|
by William M. Windsor An article appeared in the Niagara Falls Review and The Standard on March 6, 2009. I have printed the Niagara Falls Review article below in white, and I have indented my comments in red. This article contains a significant amount of false information, and the writer, Corey Larocque failed to publish information that I provided to him. Replacing Maids would take five years: Operator TOURISM: Tour boat firm responds to criticism over deal with parks commission Posted By COREY LAROCQUE, Niagara Falls Review STAFF WRITER March 6, 2009 Swapping the Maid of the Mist for a newcomer would cause at least a five-year disruption in the service the historic boat tour operator has provided in Niagara Falls for more than 160 years, a company vice-president says. This is absolutely false, inappropriately misleading, and a most unfair scare tactic. There is no reason for ANY disruption. There will be no disruption; a disruption would be unacceptable for everyone. One very simple way to ensure that the transition is seamless will be for Maid of the Mist to sell their boats to the winning bidder. The five year claim is totally false. Maid of the Mist Steamboat Company, Ltd. has not operated boats in Niagara Falls for more than 160 years. The earliest date that I can find for this legal entity is August 27, 1979. The Glynn family became involved in 1971, and according to the book Ontario's Niagara Parks, 100 Years by George A. Seibel, published by The National Parks Commission in 1985, James Glynn bought the "assets" of Maid of the Mist Steamboat Company in 1971. If this was indeed an asset purchase rather than a stock purchase, his boat tour operation has also legally existed only since 1971. "Replacing our boats with a new fleet ... is a process that would literally take years to complete," Maid of the Mist marketing vice-president Tim Ruddy wrote in a recent letter to Ontario Tourism Minister Monique Smith. A copy was obtained by The Niagara Falls Review. This is absolutely false and inappropriately misleading. First, it may not be necessary to replace Maid of the Mist’s boats; they should simply sell them to the new operator. Second, the Canadian operator will not have to replace Maid’s “fleet.” Maid of the Mist has four boats, but only two boats are required to serve the Canadian side. Bringing in two boats will not require years to complete. In 1955, for example, a fire destroyed the two Maid of the Mist boats. In less than one month after the fire, a 40-foot boat was brought down to the ferry dock along the service road on the Canadian shore.
In the book, Ontario's Niagara Parks, 100 Years by George A. Seibel, published by The National Parks Commission in 1985, it explains how one of the boats was built in Wheatley, Ontario and sailed on Lake Erie and the Niagara River where it was hauled out of the river, put on a flatbed truck, and driven through Queen Victoria Park in the middle of the day in a heavy tourist time, and lowered into the river on June 13, 1972. The book has a photo of the boat on the flatbed as it was hauled through the park.
If I win the bid, I will have boats there. Period. Paragraph. It's a sign the Maid of the Mist company is fighting back against its critics, who are trying to undo an arrangement with the Niagara Parks Commission that lets the company run its Canadian operations on commission-owned land. Did the Niagara Parks Act give ownership of the land to The Commission? I don’t see any such grant in the Act. I believe the land is owned by the Province of Ontario and it is merely “Commission-managed.” We are talking about government land. We are talking about an entity (NPC) that reportedly loses money and has had major staff reductions in an attempt to stay solvent. If The NPC can realize substantially more money by tendering the contract/lease for bids, that has to be the fiduciary duty of all involved! The arguments that you read from The NPC and Maid of the Mist completely avoid the real issues here. What is legal? What is right? What is fair? How can anyone be hurt if competition generates more money and better service? The company has "great concern" about what Ruddy calls "misrepresentations" by Ripley's Entertainment, the company that owns Great Wolf Lodge, as well as Alcatraz Media, an Atlanta, Ga., company that brokers tickets to tourist attractions over the Internet. Alcatraz Media, Inc. has made no misrepresentations whatsoever. We demand that Mr. Ruddy and Maid of the Mist identify each and every statement that they claim is “misrepresentation.” Alcatraz Media, Inc. does not “broker tickets to tourist attractions.” Alcatraz Media, Inc. is the largest seller of destination tours and activities in the world with contracts with close to 2,000 tour operators, attractions, and others that offer over 10,000 tours and activities. Those companies have said they wanted a chance to bid on a lease. True! That move could see them replace the Maid of the Mist. True! Parks chairman Jim Williams called it "an excellent letter," because it "starts to dispel the myths that are out there" about the deal. I don’t know that there are any myths. If the Niagara Parks Commission did not operate in secrecy, there would be no myths. Exactly what are the myths? Alleged public servant Williams has quoted no facts whatsoever. What are the myths, and what proof can he offer to dispel “those myths?” "I don't blame (Maid of the Mist) for fighting back for the smear campaign that has been waged against them," Williams said in an interview. Is Mr. Williams accusing Ripley’s, Alcatraz Media, and William M. Windsor of conducting a “smear campaign?” Exactly what have any of us done that qualifies as a “smear campaign?” We have done nothing. Newspaper reporter Frank Parlato