Comments on: Fame, Greed Behind Special Winter Olympics

By: So.Cal.Cop

So.Cal.Cop — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:11:42 +0000

Your really are a ” the cup is half empty” kind of a guy.

EDITOR NOTE–Half full or half empty is a matter of perspective–depends whether you are pouring or drinking. You need to check the links in the story. Our position is “do the right thing because it is RIGHT, not to make a profit off intellectually disabled kids.

By: Bill Smith

Bill Smith — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:43:26 +0000

Dog, I don’t think the Grossman are Californians. Jim Grossman was raised in Idaho and I believe he has lived here all of his life. I could be wroing.

By: dog

dog — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:02:55 +0000

Sorry Grossmans. It’s probably OK to rob Californians in Idaho. Welcome to Idaho, a state of State sponsored corruption.

By: Bill Smith

Bill Smith — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:37:00 +0000

You mean the Grossmans? Yes, they helped bring the event here. They got hood-winked by Mr. Hunter and his gang of merry bandits, too. Sadly, they footed the intital payroll as I understand it. They have sunk millions into this effort, so I don’t think blaming them is really fair.

By: dog

dog — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:51:05 +0000

Somehow I think the developer folks at Hidden Springs were invloved in this fiasco. Does anyone have some insight on this?

By: James Bond

James Bond — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:25:02 +0000

This event will attract no attention whatsoever from the media, other than local, and the only non-local people that will even know about it are the competitors and their family and friends.

Tax money should not be spent on this.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:00:42 +0000

Yeah, putting tax bucks into this is questionable, but it doesn’t bother me nearly so much as giving discounts, kickbacks, tax exemptions and whatever all else to big businesses, developers and suchlike.
See, the difference is: While this may be a rip-off, it at least does something really good for these “special” kids, whereas the other (the ones I really object to) do nothing but mess up what’s left of our area with more big-box stores, unneeded crappy subdivisions, traffic, etc.

And, the legislature says it approves tax money for the S.O. because it cares about these kids — while H&W cuts services for our own local “special” kids (see story in Statesman in the past couple of days).

Also, I do wonder how this event can cost quite so much, when a lot of the workers are volunteers. Would be interesting to see someone with CPA-type knowledge track the dollars and pennies!

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:24:55 +0000

All of this reminds me of an episode of the Soprano’s where the mob extorts huge sums of money from a Catholic Church festival of some obscure saint.

The only difference here is that it is real and not fiction. $31 million is not chump change.

By: Bill Smith

Bill Smith — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:03:40 +0000

To: Who’s Fault

Yes, I would have taken the salary. But, I might have done my job too. And, when I got canned I don’t think I would have bilked the organization for $100,000 more dollars (the last half of the year I did not work). I would have had some class and thought about how I had helped bleed the orgnaization dry, raised little to no money and maybe needed to just walk away. I would have thought about the cause first, not about making myself and my buddies rich. Which, by the way, was stopped once Mr. Hunter was gone with the exception of Gary Beck who stepped up in the end and did the right thing for the organization. And, who is still there by the way. The others are not.

By: Who's Fault

Who's Fault — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:02:23 +0000

Bill Smith says:
Dec 4, 2008, 10:53 pm
I am currrently very close (maybe board?, maybe staff?)to the World Games situation and I am just glad that Gary Hunter got called out (FINALLY) for being the greedy man he was. He took a huge salary and brought in little to no results. That is why he was given his “severence” and the board let him message his own departure. He also tried to pad the pockets of all of his buddies many names of which you will see on the 990 IRS form that was recently filed that prompted all of this media coverage.

Wait a minute Bill? You are blaming Gary Hunter for taking a salary that was offered to him? Maybe you should point the arrow of blame at the person(s) who offered him the job and the salary. Now if you want to say that he should have done more, okay, but don’t blame him for taking the money. I don’t think you would have turned down that salary would you?