonymous
moderators to the USCF Forums. He is probably Moderator2. This
explains why my postings to the Forum keep being deleted and why I
have been suspended from posting there.
8. Jay Sabine went to New Windsor and led a team of high school
students who threw away USCF records
It was widely believe that this was exactly what had happened. One
former board member and one current board member told me that this had
happened.
However, it has since been explained that although this was a
proposal, it was never carried out. Jay Sabine and his team of high
school students never even went to New Windsor.
I promptly publicly apologized to Jay Sabine for making this
statement. I do not understand why Bill Goichberg keeps bringing this
up months later. Jay Sabine has never complained about this.
Meanwhile, there is still no explanation as to what happened to the
financial records or whether they are in storage boxes or in a
landfill.
8. Bill Goichberg pestered Erik Anderson to hold the US Championship
but Erik didn't want to
Because Bill Goichberg refused to keep the board informed as to what
was going on and conducted one-man negotiations for the US
Championship, we do not know and probably will never know what went
on. However, the following facts are known:
a. At a meeting in Seattle in February 2006, Erik Anderson stated that
in the future he would be providing little if any of his own funds to
sponsor the US Championship. The money would have to come from other
sponsors.
b. Erik Anderson did not show up at the prize award ceremony at the
ch 2006 US Championship in San Diego and did not announce any
future US Championships. In all previous years, Erik Anderson had
personally handed out the prize checks and had announced the details
for the next US Championship.
c. Shortly thereafter, Erik Anderson told Bill Goichberg to stop
collecting qualifier fees for the US Championship and to stop
publishing announcements in Chess Life referring to tournaments as US
Championship qualifiers. As a result, by the June issue, no
tournaments were listed as being qualifiers to the US Championship.
d. Erik Anderson had an option to hold the next US Championship but
that option expired in May 2006. Erik Anderson never asked for an
extension and never stated that he was going to organize the next US
Championship.
e. At the board meeting in August 2006, Bill Goichberg admitted that
in spite of persistent efforts he had not been able to reach Erik
Anderson in a long time and did not even know where he was.
Nevertheless, he was convinced that Erik Anderson would do something.
(The tape of that meeting still to this day has not been posted to the
website, in violation of the by-laws.)
e. In October, 2006 Bill Goichberg posted on the USCHESS.ORG website a
list of qualifying tournaments to the US Championship. These included
five Goichberg Tournaments, one tournament organized by his political
ally Randy Hough, and the Grand Prix Winner which is usually won my a
winner of Goichberg big money tournaments. Goichberg made this
announcement without informing the board and without any vote by the
board. At that time, Bill Goichberg had still not concluded a
sponsorship deal to fund the US Championship.
f. At a board meeting on November 17-18, 2006, It was pointed out that
the AF4C website still and no mention of a US Championship, in sharp
contrast to previous years when AF4C had blasted all over everywhere
that it was sponsoring the US Championship. Bill Goichberg admitted
that he still had not concluded any deal with Erik Anderson to sponsor
the US Championship. The board gave Bill Gioichberg a firm deadline
of December 31, 2006 at midnight to conclude a deal or otherwise open
the US Championship to bidding.
g. On December 27, 2006, Bill Goichberg posted a list of 30 players
who had qualified to the US Championship, without a vote or permission
from the board to post this list and still having not secured the
sponsorship or the money to hold the US Championship.
h. On December 31, 2006 the board gave Bill a one week extension to
secure sponsorship for the US Championship upon a representation by
Bill that he was on the verge of concluding a deal.
i. On January 7, 2007, Erik Anderson called Don Schultz (but did not
call Bill Goichberg) to inform him that AF4C would not be sponsoring
the 2007 US Championship.
j. Shortly after the announcement of this, Bill Goichberg posted and
continues to post that it was all because of Sam Sloan that AF4C would
not be sponsoring the US Championship this year.
9. The majority of US Championship qualifiers come from CCA
tournaments.
Although a majority do not come from CCA tournaments, Bill Goichberg,
owner of the CCA, made the list of qualifying tournaments. The list
includes five CCA tournaments with two qualifiers each, meaning that
the players must pay entry fees to Bill Goichberg if they want to
qualify to the US Championship. Two more qualifiers come from Randy
Hough, a Goichberg ally and organizer of a minor tournament that would
never otherwise be on the list, one comes from the Grand Prix winner
who must play in Goichberg tournaments to have a chance to win. Most
of the rest are from major tournaments that Goichberg cannot ignore
such as the US Open and the National Open. Big tournaments like the
New Jersey Open and other major-non-Goichberg tournaments do not make
the list.
10. Only one of the US Championship qualifying tournaments held in
2006 had a TLA in Chess Life
After the US Masters in which promising junior player 15-year-old
Daniel Ludwig was excluded from playing in the US Championship only
because he had failed to pay to Goichberg the $75 qualifying fee, Erik
Anderson told Goichberg to remove all mention of US Championship
qualifying fees from Chess Life magazine.