has, on the other hand, let them have it with both barrels. J A new company stepping in would need five years to design boats, build them, assemble them on site and get government approval, Ruddy said. The logistics of getting 600-passenger vessels into the Niagara gorge mean a new company could build a fleet one boat a year, Ruddy said. This is absolutely false and misleading. A new company will need less than a year, not 5 years – maybe just a few days or months. A new company may well choose to use smaller boats for a variety of reasons. Only two boats are required in Canada as Mr. Ruddy knows quite well. Tourism Minister Monique Smith confirmed Tuesday she has seen the letter. "The people at the Maid of the Mist felt they wanted to set the record straight. That's their prerogative," she said in an interview. There is a big difference between ‘setting the record straight” and providing false information and distortion of the facts, and using scare tactics. Mr. Ruddy has not set the record straight, and it is frightening to think that this is the way the Minister of Tourism reads what he provided. The parks commission extended the lease with the Maid of the Mist nearly a year ago. It was granted privately without the parks commission calling for other bidders, a move that triggered criticism and calls to reverse the deal and send it out for a public bidding process.
Bob Gale, a former commissioner, criticized the commission for renewing the lease without calling for other proposals. In August, Gale asked Ontario's integrity commissioner to investigate the parks commission's process for awarding contracts and called for the government to reject the lease and force the commission to put the deal out to tender.
Officials with Alcatraz and Ripley's have said they tried to find out how to bid on the lease in 2005 and 2008, respectively, but were dismissed by staff without the chance to make a proposal to the decision-making commissioners. True. Here is the exact quote from John Kernahan: “With reference to your recent correspondence regarding the Maid of the Mist boat tours, I wish to advise that The Niagara Parks Commission is not presently considering submissions.” This email has been provided to each Commissioner, each member of the Executive Council of Ontario, the news media, and the Integrity Commission. Gale, the parks commission and the government say they're still waiting for the results of the integrity commissioner's probe. Why hasn’t the Integrity Commissioner issued a ruling? Based on the facts that I know, it should have been simple to find wrongdoing. I was thinking this would be a fair process, but the delay and failure of investigators to speak with key people makes me fear it will be a whitewash. Smith, whose ministry oversees the parks commission, declined to comment on the Maid of the Mist letter. "The issue is before the integrity commissioner, so I wouldn't be commenting or prejudging what the integrity commissioner might decide," Smith said. Williams and parks manager John Kernahan say Alcatraz and Ripley's didn't show any serious interest, have never offered a business plan and don't own any boats. This is outrageous that two so-called public servants could take such an improper position. Neither of them have ever even extended the courtesy of responding to calls and letters. Neither have ever spoken with me. Neither has ever asked for a business plan. Ripley’s, Alcatraz Media and I have clearly shown serious interest. We were specifically told that we could not present a business plan. Kernahan told me that in an email, and Williams has failed to ever respond to any of numerous letters. Details of my serious interest have been on my www.NiagaraFallsBid.com web site since October 2008. Details of my serious interest have been expressed in letters to each Commissioner, each member of the Executive Council of Ontario, the news media, and the Integrity Commission. Details of my serious interest have been conveyed in the lawsuit that I have filed against the Niagara Parks Commission and Maid of the Mist. Details of my serious interest have been published in the newspapers. Bill Windsor, a representative of Alcatraz, said neither he nor his company has any boats now. But if the right to run tours on the Niagara River was ever put out to tender, he's confident he could acquire them in time to meet any requirements the parks commission would set. Absolutely. I plan to bid, and I plan to meet all the requirements of the tender. I previously provided a financial support letter from a private equity firm with $4 billion US. "There's more than one way to get boats over there. We'll figure out how to do it. We might have the space shuttle drop them," Windsor said. "We will handle the logistics." I explained various options to this reporter, Corey Larocque, by telephone and by email, yet he chose to present a one-sided version of Maid of the Mist’s story and allowed false information to be published. I thought the space shuttle line was funny. ☺ Windsor added if the Maid of the Mist is so confident nobody else could match their expertise, it should have no objection to the parks commission inviting other bidders. Yes, I absolutely challenge Maid of the Mist to put their money where their mouth is. They say no one else can get boats there. I say tender it for bids. If no one else can get boats there, Maid of the Mist will automatically win the process and retain the lease. Ripley's general manager Tim Parker could not be reached for his reaction to the letter. The parks commission voted in April 2008 to extend the lease, which expires in November 2009. Parks commission officials say the lease needs the approval of the provincial cabinet because it involves government-owned land.
