Hello my fellow American,
My name is Nicolas Guillermo and I run the Green Economy Associates. We are an independently owned company strictly focusing on providing information to people on how we , the people, are working to fix the economy on our own, without relying on government policy. We are writing to inform you about a new service we facilitate so that you can make an educated decision to benefit our future together on this planet.
In this invitation to receive free information about our companies official launch, we have created this document to disclose the nature of the environmental issues we face, practical solutions that save consumers money and the revolutionary strategy we are utilizing to increase our environmental preservation. Along with saving people money on purchases, we also provide a sophisticated program, free of charge to direct people on to a path of financial prosperity once and for all. New members are subscribing for our consultation every day and signing up for one if not more of our home based business opportunities. All of our opportunities products and services save you money and they utilize network marketing so that share profits from recruited affiliates, create multiple streams of residual income. The green trends of the future are crucial for our survival as a planet. Network marketing trends are on the rise and they provide a true working system of creating lasting wealth for individuals worldwide. We will outline all aspects of a new “green” marketplace in the following report, so please continue reading to the end to grasp a full picture of the value that is here now and which trend reporters like Gerald Celente prove are skyrocketing!
In this recent report you will find the information you need to understand our predicament we all face together as a world community. Toxins in our environment create not a political issue, but a health issue that affects us all.
Published on Sunday, December 16, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times
Air Pollution Harmful to Babies, Fetuses, Studies SaySmog is linked to stillbirths, infant deaths and low birth weight
by Gary Polakovic
A growing body of research from around the world indicates that smog is exacting a much greater toll than previously known on infants and unborn babies.
Scientists have long known that the extreme levels of air pollution found in the developing world can harm babies, and that lesser pollution in U.S. cities can sicken or kill the elderly and infirm.
The new research shows that the harmful effects of dirty air can extend even into the womb. More than a dozen studies in the United States, Brazil, Europe, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan have linked smog to low birth weight, premature births, stillbirths and infant deaths.
In this country, the research has documented ill effects on infants even in cities with modern pollution controls, including Los Angeles.
The findings have helped prompt California officials to seek more stringent smog controls.
"Smog can harm the health of babies," said Beate Ritz, an epidemiologist at UCLA's Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. "This should make us pause. Air pollution doesn't just impact asthmatics and old people at the end of life, but it can affect people at the beginning of their life, and that can disadvantage people throughout their life."
A UCLA study conducted by Ritz and scheduled for release Dec. 28, for the first time links air pollution and birth defects in Southern California.
Other experts say that although worldwide research shows a strong correlation between air quality and infant illnesses, it does not establish a conclusive cause-and-effect connection.
Most of the studies have been analyzed by disinterested scientists--a process called peer review--and have been published in leading journals or will be soon. The studies differ on which pollutants are of most concern.
Some implicate gases, others blame particles, and some point to both.
"The research is suggestive, but preliminary. It's something to be concerned about, but nothing to panic about," said Tracey Woodruff, a senior scientist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and an author of one of the research papers.
"It's something we need to pay attention to."
Some Skeptical, Others Troubled
Frederick W. Lipfert, a New York environmental consultant hired by auto makers, the steel industry, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute to critique several of the reports, downplayed the findings.
"These studies raise more suspicions than smoking guns," he said.
Nonetheless, the research, especially the studies focusing on U.S. cities where pollution levels have been declining, is regarded by health experts as troubling.
"We know there are serious health effects from low levels of air pollution," said Aaron Cohen, an epidemiologist and principal scientist for the Health Effects Institute in Boston, a joint enterprise of the EPA and several pollution-generating industries, including oil companies and utilities.
"When something affects babies and children, everybody takes it seriously. I think it's a high priority that we follow up on these studies," Cohen said.
In the latest research from UCLA, Ritz and a team of researchers found that women exposed to high levels of ozone and carbon monoxide were three times more likely than others to have babies with cleft lips and palates and defective heart valves.
The researchers looked at thousands of pregnant women in the Los Angeles area from 1987 to 1993, and compared those living in areas with relatively dirty air to those living in cleaner areas.
Virtually the entire study area, bounded roughly by San Bernardino, Santa Ana and Santa Clarita, met federal standards for carbon monoxide, and much of the region complied with ozone requirements.
The study, to be published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found that the greatest risk occurs during the second month of pregnancy, when a fetus gains most of its organs and much of its facial structure.
The Clean Air Act regulates smog levels to protect certain sensitive groups, including children, the elderly and people with respiratory ailments, but not babies or fetuses.
Pollutants inhaled by pregnant mothers can reach fetuses through the umbilical cord, research has found.
Most of the studies about smog and babies came after the Clinton administration set new federal limits for ozone and microscopic particles.
EPA officials say that before those standards can be strengthened, more research is needed to determine which pollutants are most harmful and at what stage of pregnancy they do the most damage.
State Officials Push for Action
However, California officials say they have seen enough. Melanie Marty, chief of the air toxicology and epidemiology unit at the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said the studies linking smog and harm to babies are part of a body of evidence the state is relying on to recommend that the Air Resources Board lower the statewide standard for airborne particle pollution by 33%.
"These studies are very suggestive of effects in infants, and in terms of public health, you want to protect against that rather than wait for the most perfect study in the world," Marty said.
Recently, more and more scientists--many of them women--have been investigating whether ill effects of smog persist even where the pollution has been reduced, as in much of the United States.
A study by scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Basel in Switzerland concluded that as many as 11% of infant deaths in the United States--about 3,000 per year--may be a result of microscopic particles in the air.
The study, which has yet to be published, expands on earlier research by the EPA and Centers for Disease Control that looked at 4 million infants in 86 metropolitan areas and compared the incidence of mortality with fluctuating rates of particulate pollution.
That study concluded that as particulate matter increased in the air, the infant mortality rate rose by 10% to 40%.
Carbon Monoxide, Underweight Babies
In a separate study, a team of researchers from the United States and Sweden found that pregnant women in five U.S. cities who were exposed to elevated levels of carbon monoxide during their third trimester were 31% more likely to give birth to underweight babies.
They found that when concentrations of carbon monoxide increased by 1 part per million, the risk climbed by nearly one-third.
