Fred M

Fred M. Southard, D.C.5850 Hamilton Richmond RoadHamilton, Ohio 45013

June 3, 2015To Whom It May Concern:Effective this date, I terminate my position as a Commissioner on the Butler County Veterans Service Commission.

I have been told by the Journal reporter that I am the reason that Mrs. Bier resigned and that, combined with the recent salary study fiasco, has caused me to reflect on the past seventeen months that I have been a commissioner. That reflection has led to the conclusion that when I came on this board I was a positive, optimistic person who saw the good in everyone. My very first meeting with the Veterans Service Commission was my introduction into serving on a completely dysfunctional Board. At that first meeting, I listened to a motion and a second to have a staff person removed from the meeting because the staff person was on the other side. Then, at that same first meeting, I was elected to serve as President. I was given fair warning of what was to come, but I didnt listen!

Over the past seventeen months, I have made recommendation after recommendation (a travel policy, a marketing study, a committee of local veterans to assist us, and a wage study come immediately to mind) only to be met with: We dont need that here or We dont need nobody from the outside to come in here or That wont work here. I have worked tirelessly speaking to group after group (DAV, AmVets, Hamilton Rotary Club, Liberty Township Tea Party, West Chester Hero Fund, and several others) and meeting with various people on various issues (OSAVSC on changes to ORC 5901, Hamilton Fourth of July Celebration Committee, and currently with multiple Equine Psychotherapy personnel about that form of treatment for PTSD sufferers come immediately to mind) that would improve the office or be of benefit to veterans. No matter what I do, it has been met with negativity for trying to do something positive or negativity because I didnt tell the whole board exactly what it was that I was doing. Over the past seventeen months it has been a continual stream of arguing and bickering and fighting among each other. That is not my life and that is not the way I want to live. I guess that if there has been a bright spot to my time spent with the Commission, it is that now when we fight we laugh and move on to the next issue without publicly displaying personal resentment toward each other except through sly asides. However, I dread setting foot in that office every time I have to walk through the door. I also am tired of the sleepless nights spent worrying about the office and the frustration that I feel for allowing myself to be so bothered by the office that I would lose sleep. The end result of my personal reflection over the events of the last seventeen months is that all of this negativity has completely worn me down and has changed me to a different person than the positive, optimistic person who saw good in everyone that I was when I came on this Board. I dont like what I have become and I want to again be the person I was seventeen months ago.When I resigned as President in October, 2014, I contemplated also resigning from the Commission, but I foolishly thought that maybe I could just sit there for a year as a member and attend a monthly meeting, take up space and collect an inflated paycheck for doing nothing but coming to one meeting per month. State law requires that commissioners attend two of three programs per year in Columbus and that would have also allowed me to spend two Friday and Saturday nights in Columbus at a nice, three-star hotel suite paid at tax-payer expense while collecting around $150-$200 for gas to get there and back and also around $150 per diem for food, also at taxpayer expense as most of the other commissioners do. The required meeting starts at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday and ends around 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. on that same day at a hotel where breakfast is included in the charge for a suite that is equipped with a microwave and refrigerator where one is able to fix ones own food. How foolish it was of me to take the Commission van to the meeting I attended in July, 2015, to drive up on Saturday morning, eat only lunch at a cost of around $11 or $12, and drive back on Saturday after attending the required meeting when I could have cost taxpayers a couple hundred dollars for two nights in a nice hotel and come away with around $300 or $400 in my own pocket instead of just receiving reimbursement for the $11 or $12 that my lunch cost!

I finish this letter of resignation after receiving a couple of phone calls from friends who told me about the electronic edition of tomorrows (June 2, 2015) Journal being online and after having read that article. I assume that this letter will be given to the press and I will save her the time for a call to me as I am writing my comments in this letter. My only comments are that I have been rolling in the gutter for seventeen months and this letter of resignation is my first step toward restoring the dignity and integrity with which I conducted myself prior to my appointment to the BCVSC. I choose to take the high road and make no comment regarding Mrs. Biers statements other than to say that my comments and interaction with Mrs. Bier, other than for a very few, very brief conversations, were recorded from, I think, November, 2014 through the present and CD copies are available for anyone who chooses to listen to them as part of the right of the public to obtain public records and information. The same is true for all electronic communications conducted by e-mail. In that article Commissioner Don Dixon made comments that something needs to be done as far as the appointment process is concerned. I have been screaming that same thing to Commissioner Dixon, Commissioner T.C. Rogers, Administrator Charlie Young, Prosecutor Mike Gmoser, Assistant Prosecutor Dan Ferguson and anyone else who would listen, including the reporter for the Journal, for seventeen months. While all have listened, Prosecutor Gmoser and Asst. Prosecutor Ferguson are the only two who seemed to get what I have been saying, but there is little that they can do. I have repeatedly stated to those in authority, including the OSAVSC, going so far as to drive to Columbus to attend one of their Board meetings, that it is my opinion that the only way the Butler County Veterans Service Commission or any VSC in Ohio is going to be a viable organization is if the current law is changed and if business people who know about business and business procedures are appointed to the Board. The process will begin, in my opinion, when the various recommending veterans organizations in Butler County are educated that while it is nice to reward those who are most active and do the most work for their various posts with a recommendation for a position on the VSC, the various posts need to be looking outside their respective organization to businesspeople (men and women) who are veterans to recommend for positions on the VSC. They have to understand that the VSC is a business and that a business has to be run by businesspeople! In fact, I received word of Mrs. Biers resignation when I went on the computer to respond to an e-mail from the Commander of a VFW Post to ask for a date and time when the meeting that I had been attempting to arrange for the very reason of getting Post Commanders in the same room to discuss the appointment process and the responsibilities of the recommending posts could be held. If and when the veterans organizations make recommendations to the judges, it is the responsibility of the Judges to screen those same applications for applicants with business backgrounds and, again in my opinion, give careful attention to younger veterans! I also recommend that the judges never exceed one reappointment for a commissioner, as it is my opinion that ten years is long enough for any commissioner to serve on the commission before being replaced. The BCVSC has, in round figures, a $2,000,000 annual budget in the hands of good ole boys who have served on the Board for many years (I have no idea how long one has served, one has served almost twenty years, another has served over 20 years and one is new to the commission). Though very intelligent and some of the nicest people one could ever meet, some know absolutely nothing about business and business procedures. That is not a sour grapes statement and it is not intended as an attempt to make any of them look bad, but a simple statement of my opinion. I asked Board Secretary Bob Perry to call Mrs. Bier to tell her that I am resigning effective the date of the Emergency Meeting, June 3, 2015 in the event that would have an effect on her decision to resign. As I type this, I have no idea whether that call has been made or, if it has been made, the outcome of a call. At any rate, for Mrs. Bier, whoever takes my place, the Board of Commissioners, and the entire excellent office staff at the BCVSC, it is my wish for each of you that your lives and the lives of all of your families be blessed with health, happiness and abundance now and in the future.Sincerely

Fred M. Southard, D.C.