(Please Note: This letter is dated 6/2/02)
Dear Meghan,
Firstly, in any and all future correspondence between us, I'd prefer it if you just
addressed me as Robb (Shuster).
Secondly, I'd like to propose that we both step back just a little from this
"tense" mode we seem to have tripped over.
I'm going to sincerely try to make some sort of a presentation or series of small
presentations to you in this email from which I hope that we each might proceed with a
better mutual understanding of where each of us is coming from.
This is going to take a little time so I suggest you fix yourself a nice hot cup of tea or
coffee and take your time going over what I'm about to say to you.
And I'm no Ogre and I clearly wasn't offended by your first email...
But when you finish reading this, I think you are going to see that George literally threw
you to the Lions trying to get you to find out in one correspondence or two or three a
"quick-fix" means for him to step in now because it took US over four years,
seven official Press Releases and approximately 5-7 "Alerts" (an example is
going to be provided to you of such an "Alert") and constant, open access to our
growing content since May 14th of 1999 for him to have had any number of his staffers go
over our facts and figures, Correspondence to national organization leaders in the NAACP,
NOW, NEA, National Puerto Rican Coalition, other tobacco activists such as Public Citizen,
ALA, Grassroots.com and others, media luminaries such as Peter Jennings, , Presidents of
the United States, federal Congresspersons and federal Senators, state and federal
Attorneys General, publications such as TV Guide and Sports Illustrated, the state and
federal PTA offices and the list goes on and on...in order to lay out before the American
people and the people of Connecticut issues and topics they have never been exposed to
before...tobacco industry fraud & false claims issues.
This is clearly a case, Meghan, of "you should have sent us your second e-mail
first."
I have known Ken Dixon for almost 20 years and I have an immense respect for him as an
individual, a journalist and as a friend.
During the Laurel Park Superfund Site Landfill scenario in the early 1980's, he was the
only reporter/journalist/media person who recognized the work The Andrew Avenue Homeowners
Association, of which I was it's leader and spokesperson, was engaged in, against
overwhelming odds of success, against the CT state DEP and the federal EPA, including us
producing factual information utilizing the work of an esteemed and internationally
recognized sanitary engineer who volunteered his efforts towards the protection of the
health of my neighborhood and Andrew Avenue School children when all of the other
"involved environmentalists" had their own agenda which included some of them
running for public office on the pretext of their "involvement" in this issue
and having actually no genuine concern for the people's health nor the school children's
health.
Ken's coverage of our work is what I have acknowledged to him, during and after that time,
was what was instrumental to the success of our facts and study-based efforts and Ken has
my lifetime respect, friendship and appreciation for that coverage.
My years of involvement and work in that issue were difficult, time-consuming and genuine
and yet I did not run for any public office, as that was neither my intention nor my goal
as a result of that work and I believe I won Ken's respect for that, in return
Now, although always in a state of constant growth and update, the "The Shuster
Project - Tobacco Industry Fraud & False Claims Issues" web site currently rests
at approximately 332+ pages of mostly never-before-exposed tobacco industry fraud and
false claims based business, policy and procedure issues as opposed to any tobacco
"health based" issues.
In other words, it's fairly huge.
It's content varies greatly from:
- Illegal "red-lining" of minority stores
- Illegal Antitrust activities ranging from discrimination in the
"non"-placement of consumer cigarette "special offers" in stores
with minority ownership
- "Carton volume exclusion" - discrimination in the
"non"-placement of these "special offers" by manipulating weekly
carton sales volume thresholds that effectively eliminate participation by mostly
minority-owned stores and/or stores in economically depressed or ghetto areas of
municipalities
- Illegal "Buy-Downs" in retail outlets, ALWAYS resulting in violations of CT's
"State Minimum Price" statutes in those stores that advertise that their prices
for packages and cartons of cigarettes are AT State Minimum's PRIOR to these illegal
"Buy-Downs" (a "Buy-Down" consists of a tobacco company representative
going into a retail outlet that sells packages and cartons of cigarettes and
"buys-down" the actual selling price per pack or carton by use of illegal
rebates of anywhere from 10 cents to 50 cents and more per pack and upwards of 50 cents to
two dollars per carton, thus thwarting the collection of CT State Sales Tax on CT's
Minimum Price standards for packages and cartons of cigarettes in those retail outlets
where the selling price is ALREADY AT CT State Minimums and the "Buy-Down" takes
the selling price rung up at the register below the CT State Minimum Price relative to the
amount of the "Buy-Down itself at the above-mentioned "discounts.")
- CT state sales tax fraud resulting in significantly reduced CT state sales tax revenues
on cigarette package and carton sales receipts
- CT state income tax fraud resulting in reduced CT state income tax revenues
- CT municipality refuse collection fraud resulting in the loss of municipal revenues and
service to taxpayers as the result of providing significantly large and repeated
commercial pick-ups of tobacco industry representative commercial refuse
...and the list goes on and on.
We contacted George no less than NINE times via our various Press Releases and
"Alerts" going back to our very first Press Release of May 14th, 1999 :
http://www.rxshuster.org/pr01.htm
It established an almost regular process we use to indicate, by specific hyperlinks, where
to go within The Shuster Project web site, which walked him and every other State
Representative and State Senator, via those hyperlinks, to specific topics and sections
mentioned in that PR and the following PR's where that hyper linking process could be
useful to them.
Sadly, we received just one response back from him out of all of our PR's and Alerts, when
The Shuster Project, in actuality, sponsored HB6942 back in early 2000.