The researchers, from Johns Hopkins University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Nordic School of Public Health in Sweden, examined 90,000 births and air pollution trends between 1994 and 1996 in Boston; Hartford, Conn.; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Springfield, Mass.; and Washington, D.C.
The findings were published in June in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Another study by UCLA researchers, which was published last year and focused on Southern California, concluded that mothers are 20% more likely to have a baby prematurely when exposed to elevated amounts of microscopic particles in the final six weeks of pregnancy.
The analysis, which examined 97,518 newborns between 1989 and 1993, found the highest rate of premature births in eight communities where smog levels were among the highest in the nation though generally in compliance with federal standards.
The communities are Anaheim, Burbank, central Los Angeles, El Toro, Glendora, Hawthorne, Long Beach and Santa Clarita.
The researchers adjusted the findings to account for a variety of factors often related to premature birth, including the mother's age, access to prenatal care, smoking and illnesses such as lung disease, diabetes and hypertension. They excluded births by caesarean section.
In a 1998 study of pregnant women in Sao Paulo, Brazil, scientists found that women exposed to high levels of nitrogen and sulfur oxides were 18% more likely to have their pregnancies terminate in stillbirths.
Nitrogen and sulfur oxides, produced by fuel combustion in vehicles and factories, is more abundant in Sao Paulo than in U.S. cities.
The Sao Paulo researchers also found evidence of carbon monoxide in the umbilical cords of 47 nonsmoking mothers.
The levels of carbon monoxide rose and fell with daily air pollution levels. Carbon monoxide can cut off oxygen to a fetus, leading to death.
The discovery of carbon monoxide in umbilical cords helps explain how air pollutants reach a fetus and cause damage.
"There really is evidence that levels of air pollution encountered in large cities worldwide may be hazardous to the fetus," said Dana Loomis, a co-author of the study and an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina.
"This is something that has not been recognized before. It was always assumed the fetus was isolated in the womb from things in the environment."
The EPA is weighing the emerging body of research as it considers whether to tighten its standard for airborne particles.
"We do see the trend. There is a growing body of literature finding an association of conventional air pollution and infant mortality," said John D. Bachmann, associate director of science policy in the EPA's air division.
"Our review is in mid-process, and we are looking at all of this."
Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times
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Science and Economics have proven toxic pollution from energy and transportation is linked to the chilling demand and failure to provide for a better health care industry in our country. Environmental toxins causes hereditary disease, children are now being born with asthma, this is a recent phenomenon. An epidemic affecting not only people, but the entire ecology of our oceans and land, is sweeping the world because we are not changing with the technology, we are instead stuck with this burden of a petroleum infrastructure and there are few solutions left that we can implement immediately. Do you see why we have a problem?
Fortunately, Technology has provided solutions; the change we wish to see in the world is up to YOU now. We cannot depend on Washington or the G8 to provide solutions right this moment. We are in the midst of a crucial time now, where we may, or may not have the leadership we need to not only help our environment, but to add additional income to our budgets so we may live happier, more successful lives.
The Green Economy Associates is a marketing firm for several revolutionary programs people worldwide are taking part in. Individuals working with our company to implement practice solutions in their communities are benefiting with a substantial supplemental income. With as little as 5 hours a week, our simple program can create for you the wealth of YOUR dreams and help preserve the environment for all.
GEA has several programs currently being utilized by citizens across the country. Our newest program is of highest priority for its incredible ability to sweep the nation with due to it’s high value and its power to reduce dependency on oil . On October 24th we proudly introduced New Freedom Economy. We have just launched a instantly successful campaign beginning its reach to all corners of the USA and Canada.
NFE for short, is operated in part by GEA LLC and the Green Economy Associates are moving forward as planned. Every week, our new members are recruiting two new individuals into the company and we are growing exponentially. NFE is invested in E-commerce, a phenomenon that is taking the world by storm.
1) Nations Move Rapidly to E-Commerce
For several years the commercial potential of the Internet was mined mainly by Americans. No longer. Several countries of Europe have nearly caught up in e-commerce and may soon challenge the US on its own turf. While Asia and India still have a ways to go, we're seeing a strong movement to the Internet. The effect of this trend is a rapidly growing number of Internet users worldwide -- good news for online businesses. However, US sites will need to compete much more deliberately to increase their market share in the global Internet market.
2) Online Purchasing Increases
Online sales during Christmas 1998 were a wake-up call. Once, people avoided Web sales fearful of credit card fraud, but I believe the press coverage of Christmas buying on the Internet has changed that perception for good. Researchers had to double their sales projections midway through the season. And though online sales were just a tiny fraction of total retail sales in the US, suddenly online stores became legitimate. Nearly half of Internet users are now willing to use their credit cards to make online purchases. This new buying spree is driving most of the other e-commerce trends.
3) Small Business Merchants Are Aggregated.
We're seeing sites like NFE aggregate thousands of small merchants. Attractions include a higher chance of listing in search engine index’s, possible inclusion of some products in search engine shopping searches, superior statistics, a basic associate program capability, easy sign-ups for merchant credit card accounts, and mailing list software for newsletters or discussion lists. As the aggregators offer more and more features to small businesses, we'll see more small merchants moving this direction. While standalone stores have much more control of their destiny, they will need to continuously improve to keep up with advantages enjoyed by aggregated e-commerce sites.
4) Large Retailers Move Online
Many large retailers and mail order houses have set up an online presence. Those that aren't on the Internet will be soon. Whereas small businesses once had the Internet to themselves, now they must compete for their very survival.
Perhaps you've heard, "Nobody is making money online." That's definitely NOT true of many small businesses -- they can't afford that luxury. But it probably IS true of large traditional retailers. It's not that they don't know how to make money -- they surely do. But they are reinvesting profits in order to make major capital investments in infrastructure and expansion. Many of them have had a small presence on the Web for a couple of years in order to learn to do business online. Now they're ready to invest heavily, believing that e-sales are coming rapidly.
One of the big issues for retailers is learning quickly to conduct an efficient mail order operation. Their warehouse systems have been structured geographically for truck distribution to retail stores. Now they must restructure or build new distribution systems to accommodate product fulfillment by mail, UPS, or FedEx. To conduct business on the scale they want to, setting up these new systems to be efficient is very expensive.