Smith, the minister responsible for the parks commission, said the lease has not yet made it to cabinet's agenda. "I'm not familiar with the lease being put before cabinet," Smith said. It can take up to two years for the parks request to work through the tourism ministry and get considered by cabinet, Ontario's inner circle of decision makers, Williams said. That's why the commission renewed the lease a year and a half before it expired.
Staff had been renegotiating it for two years, giving commissioners regular updates, before it came to a vote last April. We have no way of knowing if this is true as all commissioners are sworn to secrecy. What I do know is that the lease was never tendered for bid as is required. What justification were the commissioners given for negotiating solely with Maid of the Mist? Were they told that the documents were too complicated and too expensive to produce for someone else? We now know that is not true. This should be really simple: Just show us all exactly what was communicated to the Commissioners and when. Williams rejected the impression the commission rushed the deal through. He added private talks were appropriate because it's a business deal with a private company. If Maid of the Mist were negotiating with a municipality, it's the kind of deal that would be allowed to be discussed behind closed doors. I find this statement utterly outrageous. Governments are not allowed to do private deals behind closed doors involving procurement. It is well established in Canada and the United States that contracts between government entities and private parties for the commercial use of government land are public dealings. Both The Niagara Parks Commission and the Province of Ontario have very precise policies established for just how such matters are supposed to be handled publicly. See the Ministry of Natural Resources for their very precise requirements on the lease of government land. PUBLIC! Ruddy's letter said the river's geography creates unique challenges for launching boats on the lower river. Waterfall at the south and rapids at the north make it impossible to bring new vessels from Lake Erie or Lake Ontario. This is not completely factual. New vessels can be brought in from Lake Ontario to a location just beyond the rapids. We have been advised that it would then be possible to remove the boats from the water by crane and transport them the last few miles by truck. It would take a year to design new boats and have them get Canadian and American government approval. Then, it would take three to four years to build the boats, bring them to the falls and assemble them on site. This is false and misleading. It will not take 5 years. Only two boats are required to serve the Canadian side. New boats can be built simultaneously, and the estimated time for two new boats is 6 to 8 months. Existing boats are immediately available. "Each new boat would have to be constructed off site, disassembled into approximately 12 to 14 pieces, delivered into the gorge and reassembled on the water's edge," Ruddy wrote.
