This article pertains to Charles Forgrave's article that follows this one in which he states that Sault Tribe members blindly follow their leaders.
The Reality...we had a sitting chairman who was at the root of ALL the business failures...his ideas, his business plan....ALL FAILURES.
It was Bernard Bouschor who was at the forefront of the biggest failure ever...Greektown. His history of Greektown was to immediately, from day one, place it in huge jeopardy and financial doom with his sneaky backroom deals. Was it Greektown that failed? No. Greektown was a success, but profits were minimal under Sault Tribe management. Hidden agendas and micro-managing by an unqualified and fragmented Sault Tribe Board of Directors left the future of Greektown in question.
With the help of the watchful eyes from mysterious strangers using electronics equipment, Bouschor was faced with the fact that he was no longer wanted by the Tribe. Along with his departure, he pilfered the tribe of computer hard drives,documents & records, valuable artwork that did not belong to him and then he fired his favorite key people and paid them 2.7 million to conspire with him in the act. The law and the recipients can call it what they want but I call it bribery.
But the King of Failure wanted desperately to get his power back so he threw his name in the hat to run for a board seat. The tribal citizens thought they put a stop to that when they voted overwhelmingly "NO WAY" in a secretarial election that could not be disputed.....except by our very own, packed-with-friends-&-relatives tribal court who said 'we don't give a crap what the Tribe or the Secretary of Interior election results say--we're letting him run anyway." Mysteriously, he won a seat. Now how did that happen when so many had voted not to let him near any of our investments or assets...another mystery?
The most mystifying reality is that during the effort to force this former chairman to pay back a small portion of what he took from all of us, the crooks and the crazies effectively got rid of those who had the most to offer our tribe. They cried their 'warrior' cry and pretended they were doing the right thing by slandering and stalking those who would have honestly represented our tribe and our assets when they were really standing by those they hoped would reward them for their service and loyalty.
Recently to top it all off, those in charge had a chance to save Greektown--to retain it in the possession of the tribe. For some strange reason, they did the opposite. They fought all legal and upfront efforts to prevent it from going to 'creditors'. They simply turned their heads and said "Oops...we forgot to have an exit plan for the bankruptcy." Word is, a couple of those 'creditors' were all part of the initial plan set in place by Bouschor who now sits on the tribal board making decisions, once again, that are doomed for failure...at least for the tribe.
Now look where we are...in worse shape than ever before with lawsuits coming out of our ears while the happy spenders are still spending on business deals...like a wind farm in Mexico. Who will benefit from those jobs? To me, it's just another method to hide revenue from us....just another business that will fail--partly because the same people that were at the helm of all the previous failures are still there to do it again.
Lynne Weaver
2008 Greektown revenues
2009 Greektown revenues
3 comments:
Whoever wrote this article is not correct in his/her statements about Greektown revenues. This error has been stated repeatedly on this blog. Greektown always lagged behind the other casinos in Detroit, always. It was due to poor location, poor management, size and the actual facility. When the tribe lost control the revenues did NOT, I repeat did NOT, jump ahead of the other casinos. The revenues increased over what they had previously been. This was due to a variety of factors and removing the inept tribal board from trying to micromanage this entity was a definite plus. Your article attempts to imply more than actually existed and you are wrong in your interpretation of the data about the revenue.
Let me tell you a story about a business that almost folded until it was discovered that the bookkeeper was using her access to the business checks to shop for herself.
The general manager turned the other cheek waiting for the business to reach the point of closure, which it was only 3 weeks away from doing so, because he had shown an interest in picking it up for the lowest possible investment.
I worked at another business where checks were being written and noticed that the address and phone number were not that of the the business but of the bookkeeper's. You see, my husband worked there and was about to lose his job due to the pending closure. I called the bank and the owner and within hours there was an arrest.
Within weeks, the business was back up and running and in a couple of months was back up to a 3rd shift. They have since grown even larger and had to relocate to accommodate their successes.
Pilfering, embezzlement and hiding revenue is as common as water. A business doesn't recover so quickly unless the culprits are removed from access.
According to all reports, immediately after Greektown's micro-management was replaced with those who knew what they were doing, it had a substantial increase over previous years at a time when the other competing casinos had decreases. My references are to percentages of increase and decrease...not dollars.
Bad management is absolutely to blame. Bad management doesn't follow up on indicators that something is amiss. There are a slew of bad managers at fault including those on the board who failed to delve into the cause of failure. I have years of experience in management and financial accounting to understand that most losses occur through internal sources.
If Anonymous is implying that internal factors of embezzlement/skimming didn't contribute to the losses than perhaps Anonymous needs a reality check.
I did not imply that mismanagement and perhaps corrupt bookeeping were not an issue. What I wrote was that it is not correct for you to repeatedly state that Greektown revenues jumped ahead of the other casinos....that did not happen. Greektown revenues simply increased over prior years.
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