Even if the company had a strong mail order business in the past, it is expensive to hook up their website ordering system so that it connects seamlessly with existing inventory and fulfillment systems.
For many large retailers this is a time of negative cash flow for their online businesses. But don't be fooled. When these investments and systems are finished, some of these companies be difficult for small operators to compete with.
5) Affiliate Programs Become Retail Standard
Associate programs are emerging as one of the must-have systems for funneling shoppers to an online store. Since merchants pay out only when a purchase is made, affiliate programs are often only 10% of the cost of banner advertising. While associate programs are attractive, they are difficult for small businesses to administer. Fortunately, several companies have sprung up to handle nearly all the administration and hassle of Shopping
6) Agents Increase Price Competition
An emerging trend is the use of shopping agents to help shoppers find the best prices for the products they are seeking. These agents earn their money by cutting revenue-sharing deals with merchants. The agent owners in turn contract with large portal sites for a prominent and visible position. But several of these shopping agents have now been acquired this past year by portal sites. The effect of shopping agents is to drive traffic to sites that sign with the agents, and to drive prices down for those that become affiliates with such programs -- for a cut of the total sale.
7) E-commerce is an economic trend.
As agents require a fee for promoting online shopping, they also retain membership rights to purchase from their own clients at a discount. Furthermore with NFE, weather you’re a member or not, you still receive a high discount from all of our 1,500+ clients. We provide virtually everything you need from the following categories:
Auto & Transportation Business Products & Services Children Clothing & Accessories Computers & Electronics Family & Entertainment Food & Beverage Games & Toys Gifts & Flowers Health & Beauty Home & Garden Miscellaneous Online Products & Services Shopping & Bargains Sports & Fitness Telecommunications Travel & Recreation
NFE’s retail clients save money without the need for as much retailer overhead. We then distribute the savings to all of our shoppers, completely embracing change that has been brought about by the internet age. By reducing costs to everyone that utilizes the digital shopping experience, we improve our own financial well being. Another advantage to online shopping, is that once one becomes accustomed to our user friendly interface, shopping for house hold needs becomes faster than traditional errand running. Not only do millions worldwide currently take part in this phenomenon to save time, but they also do not need to transport themselves to the retail location , therefore reducing their ecological foot print by leaps and bounds. Does it not make sense to embrace the e-commerce movement now, to reduce toxic pollution in our environment and save ourselves money?
The more people we integrate into our program, the less dependency on oil we will have as a country. Together we can make a difference in preserving our environment. We will only have a defined strength in our numbers. The way we are able to accomplish this great task, of reaching out to the entire world about NFE and other money saving programs is by affiliate marketing otherwise known as referral marketing or network marketing.
The fact that we are able to save money for retailers and reduce the use of oil in shopping procedures, leads us to the gas rebate program that is sweeping the nation. We are able to use a leverage with gas stations now that has never been done before. They know that this world wide scenario of increasing e-commerce puts a damper on their profits so they are willing to work with us to promote a separate customer loyalty program that benefits both your wallet and the individual brand gas stations themselves. NFE was able to negotiate 25% off your cost of gas for every $100 up to a total of $500 in savings. You automatically qualify for $250 in gas rebates when you join the New Freedom Economy. The onetime cost for enrollment is $100 and is no catch, no further fees, or purchasing requirement from any of our online stores to receive double your value back in gas rebates. The only requirement is that you spend a minimum of $100 a month on gas from any gas station of your choosing to receive $25 back any given month after joining. Once you have chosen a gas station brand, you will receive a personal customer loyalty card that pays you back $25 a month, every month that you use $100 at that particular brand’s stations. You are instantly credited $250 in gas rebates from your enrollment and you will not forfeit your credits if you do not use $100 a month in gas. All credits are able to be used by you, any month of your choosing.
As many Americans and Canadians are interested in supplementing their income with an easy to run home based business. We provide an entire years membership with our affiliate program for only an additional $19.95. For a total of $119.95 your receive $250 in gas rebates and a years enrollment with GEA LLC’s business building program. In your first seven days, upon enrolling for GEA’s FREE marketing program, you will receive 200 free prequalified business leads and a 7 day challenge to get just two people. If you are successful in enrolling just two members in you 7 day period, you will earn another $250 in gas rebates totaling $500 back on gas!
The gas rebates have so much value over the money needed to enroll, GEA LLC has implemented an incredibly successful program on its on we call the Gas Gifting Program. The Gas Gifting Program is intended to serve as an promotion to effectively gather the attention of two people who you know you can trust will give you time to explain our remarkable functions in exchange for $250 in FREE GAS. If you are considering becoming a motivational force in driving a successful home based business the gas gifting program is for you. As your 7 day challenge is winding down, if in a worst case scenario, where your leads are not responding and your warm contacts are procrastinating, you can indeed chose to gift your gas rebates offer to two of your friends and still come out on top with a profit in your inherent gas rebate value. Your total costs vary depending on weather you help our local people with cashback off their memberships, just under $360, your value in gas rebates received $500. On your seventh day, it is very important to rush coordinate efforts to find the best candidates you know for your rebate program. Your qualifications should be to gift someone with $250 in gas rebates that wants to earn their own supplemental income from home. Every new recruit brought into NFE will be eligible to receive their own 200 FREE leads as well. They then have the choice to market the program for a chance to receive another $250 in gas rebates themselves. On their seventh day, if they are unsuccessful in selling two $120 programs, in a worst case scenario, they two will likely consider paying out just under $240 to gift two of their first responders and total their customer loyalty card to $500. The value may seem unbelievable but we are receiving money to pay for the rebates from the gas companies themselves who, as you know, have raked in record profits over recent years. Gas stations are threatened by increasing e-commerce as worlds trends prove, so we arranged for them to pay you for your loyalty.