In the past, Maid of the Mist has used a crane to lift boats from River Road into the gorge. But the last time the company brought a boat in that way was 1993. The two vessels -about 154 tonnes, with a 600-passenger capacity - brought in since then have been too big to lift. This is misleading. This would lead people to believe that 154-ton, 600-passenger boats are the only boats that will work. Maid of the Mist uses two 300-passenger boats in the US, and they used 300-passenger boats and smaller in Canada from 1846 until 1997. It is well known that the 300-passenger boats can be lifted by crane into the gorge. For the 163 years that boats have operated beneath the Falls, 151 of those years had boats of 300 passengers or less. There's only enough room on the landing to reassemble one boat at a time. And it's not safe to do the work during the winter. This is misleading. Reassembling boats on the landing is far from the only option. The Maid of the Mist also leases land on the American side of the river from the New York State Parks Service. That agreement expires in 2043. This agreement has been legally challenged in the United States, and based upon the facts as I know them, the State of New York will have to void the lease and tender it for bids. In the United States, the legal action is called a “Protest.” My Protest was filed with the State of New York on March 4. The process there is not a long one, so there should be a resolution of this issue in the U.S. before it is resolved in Canada. There's only enough room on the American shore for the landing. The Maid's four vessels are docked overnight and stored for the winter on the Canadian landing. The Niagara Parks Commission cannot be concerned with the American side. The American operator could dock their two vessels somewhere else, or the Canadian operator could lease storage space to the American operator. "Practically speaking, it is essential that the same operator provide the services on both sides of the river," Ruddy wrote. It is not essential. Two separate companies provide the services now, though related. There is absolutely no reason why two unrelated companies cannot operate. I would be willing to lease storage space to the U.S. operator if I win the tender process in Canada. However, since it appears that both leases will be tendered for bids this year, one new company may take over in both the U.S. and Canada. (end of story in the Niagara Falls Review) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now for the background on what wasn’t published in this story, but should have been: I saw the Niagara Falls review online posting of this story on March 5 just before noon. I immediately emailed the writer, Corey Larocque at clarocque@nfreview.com and Frank Parlato at Niagara Falls Reporter. Here is that email:
From:
William M. Windsor [mailto:williamwindsor@bellsouth.net] See http://www.nfreview.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1464297 Ladies and Gentlemen: This statement by Mr. Ruddy is false. I hope the various powers-that-be will ignore such outlandish statements. When a tender is issued, it will provide requirements that service be assumed on a specific date. Anyone bidding will have to guarantee that they will have the boats and everything else needed. The idea that Maid of the Mist is the only company in the world with boats is humorous at best. As a matter of fact, Maid of the Mist won’t be needing their boats after a competitive bidder wins the contract, so they may want to simply sell their boats, especially if they lose the rights in Canada and the US. With the National Park Service, their tender package and contract for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Cruises requires that the outgoing contractholder sell their boats to an incoming contractholder. There is no such stipulation in this case, but it seems like an intelligent idea. Mr. Ruddy and Maid of the Mist would like everyone to believe that they are the only company in the world that could possibly offer boat service at Niagara Falls. There is absolutely no truth whatsoever to that position. If I am the winning bidder I will be ready to operate at the designated time. I am sure Ripley’s will be ready or Hornblower Cruises or Circle Line Cruises or New York Waterways, or Red & White Fleet, or Blue & Gold Fleet, or Entertainment cruises, or Aramark, or any other bidder. Bill Windsor ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I sent an additional email at 12:07:
From:
William M. Windsor [mailto:williamwindsor@bellsouth.net] One additional thought: I assume this means that Maid of the Mist will support a tender for bids. After all, Maid of the Mist has nothing to lose if Mr. Ruddy is correct. No one else will be able to bid, so Maid of the Mist will win. I hope Maid of the Mist will inform The Niagara Parks Commission and Niagara Falls State Park (New York State Parks) that it would like to end the problems that the Ontario and New York governments now have over this issue by asking them to issue a tender. Bill Windsor -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