As a result, by the June 2006 issue, all reference to qualifier
tournaments had been removed from Chess Life. I failed to realize that
WITHOUT PERMISSION OF ERIK ANDESON, Bill Goichberg put all these
announcements back in subsequent issues of Chess Life.
11. Bill Hall didn't send out the email proposing moderating committee
appointees, the Board didn't vote to have such a committee before
members were nominated.
It is perfectly obvious that the list of mostly hand picked Goichberg
stooges was selected by Bill Goichberg. Bill Hall is on thin ice right
now. Almost the entire board has lost faith in him. After almost two
years on the job, it is difficult to think of anything that Bill Hall
has accomplished. So, Bill Hall has to do whatever Bill Goichberg
tells him. The only reason Bill Hall still has a job is that it is so
close to election time that the board is too chicken to make changes.
What was discussed and voted in at the meeting in Los Angeles was
completely different from what has taken place. In Los Angeles, it was
supposed to require a vote by two moderators to remove a posting from
the Forums and the committee was supposed to provide appellate review.
Instead, what has happened is that the committee members are also
moderators and any one of the 13 people who are either committee
members or moderators can remove a posting and there is no way to get
it restored.
The claim by Bill Goichberg that the board voted to approve this is
ridiculous.
12. The Board voted at Monrovia to meet at the National Elementary
I did not write that. What I did write was that all of the members of
the board said that we wanted to meet next at the National Elementary
Championship in Nashville on May 11-13, with the exception of Bill
Goichberg who said that he wanted one week to think about it.
13. Dewain Barber didn't recommend at Monrovia that the Board not meet
at the Elementary
That is correct. Dewain Barber made no such recommendation and said
nothing about this subject. The tapes of this meeting are available on
line, the first tape of any board meeting since Bill Goichberg became
president. Play the tape and see if you can find Dewain Barber making
any such statement.
14. Bill Goichberg announced that the US Championship would be in
Oklahoma before the Board approved the bid
That is right and here is the announcement which was made before the
voted even knew about it. The announcement was made on February 21,
2007. Both Don Schultz and I immediately protested and demanded a
conference call on this issue:
"To: USCF Exec Board
"This E-mail is confirm $50,000.00 donation from Frank Berry to be
used toward sponsoring the 2007 Frank K. Berry US Chess Championship.
"The event is planned as a 9-SS May 15-23, 2007 to be held in
Stillwater, Oklahoma.
"Details will be determined later by the Organizing Committee and the
USCF Executive Board.
"Members of the Organizing Committee are as follows: Frank K.
Berry, Jim Berry, Jerry Hanken, Bill Goichberg, John Donaldson and
Bill Hall.
"Frank Berry hopes to make an additional $150,000 donation, but only
the $50,000 has been delivered. If this additional donation does not
occur, Frank would like for the USCF to contribute $15,000 to the
tournament in order to make it a more prestigious event. If Frank's
additional donation occurs, part of the money would be for a US
Women's Championship to be held in Stillwater this summer.
"The Organizing Committee reserves the right to add as many as 3
other players to the May event.
"signed
"Frank K. Berry
"Jim Berry
"Jerry Hanken
"2-21-2007
"12:32 pm CST
15. The Board doesn't have the right to lower the dues
This is a questionable interpretation of the by-laws by Bill
Goichberg. The by-laws state that only the Delegates and not the board
or the office can change the dues. Bill says that this means that the
board cannot raise the dues but that it can have a long term dues-sale
which has the effect of lowering the dues.
I did not object because I have long felt that the dues were too high
and I wanted them lowered. However, I question Bill's interpretation
of the by-laws.
16. No audited financials were available at Oak Brook
I was mistaken about this because nobody gave me a copy of the
financials. I did not make it to the early committee meetings in Oak
Brook because Bill Goichberg had told the office not to provide me
with the travel expense money to attend the meetings. I finally made
it to the delegate meeting in Oak Brook Illinois entirely at my own
expense.
Thus, it can be seen that almost all of the statements by me which
Bill Goichberg claims were "clearly false" were in reality
substantially true.
At the US Amateur Team East on February 17-18, 2007 in Parsippany NJ,
I was presented an award for being the "Shining Light on the US Chess
Federation", precisely because of my emails and postings which have
revealed what is going on in the inner sanctum of the US Chess
Federation which no insider has ever revealed before. Bill Goichberg,
who arrived at the event shortly after I was presented with this
award, protested vehemently but it was too late as I had already
received the award.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 19 Mar 2007 11:42:21
From:
Subject: Sam Sloan's lovers
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Sam Sloan is getting more and more desperate. He knows that he has no
chance of being reelected. He knows that Don Schultz, Mike Goodall,
Joe Lux and Jim Berry will win. Poor Sam! His days are numbered.
Everyone knows that he's a prick, even his lovers Mike Lafferty and
Hal Bogner.
Hit the road Sam! You're done!
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