NFE’s gas gifting program is exploding rapidly, but the only way this is possible is when people that join our affiliate program , show their dedication in their first seven days to tell everybody they know, fear no rejection, and follow the steps we have outlined for you to become a motivational force in people’s lives. We have the most incredible pay plan in our industry that is designed to earn anyone who follows our steps to success, over $53,000 in just 12 weeks. The complete pay plan outline will be given to you upon receipt of your FREE enrolment with GEA LLC marketing services at www.500backongas.com
GEA LLC offers free consultation services for interested entrepreneurs and environmentalists; we do not sell your information to any third parties. The environmental revolution is predicted to be bigger than the oil boom. Grab your stake in the profits that will be generated by “green” changes in our infrastructure. By getting involved today with NFE, you will be in the top 1% of the companies’ producers, and statistically, this is the best place to be with any company. GEA is dedicated to changing people’s lives, one open mind at a time, and we invite you to ride the economic boom that is to be had with the green revolution.
Contact us today at [ www.500backongas.com ] and we will at your earliest convenience. When you are looking for gifts this holiday season, consider your saving from 1% to 40% off everything at the NFE online mall. Go to [ www.nfemalls.com/energy ]
We look forward to hearing from you! Every fifth member that joins receives an additional free gift for the holidays worth around $90!!! Thank you for your time and we wish you a happy holidays and success in all of your endeavors.
Cordially yours,
Nicolas Guillermo CEO – GEA LLC
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Y.P.M. organized by Mark Jacoby, witness statement.
I Nicolas Guillermo was contracted by Mark Jacoby (Y.P.M.) initially in the beginning of 2006.
I was paid by the signature for several petitions between February and May of 2006.
When Mark introduced the paid registration cards around April, he instructed us that we would only be paid on Republican registration cards where the signer initialed by the republican box. When I asked why, he replied, “so you don’t get charged for voter fraud.” Why would I get charged with voter fraud? If I had a petition signer place their initial on the card close the republican box right before they signed, they would never know it if I switched their party. I was surprised at how many people would not fill in the party box at all when they filled out the card on their own. It is very easy to conceive how some of Jacoby’s petitioners could get over 500 republicans a week, they would switch voters on college campuses and Wal-Mart store fronts. I have seen his worker named Krystal, fill in cards for people. I have seen huge stacks or Republican reg. cards turned in for pay by his worker Carlos. I had to ask Carlos how he was able to get 500 plus reg cards a week, he would not tell me. Krystal however agreed to retrain me one day, every single person she encountered, she would ask them for an ID and start a reg card for them with out asking. Krystal would never ask them to fill in the card accept for the initial and signature, she would uncountable switch their card for them. I have been trained by marks crew to trick voters to signing petitions by saying “these are just duplicates” after the top petition in a stack was signed, their response “see how easy it is”. Several of Marks petitioners used this and other deceiving tactics to trick voters into signing all petitions.
I was mentally abused by Mark several times. He would take other workers out of state and force them to stay on a location for over 15 hours a day before he arranged for their transportation to and from hotels. Mark owes myself and others thousands of dollars from bouncing his last pay check of a petition drive. I of course have proof of this and his failure to pay me my money.
In Arizona, I was a witness to his strategy of having petitioners, take out several trainees, and sign their petitions. The trainees would be paid a lesser value per signature than the circulators for as long as the circulators could get away with it. Mark trained them to sign petitions they did not collect. I know this because I worked for him when Andrew Chaves of Petition Partners instructed me, that because he hold the main contracts for all the petitions, I had to work for Mark if I wanted to petition in Arizona. At the time I was not truly a resident, I did not know I was breaking any laws; Mark has his petitioners follow him all over the country and petition in states they are not truly residents in.
Mark had me turn in petitions to J.S.M. run by Jenny Breslin, I was never paid by her either. I once turned in petitions to Marks mother, I was never paid for those as well.
Derrick Lee, John Burkett and Ron Tomscak all participate in republican drives, people that work for them should be questioned if you can find them. All these coordinators owe money. Tomscak of SanDIego never paid me even for republicans that I turned in in the spring of 08. I turned in hundreds of republicans that drive, all of which decided republican on their own. Lee and Burkett both failed to pay me my final pay check.
I am no longer involved in petitioning, after getting burned on my paychecks year after year. I’m would rather pursue justice, helping myself and others get their money back from the coordinators. Help me in my case, by putting other petitioners who were not paid in contact with me, or visa versa. It will benefit us all as we can use this information to make a federal case out of all the petition coordinators fraud. Perhaps then, we can put the bad ones out of business. Thank you for your time.
Cordially yours,
Nico R. Guillermo
I was paid by the signature for several petitions between February and May of 2006.
When Mark introduced the paid registration cards around April, he instructed us that we would only be paid on Republican registration cards where the signer initialed by the republican box. When I asked why, he replied, “so you don’t get charged for voter fraud.” Why would I get charged with voter fraud? If I had a petition signer place their initial on the card close the republican box right before they signed, they would never know it if I switched their party. I was surprised at how many people would not fill in the party box at all when they filled out the card on their own. It is very easy to conceive how some of Jacoby’s petitioners could get over 500 republicans a week, they would switch voters on college campuses and Wal-Mart store fronts. I have seen his worker named Krystal, fill in cards for people. I have seen huge stacks or Republican reg. cards turned in for pay by his worker Carlos. I had to ask Carlos how he was able to get 500 plus reg cards a week, he would not tell me. Krystal however agreed to retrain me one day, every single person she encountered, she would ask them for an ID and start a reg card for them with out asking. Krystal would never ask them to fill in the card accept for the initial and signature, she would uncountable switch their card for them. I have been trained by marks crew to trick voters to signing petitions by saying “these are just duplicates” after the top petition in a stack was signed, their response “see how easy it is”. Several of Marks petitioners used this and other deceiving tactics to trick voters into signing all petitions.
I was mentally abused by Mark several times. He would take other workers out of state and force them to stay on a location for over 15 hours a day before he arranged for their transportation to and from hotels. Mark owes myself and others thousands of dollars from bouncing his last pay check of a petition drive. I of course have proof of this and his failure to pay me my money.
In Arizona, I was a witness to his strategy of having petitioners, take out several trainees, and sign their petitions. The trainees would be paid a lesser value per signature than the circulators for as long as the circulators could get away with it. Mark trained them to sign petitions they did not collect. I know this because I worked for him when Andrew Chaves of Petition Partners instructed me, that because he hold the main contracts for all the petitions, I had to work for Mark if I wanted to petition in Arizona. At the time I was not truly a resident, I did not know I was breaking any laws; Mark has his petitioners follow him all over the country and petition in states they are not truly residents in.