William M. Windsor [mailto:williamwindsor@bellsouth.net] Attachment: Fax to Minister of Tourism – 2009-03-05 I have just sent the attached letter to the Minister of Tourism, the Integrity Commissioner, Kim Craitor, Premier Dalton McGuinty, and the Executive Council of Ontario. Bill Windsor ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I received a call from Corey Larocque at about 2:30 pm on March 5, 2009 as I was driving my granddaughter home from pre-school. I spoke to him for at least 15 minutes. During that conversation, I made it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR to him that I would bid and meet all of the obligations of the tender. If I win the bid, I will have boats there. I told him that Timothy P. Ruddy’s letter was false and deceptive. I explained precisely why it would not take 5 years and that there would be no disruption whatsoever. Corey asked me if I had a boat now. I said no, but we have contacts with those who do. We have a financial support letter from a financial group with US $4 billion in private equity that has been given to The NPC and the Executive Council of Ontario, and we will have no problem buying boats. He asked me if Maid of the Mist was uniquely qualified to operate the boat service. I told him that I am supremely confident that I can provide a significantly better service. We have worked with Maid of the Mist and we know how weak their operation is in many areas. He asked to see our Business Plan, and I told him I could not provide those details because our bid competitors would then copy our ideas. I told him I would be willing to let him take a peek at it at my solicitor’s office if he signed an agreement that he would not publish the details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ When I returned home after dropping my granddaughter off at her home, I summarized some of what we discussed in an email at 4:37 pm:
From:
William M. Windsor [mailto:williamwindsor@bellsouth.net] Attachment: Maid of the Mist Boat Use and Capacity Thank you for your call. SURELY Maid of the Mist will want to sell their boats after they lose the tenders. SURELY they wouldn’t want to deprive The Niagara Parks Commission of revenues and deprive the people of the world of the experience of seeing the Falls. After all, they are so community-minded, and what in the world can they do with some boats and no place to dock them or use them? I can’t imagine they would sink them out of spite. So, our first choice would be to buy Maid of the Mist’s boats for use while the first new, more environmentally-friendly boat is built. As I said to you before, Maid of the Mist has nothing to lose and should encourage The NPC and the State of New York to tender the leases. If no one can get boats, they’ll win. So, let’s tender and see what happens. I find the whole concept preposterous that the reason no one else should be allowed to bid is because “Maid of the Mist is the only one there now.” If The Niagara Parks Commission will receive 15% on revenues of $26 million annually for 25 years, that’s $97 million. If I or another bidder can pay them $194 million and provide greatly improved service, then the Niagara Parks Commission should accept our bid and give us reasonable time to get our boats in place if Maid of the Mist wants to sink their boats or haul them off rather than sell them. Our assumption has been that (a) the tender process will be done far enough in advance to allow for all arrangements to be made and (b) that Maid of the Mist would be prepared to continue to provide boat service until we are ready to take over. When the Alcatraz contract changed a few years ago, Blue & Gold Fleet was extended by six months or more past the target date until Hornblower was ready. If this contract/lease had been tendered in April rather than secretly awarded to Maid of the Mist, the process would have begun 20 months before Maid of the Mist’s lease expired and 24 months before service would begin in April 2010. If the lease is tendered by June and the winning bidder is chosen by October with a start date of April 2011, there will be 18 months. If The Niagara Parks Commission doesn’t want us to start until April 2012, that’s fine with me; that gives us 30 months. Note that Mr. Ruddy talks about 600-passenger boats and claims 5 years to build four boats. Maid of the Mist actually uses only two boats on the Canadian side. Two of the Maid of the Mist boats are 300-passenger boats and two are 600-passenger boats. I believe Mr. Ruddy has mislead the Minister of Tourism and your readers. Ask Mr. Ruddy to confirm that only two boats are used for Canadian passengers. Ask Mr. Ruddy how long it takes to build 300-passenger boats from scratch (that weigh half as much as 600-passenger boats). Ask Mr. Ruddy if there is any reason why more than one crew could not be building boats at the same time. Ask Mr. Ruddy how much faster the job could be done if the boats have already been designed. Ask Mr. Ruddy how much faster the job could be done if existing boats could be moved into place. Ask Mr. Ruddy how the last boat was delivered to Maid of the Mist? (I understand it was lowered by crane down the side of the bank of the river on the Canadian side.) The need is to have enough boats to handle 1,800,000 people over 180 days. For example, if you have three 300-passenger boats, your capacity is a maximum of 900 people at one time. If each boat makes three 15-minute trips every two hours, each boat will be carrying an average of 450 people per hour. A 10 hour day means 4500 people per boat and 13,500 people per three-boat fleet. 13,500 people per day times 180 days gives a total capacity of 2,430,000 per season. The demand is for 1,800,000, but there are obviously seasonal and hourly variations. Attached is a spreadsheet that shows the capacity and sizes. Maid of the Mist operated for 144 years before they had a 600-passenger boat and operated for 7 more years before they had two. Prior to 1989, they used four small boats and were able to get the job done. Here’s a little more detail about each boat (spreadsheet attached). Bill Windsor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- At 5:32 pm, I received this email from Corey Larocque:
From:
clarocque@nfreview.com Bill, Talked it over with our editors.
We
would be willing to enter into an agreement with you about your /
Alcatraz's proposal to the NPC to run boat tours.
