Another Citizen STEPS UP to the plate -- Heres Pam Bellflower (background - Rapid Systems (RS) broadband cost Hardee around $2.5 million and counting -- It appears a RS owner and Bill Lambert did the deal -- the project was suspect from day one -- it has not gone well -- a four party group using federal, county, & private money to build a 15 county broadband network has gone sour {most blame Bill Lambert} -- RS was suing 33 defendants including the Fed. Gov., but has backed off the targets but continue to say Comm. Grady J. helped cost RS about $25MM -- The IDA coughed up another $127K in Sep, 2013 to assist RS with their lawsuit (cash flow) secured by a note that pays back the $127K ONLY if RS wins the suit -- current status of RS in Hardee is unknown and hidden--{only two RS panel trucks parked in front of office; failed to move into Tech Center as planned; in direct competition with Century Link and Comcast; rate increase may have helped or hurt the bottom-line; shut out of expansion into other 14 counties; may only have a few workers left}). Sooooo, with that introduction, here is Pam: ______________________________________________________ Pam Belflower Today at 7:36am I absolutely refuse to post anything on StandupHardee; I must refute what Ms. Hamilton posted about Rapid Systems: I have in my hand a copy of the EDA application from Rapid Systems wherein 10 permanent jobs were promised. I also have a copy of the later Joint Application from RS/IDA signed by Denise Hamilton AND Bill Lambert, wherein on Page 5 of 7 it states that 14 net new full-time equivalent Hardee County jobs will be created in the business. This is THE grant given to the IDA by the EDA. Lastly, I have a copy of the IDA Agreement with Rapid Systems, which arbitrarily changed the number to 5. The auditors tested compliance on the Agreement. I would think that the number of employees listed in the actual GRANT AWARD (14) to the IDA will be the number the Auditor General will look for, not the number the IDA arbitrarily showed in their Agreement with Rapid System. SO, this begs two questions: Ms. Hamilton, Do you have 14 net new full-time equivalent Hardee County employees at the HC Rapid Systems location? EDA Board, does your board do NO compliance testing/monitoring of the Grant Awards you hand out? These should be very easy to answer, I eagerly await your answers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_______________________________________________________ Following are the comments by RS owner that got Pam looking at the records: DENISE HAMILTON WRITES: Please find enclosed my response to the latest Henry Kuhlman tirade. Henry – Since I can only respond to what I know about – which ...is Rapid Systems – I am compelled to respond to every sentence about us since each and every sentence is untrue. HENRY WRITES: This is the day they accepted a sham agreed upon procedure on Rapid Systems and voted to closeout the $2 million project -- and give RS all of the broadband towers and equipment owned by the public. Ms. Hamilton Responds: FACT-The agreed upon procedure was not in any way shape or form a scam. As I addressed the IDA board already (you missed that meeting Henry) I had a certified account sitting and verifiying $6 million dollars worth of invoices and bills from Rapid Systems side and $2 million dollars worth of bills from the IDA’s side. Rapid Systems sold the IDA the $2 M worth of equipment with a 5% margin as well as subsidized the installations and verified the number of jobs. We had in the grant to only contribute $2 Million but ended up contributing $6. The ‘sham’ procedure that was documented checked 25% of $8 Million dollars. This includes the tiniest details like electric bills for tower sites at $30 to $40 dollars a month. 25% of the invoices created were checked to insure the pricing subsidy. 25% of the customers were checked to insure free installations. This process took 3 solid weeks of sitting in a room with the accountant-basically shutting down my accounting department. Where are you getting your information from? You are unknowledgeable in any way regarding how this grant was created and the great utility that we have created with the IDA that improves people and their children’s lives. The grant close out and conditions all took place in 2009. Every commitment all of us made has been completed. Can you just not stand that people you do not like created something good? HENRY WRITES: In Sep, they would claim a mysterious FRBA lien prevented closeout and Rapid Systems needed $127,500 for legal fees. Ms. Hamilton Responds: FACT-We never said the FRBA lien prevented close out. FRBA’s reneging on the MOU to the IDA and to Rapid created a shared cost that the IDA agreed to contribute. We did not request the $127.500 for legal fees. We requested it for picking up the pieces of FRBA’s misgivings. They got it. Ms. Hamilton Responds: FACT- We got half of it. HENRY WRITES: In Oct, IDA Attorney Ken Evers claims he was mistaken about the FRBA