Mark had me turn in petitions to J.S.M. run by Jenny Breslin, I was never paid by her either. I once turned in petitions to Marks mother, I was never paid for those as well.
Derrick Lee, John Burkett and Ron Tomscak all participate in republican drives, people that work for them should be questioned if you can find them. All these coordinators owe money. Tomscak of SanDIego never paid me even for republicans that I turned in in the spring of 08. I turned in hundreds of republicans that drive, all of which decided republican on their own. Lee and Burkett both failed to pay me my final pay check.
I am no longer involved in petitioning, after getting burned on my paychecks year after year. I’m would rather pursue justice, helping myself and others get their money back from the coordinators. Help me in my case, by putting other petitioners who were not paid in contact with me, or visa versa. It will benefit us all as we can use this information to make a federal case out of all the petition coordinators fraud. Perhaps then, we can put the bad ones out of business. Thank you for your time.
Cordially yours,
Nico R. Guillermo
Citizen initiatives have been kicked off the ballot this year in record numbers, and the problems could go much deeper than invalid signatures
By Sarah Fenske
Published on August 21, 2008
Something went wrong.
· Jamie Peachey
Signature gatherer Jack Bickley says he witnessed nothing less than systemic fraud.
Subject(s):
Petition Partners, Mark Jacoby, petition fraud, Arizona citizen initiatives
That's what politicos from Tucson to Flagstaff are saying, as an unprecedented number of citizen initiatives have been kicked off this fall's ballot.
No one can remember the last time that any statewide initiative got booted after turning in its signatures. This year, we've already had three.
And two more initiatives nearly suffered the same fate, only to squeak by on technicalities.
Sure, the voters lose out, but the loss to the initiatives' backers is even greater. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars readying their pet projects, only to see them rejected before prime time.
"On a scale of one to 10 on the Richter scale of Arizona history, this is a 9.5," says local political consultant Jason Rose, who's not directly involved in this year's initiative process. "There is going to be massive fallout."
So what went wrong?
People will tell you that Maricopa County is the hub of this year's petition problems. They say county officials have been pickier than usual in their verifications — and they plan to prove it in court.
But there's another possibility.
All three failed initiatives hired the same Scottsdale company to gather signatures. That company, in turn, hired subcontractors, many of them firms that travel state-to-state gathering signatures.
Some of those subs have faced allegations of serious impropriety in the past. And I've talked to three local workers who allege that the subs permitted, and sometimes even encouraged, fraud.
One whistleblower says he tried to complain to initiative backers and state regulators but says no one would listen.
Now, with initiatives failing at a shocking rate, he may well have their attention.
Arizona is one of 24 states that allow "citizen initiatives." Basically, anyone who collects enough signatures from registered voters can put a question on the statewide ballot.
It's direct democracy, with surprising results. Our state Legislature would surely never approve of medical marijuana, but the people did, twice. Recently, Arizona voters refused to ban gay marriage, raised the minimum wage, and drastically curtailed the rights of illegal immigrants. Politically, we're all over the map, and that's kind of cool.
The flip side is this: What the state's populist founders saw as a way to curb special interests has instead been a boon to them.
Just look at the initiatives proposed this fall. Ward Connerly, who's successfully led crusades against affirmative action from Michigan to California, has one on the ballot here. The payday loan industry is pushing a plan to make the Legislature back off from, yep, the payday loan industry.
There's a reason you seldom see John Q. Public pushing an initiative.
To get on the ballot in Arizona, initiatives need a whopping 153,365 valid signatures. That means hiring a company to track down registered voters; you simply can't expect volunteers to collect so many.
And though this work is ostensibly the grassroots of democracy, in reality, it can be sleazy.
We've all heard the trope comparing lawmaking to sausages — the less you know about how they're made, the more respect you have for them.
Trust me on this: It's 100 percent true when it comes to signature gathering.
"When you run a signature company, you're basically a captain of the underworld," says political consultant Rose, himself no stranger to those environs. "It's a nasty, gnarly business."
Signature-gathering companies pay an army of barely regulated freelancers anywhere from $1 to $2 per signature. If a random 5 percent sample of signatures checks out with county regulators — and if the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed — the initiative goes on the ballot.
This year, the signatures aren't checking out. Failure rates in Maricopa County are at more than 40 percent.
Of the nine initiatives attempting to make the ballot, all but two hired the same Scottsdale firm, Petition Partners LLC, to gather signatures.
And those two, the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative and Majority Rules, ended up with virtually the same workforce because the initiatives all used the same subcontractors. (The civil rights initiative now faces a lawsuit from opponents trying to get it kicked off the ballot, alleging fraud on the part of signature gatherers. But don't be deceived: Every one of the initiatives trying to make the ballot used virtually the same crew on the street level.)
Some of the subcontractors most active in Arizona this summer have been linked to improprieties in other states. And three whistleblowers tell me that serious problems occurred here.
One was brave enough to put his name on the record; the other two, given anonymity, corroborated some of his more serious allegations.
Jack Bickley gathered signatures in the Valley for 10 weeks this spring. During that time, the 30-something East Valley resident claims that he witnessed systemic fraud.
He alleges:
• Misrepresentation. Bickley says his fellow circulators frequently lied to voters about what they were signing.
• Circulator falsifications. Those circulating petitions must sign the back, verifying that they personally witnessed each signature. Bickley says that some of his coworkers routinely signed the back of petitions they did not witness. Managers, he says, encouraged the practice.
Worst of all, Bickley alleges, piles of petitions and voter registration cards were collected but never turned in. Thousands of Arizona residents may believe they're registered to vote, Bickley says, even as their registrations gathered dust. Once the subs who'd promised payment skipped town, no one knew what to do with them.
· Jamie Peachey
Signature gatherer Jack Bickley says he witnessed nothing less than systemic fraud.
Subject(s):
Petition Partners, Mark Jacoby, petition fraud, Arizona citizen initiatives
The fraud, Bickley says, wasn't occasional or accidental. "This was not once in a while," he says. "This was systematic."