Here is the link to his letter to us:
http://www.rxshuster.org/response_from_jepsen.htm
Here is the link to our response to his letter to us:
http://www.rxshuster.org/senator_jepsen.htm
Here is an example of an "Alert" we sent not only to George but to the entire
State House of State Rep's and State Senators and yet not one of them consulted with us or
contacted us for our help in interpreting and/or addressing this serious on-going threat
to our children:
http://www.rxshuster.org/warning-parents.htm
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Now, Meghan, I believe I have given you a considerable step-up in a wide, sweeping range
of tobacco industry fraud & false claims issues you can study and pursue in consulting
with George.
As to the 'actions" he could possibly take now, after having been contacted sooo many
times and done nothing to seemingly, suddenly wanting to help so totally now...
I'd like to think this sudden change in position from total avoidance of alot of
significant issues that have so greatly and negatively impacted Connecticut and it's State
Sales Tax revenues, State Income Tax revenues, blatant Antitrust violations in CT, ongoing
threats to our children via "in-Mail" and "online" cigarette sales
(NON-state sales taxed I might add) and all the rest to him now wanting sudden, total
involvement is ...what?...genuine and not a Gubernatorial election year rush to avoid
exposure for doing nothing for over 4 years now.
Surely he can't say he wasn't contacted as the record is very clear and unimpuneable.
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Now, Meghan, as for your browser and viewing our web site.
I suggest you do not continue using the AOL browser, although I've never gotten any
feedback from anyone informing me that they had any difficulties viewing our web site via
AOL.
Netscape 4.0 works good but the updated 6.1 version gives just a little difficulty in one
section of the main entry page where it seems to cut a sentence down a little but picks up
the text again with no further breaks.
I use MicroSoft Internet Explorer Version 5.50 which shows the entire web site without
error.
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Although you apologized several times in this second email, you have nothing to apologize
for so please don't forward any more as none are necessary.
As I stated at the very beginning of this saga that George threw you to the Lions, I
believe by now that you can see how your first email could have only been received by us
here as so considerably "off the mark" in terms of we here trying to figure out
just how to respond to it with respect to what I have set down here before you to read,
alone.
We understood here at the Project that this was not going to be an easy read but nothing
worth its muster ever is, usually.
We took the unusual step of literally "spoon-feeding" our initial launch of this
web site when it was considerably smaller and informed George and the others that it was
going to grow and grow rapidly and all we asked was that they attempt to follow along and
get involved, as George and the other legislators should have, from the very beginning but
they chose avoidance and to not get involved...for whatever their reasons.
The letter I sent to Ken, which we hoped would move him to action, anticipated an action
far different from any number of actions that should be expected from George and the other
legislators.
Those legislators had received far more than enough credible, responsible and legitimate
correspondence detailing significant, negative financial impact tobacco industry fraud
issues which should have moved them to get involved from the very beginning over 4 years
ago.
I can respect much of what you said in your second email...especially:
"...despite being rather well-informed on most major Connecticut issues, I have never
heard of your issue before. So while you have dedicated your life to it, I am starting at
the beginning trying to learn and understand what is going on so I can get the right
details to the Senator and help him understand how crucially important this is."
If I could make one correction...I have not "dedicated" my "life to
it" but rather, as a responsible citizen, I'm doing all that I can and I'm utilizing
all of my professional skills, to the acrimony of many, in order to get this job done.
If you carefully go over the content of this correspondence and then go to the various
Press Releases and Alerts I have provided to you and their associated hyperlinks, I should
have gotten you well on your way to understanding a good number of these issues.
As for your AOL, I'm assuming it's a 4.0 version or possibly 5.0?
I'm at a loss to understand how half of the correspondence you found to be "small
and blurry" for we take immense steps to insure the readability of our text.
We do have on the left side of the web site an illustration in blue text that says:
This site is best viewed in Java-enabled IE 4.0+
or Netscape 4.0+
and I can honestly tell you that I nor any of my staff here have ever gotten one singular
feedback from our tens of thousands of visitors that they had a similar experience so
please try using the full version of IE 5.0+ and see how that works for you.
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In closing, Meghan, let me say that I am truly sorry, as I stated in my response to your
first email, if I had offended you in any way, as that was honestly not my intention.
As a genuine, fully dyslexic individual, I am known by my staff, my friends and my
colleagues to be a straight-shooter and can seem very direct and perhaps blunt in how I
express myself, sometimes.
I am also a decent, caring person, as I'm sure you are, and I hope that this
correspondence has gone some distance to show you a more accurate reflection of a person
merely dedicated to his work.
As to how you proceed?
Once you've gone over all that I have provided you here, let's proceed slowly to the next
level of' do you have any questions on what you've been provided so far?
At some point along the way, I believe meeting with George AND others of his colleagues
would be in order with respect to dealing with the immediate and massive issues of in
excess of $200-$250+ Million Dollars in defrauded CT state Sales Tax and CT state Income
Tax revenues should be recovered and the methods by which the tobacco companies perpetrate
just those crimes should be addressed first.
I will formulate a more comprehensive and thorough interactive agenda as needed as we
progress.
If that meets with your approval or you have a position you wish to take in that matter
I'd be happy to hear what you have to say.
Until then, I'd like us to be able to think of each other as colleagues with all of the
mutual respect that entails if that's alright by you, as well.
If you feel comfortable giving me a phone number at which I can call you, as you have all
of my contact information, perhaps an actual dialogue between us may prove to be helpful,
as well.
I look forward to hearing back from you, George and many of his other colleagues in the
Legislature.
There is a lot of work to do and it's really long overdue...but better later than never.
Sincerely,
RXShuster
The Shuster Project - Tobacco Industry Fraud & False Claims Issues
http://www.rxshuster.org/
C/o
177 Andrew Avenue
Naugatuck, CT 06770-4359
Telephone: 1-(203)-723-1690
Fax: 1-(801)-705-3078
Toll Free Voice Mail: 1-(877)-547-1908
Email: RShus177@aol.com
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