lien after all and they can go ahead and give Rapid Systems all the towers and broadband equipment. Ms.Hamilton Responds: FACT-In October the grant was closed out and Rapid Systems now owns the towers and hardware – all part of the 2009 Grant. HENRY WRITES: This was all corrupt despicable behavior by public officials working the system to help out their buddies. Ms. Hamilton responds: FACT -Rapid Systems is a company that was started in 1996 in Tampa. In 2009, after losing a joint application with the IDA for Federal money to build a network in Hardee County, we applied to the EDA for County Contribution. Our network and this project was and still is successful. The $8 Million dollars was well worth it. I hear it from people every day. The 2 Federal Projects that did win the Federal Grants -FRBA and the NFBA – over $50Million total for the state of Florida – are NOT successful. Sir – the NFBA project and FRBA project are the real scams here and if you would only set your sites on real corruption instead of individual people and their families maybe someone would take you seriously. Denise Rosenthal 14-08-29 Were Crimes Committed to get $127,500 and public assets to Rapid Systems?.pdf - Google... drive.google ___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___--- Mr. Kuhlman responds to Ms. Hamilton with the following (She did not respond): Wake Up Hardee shared a link. Posted by Henry Kuhlman · September 25 Rapid Systems owner responds to $127,500 allegations by Kuhlman Ms. Hamilton does not agree with the opinion of many on how the Rapid Systems project was initiated, managed, evaluated, closed out, FRBA lien, not closed out, opened up, gifted $127,500 to private Rapid Systems, no FRBA lien after all, closed out.... Before you read her comments, We are curious. What the heck is Rapid Systems private owner doing -- trying to explain what the IDA refused to address for two years? Wow! Who appointed Ms. Hamilton to speak for Bill Lambert, Vanessa Hernandez, and Ken Evers? They are the ones that did the dirty dealing with public money. They are the ones hiding. Ms. Hamilton should be asking Bill Lambert about pulled her company out of FRBA and shut out of being in the bid for the other 14 counties (and the federal money). The public beef was never with Rapid Systems except they promised a lot more in their grant application than they delivered. The biggest flaw of the contract was no performance criteria to measure against (to give them the towers and equipment). That is why they had to make up an agreed upon procedure (to replace missing performance based criteria to give public assets to a private company). The application was full of stuff Lambert wrote that was not accurate. Lambert applied for the grant from the IDA and approved the grant from the EDA. NONE OF THIS HAS ZIP TO DO WITH Ms. Hamilton. If you care to see the backup, read the attached letter below. HERE ARE QUESTIONS MS. HAMILTON WILL NOT ANSWER How many RS jobs are filled today with people living in HC? How many schools, city, and county entities do not use RS? A cornerstone of the application was an emergency notification system. Why was this never adopted? What is the customer count for 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014(ytd)? Why did RS raise the rates on poor families with school age kids? How many school age kids (households) have RS broadband? Why did RS get $2 million and Century Link got nothing? Why did RS get the contract for the Tech Center from flawed RFP? Is RS growing? Market share trends with Century Link and Comcast Why is RS suing Grady Johnson who was the Commission Liaison to FRBA for only a couple of months and was a mere witness to Bill Lamberts shenanigans that resulted in Bill Lambert pulling HC out of FRBA? Is RS here for the long run now they are shut out of expansion outside HC? Did RS know and approve of the IDA taking $19,599.98 of their money under the grant? How was this documented? _____________________________________________________ pictures are from the grant award agreement -- click goo.gl/sqQlbU WUH readers might be interested in the possibility that Century Link (CL) was purposefully cut out of competition by Lambert in getting the BROADBAND deal to RS --- Kuhlman had a few telephone discussions with a CL media rep. about this (Why? because CL bought Embarq in Jun, 2009 at the SAME time Lambert was doing the application for RS --- CL was on record as intending to aggressively expand their network (Kuhlman has CL because RS could not get a signal from where he lives in Fort Green -- after four attempts). Kuhlman sent a questionnaire to CL (click on goo.gl/GfDzkN ) -- CL declined to answer the question for political reasons. S000, the Qs hang in thin air --- What really happened? Were there secret conflicts involved? Lingering, smoldering piles of Truth bubbling just under the surface?
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 15:36:11 +0000
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