Derrick Lee, who owns the signature-gathering firm Lee Petition Management, first put me in touch with Bickley last week. Lee had heard numerous claims of fraud in this election cycle — and was troubled enough to go public with his concerns. (Once known as the "petition king of Arizona," he's admittedly lost much of his business to Petition Partners in recent years, and even ended up subcontracting with the company this year.)
So I met Bickley at a restaurant in Gilbert. To back up his claims, Bickley showed me a sheaf of signed petitions and photocopies he'd made of voter registration cards. He says he's been talking to his fellow gatherers, many of whom gave up on getting paid and destroyed petitions and registrations. These are the ones, he says, that he managed to save from the dumpster.
"Tens of thousands of signatures have been thrown out," Bickley says.
Bickley says he got involved with the petition process on a whim. Until six months ago, he says, he lived in Hawaii. But while visiting family in the Valley in February, he was approached by a man outside Wal-Mart asking him to sign a petition to lower the price of gas.
Sure, Bickley said. Who doesn't want cheaper gas?
When he looked at the petition, Bickley was stunned to read that it was actually a petition to put Ralph Nader on the ballot.
"What does this have to do with the price of gas?" he demanded.
"Hey, Ralph Nader's for legalizing hemp," the petition circulator told him. "That's an alternative fuel."
The conversation was so unnerving, Bickley says, that he decided he had to learn more. He ended up staying in the Valley and, by April, had signed up to circulate petitions.
In the next two months, he witnessed far worse than the original circulator's fairy tale about Nader. Bickley says that some of his colleagues are now submitting written statements about what they've witnessed to a Scottsdale attorney. (The attorney did not return calls for comment.)
Derrick Lee says he's heard from a half-dozen gatherers who said they are filing affidavits.
Based on what he's heard, and the petitions he's examined, Lee says that problems with this year's citizen initiatives go far beyond normal error.
"In my opinion, this is organized crime," Lee says. "I will go on the record and say that, because that's what it is."
The company at the center of the firestorm, Petition Partners, is based out of a suite in Old Town Scottsdale. The firm is owned and managed by Andrew Chavez, who started it eight years ago. (Bob Grossfeld, a veteran political consultant closely allied with the Democrats, owns a one-third share of the company.)
Chavez did not return my call until a few minutes before deadline. But his lawyer, Andrew Gordon, makes a strong case that the problem is with the county's verification process, not his client.
"What's weird this year is that — not just for Petition Partners, but the other petition-gathering companies — there's an extremely high failure rate in Maricopa County, and pretty much only in Maricopa County," Gordon says. "And our quality-control checks were all showing 75 percent validity. So why is Maricopa County coming in so much lower? That's the real question."
When Chavez finally called me Tuesday, he was harshly critical of Derrick Lee. Lee is angry, he says, because Petition Partners rejected nearly 7,000 signatures he'd collected. "He got left holding the bag," he says. "He wouldn't be doing this otherwise."
(Lee points out he started contacting New Times more than a month ago, long before the flap over signatures.)
And Chavez notes that it's not just his petitions — the two that hired other companies to gather signatures are suffering an error rate that's just as bad.
"This is not a Petition Partners problem," he says.
But I think it may be a problem involving lousy subcontractors. Everybody in town seems to have used YPM LLC, a Florida-based company owned by Mark Jacoby. And Jacoby's group is at the center of Jack Bickley's most damning allegations. (Jacoby, who has left town, did not return calls for comment by press time.)
Bickley says that Jacoby encouraged, and even expected, behavior that could well be criminal under Arizona statutes.
Jacoby, he says, had a system where a trainer would be assigned as many as six new circulators. Even though the trainer would be nowhere near the circulators while they collected signatures, he would still sign the back of their petitions, attesting that he'd personally witnessed them.
"The person who signed the back was not present when the petitions were signed," Bickley says. "How could he be? He had five or six people working under him at different spots around town."
· Jamie Peachey
Signature gatherer Jack Bickley says he witnessed nothing less than systemic fraud.
Subject(s):
Petition Partners, Mark Jacoby, petition fraud, Arizona citizen initiatives
Both Jacoby and Jenny Breslin, who owns JSM LLC, served as subcontractors on all the initiatives handled by Petition Partners. (They also contracted on the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative.)
Both Jacoby and Breslin have generated controversy in other states.
In Massachusetts in 2005, a college student told the Associated Press that Jacoby trained her in bait-and-switch techniques, including telling people they were signing for one petition while their signatures were actually captured for two. "The fraud was looked upon as a game," the student said.
A year earlier, the St. Petersburg Times linked Jacoby to a registration scam. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement began investigating, the paper wrote, after receiving allegations that as many as 4,000 voters were registered as Republicans without their consent. Jacoby was never charged.
As for Breslin, her signature-gathering company was subject to a criminal investigation in Ohio after allegations of fraudulent voter registrations, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. (Apparently, the probe was dropped without charges being filed. Breslin could not be reached for comment.) She also came under fire for allegedly turning in forged signatures in Florida, the paper reported.
These are the guys to whom Petition Partners farmed out much of its day-to-day operations in Arizona.
Attorney Gordon, who represents Petition Partners, says that Chavez has used Jacoby in the past "and he says he's been a very good subcontractor. They run quality control on Mark as well as the other contractors, and he has a very good rate."
For all the problems with this year's initiative process, backers believe they may still get on the ballot.
Recently, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Aceto rejected the secretary of state's determination that the medical choice initiative was off the ballot. While the secretary of state was following the letter of the law, Judge Aceto ruled that "substantial compliance" was good enough, says Chuck Blanchard, the attorney who handled the case.
In the next week, Judge Aceto will hear similar arguments from the backers of both the governor's transportation tax initiative and the state trust lands issue.
Both are represented by Blanchard. With the same lawyer, and the same judge, it's hard to imagine the "substantial compliance" won't be good enough.
The question is whether Petition Partners will be able to hold onto the lion's share of the local signature business in the future.
Political consultant Jason Rose says that, prior to this cycle, Petition Partners enjoyed a great reputation. "The irony is that so many significant people put their eggs in one basket," he says. "That's because of the stellar work they'd done previously."