If you show us the proposal, we would agree not to publish the
proprietary details.
If you never get the right to run tours, we would never publish the
details. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I replied at 5:34 pm:
This sounds fair to me. I will forward this to Graydon Sheppard to make sure it is okay with him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I then received a response from our boat expert who I left a message for earlier in the day. I communicated what I had learned to Corey and Frank Parlato of Niagara Falls Reporter:
From:
William M. Windsor [mailto:williamwindsor@bellsouth.net] Corey and Frank: As you may recall from several months back, one of the major U.S. boat operators indicated that they were interested in partnering with us. For political reasons, they asked that I not disclose their identity. They are our boat experts. I asked them today to advise on the boat diversion raised by Maid of the Mist. I was advised that it will take 6 to 8 months to build a basic sightseeing vessel at a shipyard. Multiple vessels could be constructed at the same time. This obviously depends on shipyard schedules, but now is a good time to buy just about anything. Used vessels could also be obtained and transported to Niagara Falls and hoisted by crane into the river. There are obviously various issues and logistics involved, but Maid of the Mist managed to get boats on the river, and so will we. Bill Windsor ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Corey replied at 6:14 pm and refused to use the information in his story:
From:
clarocque@nfreview.com Thanks for the background. I'm not publishing that unless I can attribute it to them. They're the experts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I responded after dinner at 7:11 pm:
From:
William M. Windsor [mailto:williamwindsor@bellsouth.net] Corey, I have tried hard to be nice to you and to be helpful to you. But if you can’t accept and quote what I am telling you based on the counsel of my boat expert, then I must respectfully retract my offer to let you review my bid proposal. Sorry, but you just don’t seem to play fair. I believe your 5 year story without giving me or anyone else the opportunity to respond is unfair. Now you won’t even allow me to set the record straight. You allowed Tim Ruddy, a guy who started working at Maid of the Mist as a teenager who has never worked anywhere else and probably knows little or nothing about boat manufacturing, to state that service will be disrupted for five years because it will take that long to build two boats. That was absolutely totally false, and you allowed him to say it in your paper. I called and asked boat experts several specific questions, and I shared with you what I was told. I have been advised that a shipyard can build two boats in 6 to 8 months. So, if we have to build new boats, that’s the correct time…not 5 years. If I can take a boat that is already built and get it into the water, it will take far less time. Here is the fact: I WILL BID AND AGREE TO MEET THE TERMS SPECIFIED IN THE TENDER. I WILL GET BOATS THERE AT THE DESIGNATED TIME. Maid of the Mist’s letter is a joke. The original story I heard was that the lease was so complicated that it fit the exemption against tenders when documentation would be so expensive to produce. Now it’s that Maid of the Mist is the only one able to get boats into the river. I hope you will publish that the letter distorted the facts; that anyone can get boats; and that Maid of the Mist should simply allow the two governments to tender. I betcha their excuse will change again by the time we go to court. There are many sources for boats, and there is more than one way to get boats into the Niagara River…. Corey, please call Minister Smith or Jim Williams or John Kernahan, and ask them one simple question: Does the Niagara Parks Commission lease grant Maid of the Mist Steamboat Company, Ltd. the exclusive use of all of the water of the Niagara River beneath the Falls. Publish the answer. The State of New York is anxious to see the answer. Then call Maid of the Mist and ask how the Niagara Falls State Park’s Angela Berti got that information as the reason Maid of the Mist was declared a Sole Source Provider. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 6, 2009: Then the story appeared in the Niagara Falls Review this morning as shown at the beginning of this article with my comments indented in red. I respectfully submit that the article was biased and that Corey Larocque did not use information that he was given that showed Maid of the Mist’s claims to be false. This is especially unfortunate because two of the Niagara Falls newspapers aren’t covering this story because a member of the Glynn family (owner of Maid of the Mist) is an editor at one of the papers, and the wife of the solicitor for The Niagara Parks Commission (who will be a witness in the lawsuit) is an editor at one of the other papers. I will not provide any more information to Corey Larocque. I have demanded a retraction from both newspapers. I was interviewed today by the Globe and Mail, the giant Canadian newspaper, and they will be running this story as national news!
|