But the repercussions for this year's failures could be more serious than lost business.
Kevin Tyne, a spokesman for the secretary of state, tells me that his office has forwarded allegations of impropriety to the state attorney general. (He did not specify which companies, or individuals, are being targeted.)
Not surprisingly, Attorney General Terry Goddard wouldn't comment on specifics. But the situation has piqued his interest.
"I am amazed at the high rejection rate and very concerned about the validity of signatures," he says. "I am going to take a serious look at whether fraud has been committed."
That's good news. And after just one week poking around this, I have to say, I don't think Goddard will have to look very hard.
By Sarah Fenske
Published on August 21, 2008
Something went wrong.
· Jamie Peachey
Signature gatherer Jack Bickley says he witnessed nothing less than systemic fraud.
Subject(s):
Petition Partners, Mark Jacoby, petition fraud, Arizona citizen initiatives
That's what politicos from Tucson to Flagstaff are saying, as an unprecedented number of citizen initiatives have been kicked off this fall's ballot.
No one can remember the last time that any statewide initiative got booted after turning in its signatures. This year, we've already had three.
And two more initiatives nearly suffered the same fate, only to squeak by on technicalities.
Sure, the voters lose out, but the loss to the initiatives' backers is even greater. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars readying their pet projects, only to see them rejected before prime time.
"On a scale of one to 10 on the Richter scale of Arizona history, this is a 9.5," says local political consultant Jason Rose, who's not directly involved in this year's initiative process. "There is going to be massive fallout."
So what went wrong?
People will tell you that Maricopa County is the hub of this year's petition problems. They say county officials have been pickier than usual in their verifications — and they plan to prove it in court.
But there's another possibility.
All three failed initiatives hired the same Scottsdale company to gather signatures. That company, in turn, hired subcontractors, many of them firms that travel state-to-state gathering signatures.
Some of those subs have faced allegations of serious impropriety in the past. And I've talked to three local workers who allege that the subs permitted, and sometimes even encouraged, fraud.
One whistleblower says he tried to complain to initiative backers and state regulators but says no one would listen.
Now, with initiatives failing at a shocking rate, he may well have their attention.
Arizona is one of 24 states that allow "citizen initiatives." Basically, anyone who collects enough signatures from registered voters can put a question on the statewide ballot.
It's direct democracy, with surprising results. Our state Legislature would surely never approve of medical marijuana, but the people did, twice. Recently, Arizona voters refused to ban gay marriage, raised the minimum wage, and drastically curtailed the rights of illegal immigrants. Politically, we're all over the map, and that's kind of cool.
The flip side is this: What the state's populist founders saw as a way to curb special interests has instead been a boon to them.
Just look at the initiatives proposed this fall. Ward Connerly, who's successfully led crusades against affirmative action from Michigan to California, has one on the ballot here. The payday loan industry is pushing a plan to make the Legislature back off from, yep, the payday loan industry.
There's a reason you seldom see John Q. Public pushing an initiative.
To get on the ballot in Arizona, initiatives need a whopping 153,365 valid signatures. That means hiring a company to track down registered voters; you simply can't expect volunteers to collect so many.
And though this work is ostensibly the grassroots of democracy, in reality, it can be sleazy.
We've all heard the trope comparing lawmaking to sausages — the less you know about how they're made, the more respect you have for them.
Trust me on this: It's 100 percent true when it comes to signature gathering.
"When you run a signature company, you're basically a captain of the underworld," says political consultant Rose, himself no stranger to those environs. "It's a nasty, gnarly business."
Signature-gathering companies pay an army of barely regulated freelancers anywhere from $1 to $2 per signature. If a random 5 percent sample of signatures checks out with county regulators — and if the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed — the initiative goes on the ballot.
This year, the signatures aren't checking out. Failure rates in Maricopa County are at more than 40 percent.
Of the nine initiatives attempting to make the ballot, all but two hired the same Scottsdale firm, Petition Partners LLC, to gather signatures.
And those two, the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative and Majority Rules, ended up with virtually the same workforce because the initiatives all used the same subcontractors. (The civil rights initiative now faces a lawsuit from opponents trying to get it kicked off the ballot, alleging fraud on the part of signature gatherers. But don't be deceived: Every one of the initiatives trying to make the ballot used virtually the same crew on the street level.)
Some of the subcontractors most active in Arizona this summer have been linked to improprieties in other states. And three whistleblowers tell me that serious problems occurred here.
One was brave enough to put his name on the record; the other two, given anonymity, corroborated some of his more serious allegations.
Jack Bickley gathered signatures in the Valley for 10 weeks this spring. During that time, the 30-something East Valley resident claims that he witnessed systemic fraud.
He alleges:
• Misrepresentation. Bickley says his fellow circulators frequently lied to voters about what they were signing.
• Circulator falsifications. Those circulating petitions must sign the back, verifying that they personally witnessed each signature. Bickley says that some of his coworkers routinely signed the back of petitions they did not witness. Managers, he says, encouraged the practice.
Worst of all, Bickley alleges, piles of petitions and voter registration cards were collected but never turned in. Thousands of Arizona residents may believe they're registered to vote, Bickley says, even as their registrations gathered dust. Once the subs who'd promised payment skipped town, no one knew what to do with them.
· Jamie Peachey
Signature gatherer Jack Bickley says he witnessed nothing less than systemic fraud.
Subject(s):
Petition Partners, Mark Jacoby, petition fraud, Arizona citizen initiatives
The fraud, Bickley says, wasn't occasional or accidental. "This was not once in a while," he says. "This was systematic."
Derrick Lee, who owns the signature-gathering firm Lee Petition Management, first put me in touch with Bickley last week. Lee had heard numerous claims of fraud in this election cycle — and was troubled enough to go public with his concerns. (Once known as the "petition king of Arizona," he's admittedly lost much of his business to Petition Partners in recent years, and even ended up subcontracting with the company this year.)
So I met Bickley at a restaurant in Gilbert. To back up his claims, Bickley showed me a sheaf of signed petitions and photocopies he'd made of voter registration cards. He says he's been talking to his fellow gatherers, many of whom gave up on getting paid and destroyed petitions and registrations. These are the ones, he says, that he managed to save from the dumpster.
"Tens of thousands of signatures have been thrown out," Bickley says.
Bickley says he got involved with the petition process on a whim. Until six months ago, he says, he lived in Hawaii. But while visiting family in the Valley in February, he was approached by a man outside Wal-Mart asking him to sign a petition to lower the price of gas.
Sure, Bickley said. Who doesn't want cheaper gas?
When he looked at the petition, Bickley was stunned to read that it was actually a petition to put Ralph Nader on the ballot.
"What does this have to do with the price of gas?" he demanded.
"Hey, Ralph Nader's for legalizing hemp," the petition circulator told him. "That's an alternative fuel."
The conversation was so unnerving, Bickley says, that he decided he had to learn more. He ended up staying in the Valley and, by April, had signed up to circulate petitions.
In the next two months, he witnessed far worse than the original circulator's fairy tale about Nader. Bickley says that some of his colleagues are now submitting written statements about what they've witnessed to a Scottsdale attorney. (The attorney did not return calls for comment.)
Derrick Lee says he's heard from a half-dozen gatherers who said they are filing affidavits.
Based on what he's heard, and the petitions he's examined, Lee says that problems with this year's citizen initiatives go far beyond normal error.
"In my opinion, this is organized crime," Lee says. "I will go on the record and say that, because that's what it is."
The company at the center of the firestorm, Petition Partners, is based out of a suite in Old Town Scottsdale. The firm is owned and managed by Andrew Chavez, who started it eight years ago. (Bob Grossfeld, a veteran political consultant closely allied with the Democrats, owns a one-third share of the company.)
Chavez did not return my call until a few minutes before deadline. But his lawyer, Andrew Gordon, makes a strong case that the problem is with the county's verification process, not his client.
"What's weird this year is that — not just for Petition Partners, but the other petition-gathering companies — there's an extremely high failure rate in Maricopa County, and pretty much only in Maricopa County," Gordon says. "And our quality-control checks were all showing 75 percent validity. So why is Maricopa County coming in so much lower? That's the real question."
When Chavez finally called me Tuesday, he was harshly critical of Derrick Lee. Lee is angry, he says, because Petition Partners rejected nearly 7,000 signatures he'd collected. "He got left holding the bag," he says. "He wouldn't be doing this otherwise."
(Lee points out he started contacting New Times more than a month ago, long before the flap over signatures.)
And Chavez notes that it's not just his petitions — the two that hired other companies to gather signatures are suffering an error rate that's just as bad.
"This is not a Petition Partners problem," he says.
But I think it may be a problem involving lousy subcontractors. Everybody in town seems to have used YPM LLC, a Florida-based company owned by Mark Jacoby. And Jacoby's group is at the center of Jack Bickley's most damning allegations. (Jacoby, who has left town, did not return calls for comment by press time.)
Bickley says that Jacoby encouraged, and even expected, behavior that could well be criminal under Arizona statutes.
Jacoby, he says, had a system where a trainer would be assigned as many as six new circulators. Even though the trainer would be nowhere near the circulators while they collected signatures, he would still sign the back of their petitions, attesting that he'd personally witnessed them.
"The person who signed the back was not present when the petitions were signed," Bickley says. "How could he be? He had five or six people working under him at different spots around town."
· Jamie Peachey
Signature gatherer Jack Bickley says he witnessed nothing less than systemic fraud.
Subject(s):
Petition Partners, Mark Jacoby, petition fraud, Arizona citizen initiatives
Both Jacoby and Jenny Breslin, who owns JSM LLC, served as subcontractors on all the initiatives handled by Petition Partners. (They also contracted on the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative.)
Both Jacoby and Breslin have generated controversy in other states.
In Massachusetts in 2005, a college student told the Associated Press that Jacoby trained her in bait-and-switch techniques, including telling people they were signing for one petition while their signatures were actually captured for two. "The fraud was looked upon as a game," the student said.
A year earlier, the St. Petersburg Times linked Jacoby to a registration scam. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement began investigating, the paper wrote, after receiving allegations that as many as 4,000 voters were registered as Republicans without their consent. Jacoby was never charged.
As for Breslin, her signature-gathering company was subject to a criminal investigation in Ohio after allegations of fraudulent voter registrations, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. (Apparently, the probe was dropped without charges being filed. Breslin could not be reached for comment.) She also came under fire for allegedly turning in forged signatures in Florida, the paper reported.
These are the guys to whom Petition Partners farmed out much of its day-to-day operations in Arizona.
Attorney Gordon, who represents Petition Partners, says that Chavez has used Jacoby in the past "and he says he's been a very good subcontractor. They run quality control on Mark as well as the other contractors, and he has a very good rate."
For all the problems with this year's initiative process, backers believe they may still get on the ballot.
Recently, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Aceto rejected the secretary of state's determination that the medical choice initiative was off the ballot. While the secretary of state was following the letter of the law, Judge Aceto ruled that "substantial compliance" was good enough, says Chuck Blanchard, the attorney who handled the case.
In the next week, Judge Aceto will hear similar arguments from the backers of both the governor's transportation tax initiative and the state trust lands issue.
Both are represented by Blanchard. With the same lawyer, and the same judge, it's hard to imagine the "substantial compliance" won't be good enough.
The question is whether Petition Partners will be able to hold onto the lion's share of the local signature business in the future.
Political consultant Jason Rose says that, prior to this cycle, Petition Partners enjoyed a great reputation. "The irony is that so many significant people put their eggs in one basket," he says. "That's because of the stellar work they'd done previously."
But the repercussions for this year's failures could be more serious than lost business.
Kevin Tyne, a spokesman for the secretary of state, tells me that his office has forwarded allegations of impropriety to the state attorney general. (He did not specify which companies, or individuals, are being targeted.)
Not surprisingly, Attorney General Terry Goddard wouldn't comment on specifics. But the situation has piqued his interest.
"I am amazed at the high rejection rate and very concerned about the validity of signatures," he says. "I am going to take a serious look at whether fraud has been committed."
That's good news. And after just one week poking around this, I have to say, I don't think Goddard will have to look very hard.
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