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Editorial: Secrets hurt Elks Lodge
Published Friday, November 13, 2009
The story of the Elks Lodge in Albert Lea and its eventually bankruptcy provides many lessons.
One of which is that keeping too many secrets under wraps might seem sensible in the short term but often has consequences in the long term.
Had the Elks board been more forthcoming with its members — even if it meant the general public finding out some of that knowledge — would that have staved off eventual bankruptcy? That’s hard to say, but it would have put rumors to rest and given the club’s regular diners the whole picture.
Here are three possible outcomes:
• Perhaps grasping the seriousness of the situation might have given some members greater willingness to embrace much-needed change.
• Perhaps avoiding loss of trust would have resulted in fewer divisions among members and less in-fighting. Loss of trust results from situations such as making waitresses not tell members the truth. (Giving them a prepared statement would have been smart.)
• Perhaps fewer people would have lost money investing in debenture bonds last fall and spring.
Here is another lesson: Getting public relations advice from lawyers quite often is a bad idea. They think about the case in front of them, rather than a client’s long-term interests and standing in a community.
Admittedly, some lawyers are better at understanding the public than others — they become politicians, right? But when getting that kind of advice from lawyers, don’t think they learned it in law school. They are no more an expert on public relations than you are.
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Comments
Posted by Outsider (anonymous) on November 13, 2009 at 8:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What's with the hard-on for the Elks?
Posted by metisman (anonymous) on November 13, 2009 at 9:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I wish the AL Trib would investigate local city, county and school financial dealings is such detail.
Posted by jpst04 (anonymous) on November 13, 2009 at 10:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree with metisman. Let's have a series of articles and editorials about issues that affect the public at large. It is a small percentage of the population who can afford to be a member of the Elks and who are affected by their financial blunders. Enough already, time to move on.
Posted by mosedart (anonymous) on November 13, 2009 at 1:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Actually jpst04, dues at the elks were only $50/year. Jim Hanson ran that thing into the ground.
Posted by digger (anonymous) on November 13, 2009 at 4:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I beg to differ I belive my dues where closer to the $75/yr range when I renewed in April. Oh well it doesn't matter now, it is a shame it closed at least I could walk home from there if I had one to many.
Posted by NoDFL (anonymous) on November 13, 2009 at 5:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I am with metisman. I wish they would spend more time on issues like 10.2% unemployment. Or government run health care. How about the huge waste of money by the city. Taxes? Yes it is sad the elks went but there have been a lot of business in this town that have come and gone. Maybe they should look into why Albert Lea is so anti-business.
Posted by gone (anonymous) on November 13, 2009 at 6:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The investigative report on the Elks Club demise was well-investigated and well-written and was exceptional for a small town newspaper. Understanding it's collapse might help us preserve whatever character and structure and amenities that remain in Albert Lea.
Posted by MITCHRAPPGUY (anonymous) on November 13, 2009 at 10:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yes, probably time to move on with this issue. However, its really a bold and macho move to take cheap shots at individuals when you don't have to do it in person. Laying the blame on one individual is ridiculous and cowardly. "Exalted Ruler" is just a figurehead within an Elks Lodge. They do not pick the staff. The chairs of organization are set in motion many years prior to actuality. The committees are voluntary. There were well over 2000 members during Jim Hanson's 12 month tenure. He personally was responsible as membership chairman for much of that growth, many times leading all members in recruits sponsored. He personally gave of his own time and finances to drive acitivities for many years to the benefit of the Lodge and of the City. So now you have some ignorant ex members, or even some who have no insight at all as to the real background of what happened, blasting away because their buddy might not be there any longer? Pathetic and embarrassing. Get your facts straight, and if you don't have those, you end up sounding like a baby without a bottle.
Posted by SunMan (anonymous) on November 14, 2009 at 2:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
very good editorial.
It points out a few things that should be remembered and learned as we barrel into the future.
The editorial itself asks us to look at and learn from the tragedy at the Elks and why?
Because the Elks members were people just like the businessmen, business employees, city leaders, city employees, etc.
We need to be able to identify AND RELATE TO local tragedies in order to insure the local success stories.
After all, no matter what your job title, the label "human being" is also there, meaning we are ALL going to make mistakes... so let's be willing to use other examples to learn from.
To not do so and then make the same mistakes would be far worse than tragic... it would be disgusting.
Of course none of this is relevant to NoBRAINS... for he surpasses all human understanding and simply can wave his magic wand of blissful ignorance, claiming his canned, unthinking comments will solve all, even though a lack of facts doesn't stop his ranting and raving.
So are you offering to give up your government-funded health care NoBRAINS? Please... post an email address or phone number so we can un-enroll you from Medicaire or VA or whatever government sponsored healthcare you are offering to give up. We'll also request you sign a waiver stating you voluntarily give up the right to be treated in an emergency room if you cannot afford to pay or your privately funded alternative denies or rejects you.
I'm sure you'll have no issue signing such a waiver... after all, your goal is to save money. Hence... if you can't afford it, you shouldn't get any money spent on you. The rest of us might even pitch in for a life-insurance policy for you... after all, you'd clearly understand that by you sacrificing your healthcare and the elimination of you as a cost liability... the rest of us will enjoy lower premiums...
right? maybe? sort of? Whatever you mean NoBRAINS... please post your phone number and/or email so we can un-enroll you from your public health care rights as soon as possible and achieve the goal you so bravely set forth!
Posted by NoDFL (anonymous) on November 14, 2009 at 1:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
So again the ignorance of some come to light. They chose to attack and not add to the public discourse. I find these attacks to be interesting. One has to wonder why if your facts support your argument would one sink to personal attacks and name calling? I have chosen not to respond directly to personal attacks. The issues that face our country, our state, our county, and our city are many. When we sink to that level (Sunman) we cheapen the idea of pubic virtue.
I think some of you may not understand what is meant by “public virtue”. Early Americans identified “public virtue” as a very special quality of human maturity in character and service closely akin to the Golden Rule. As a modern historian epitomized it: “In a Republic, however, each man must somehow be persuaded to submerge his personal wants into the greater good of the whole. This willingness of the individual to sacrifice his private interest for the good of the community – such patriotism or love of country – is what the eighteenth century pubic termed public virtue. The eighteenth century mind was thoroughly convinced that a popularly based government “cannot be supported without virtue” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic. “ or better yet as James Madison said: “ Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend upon their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them. The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution” So the question I pose to you. Do you want people who practice personal attacks to be the ones who chose your government? Do you want them to be the people who will decide the important issues of the day? The goals should be and must be: 1. Is this constitutional? (Does it follow the Constitution?)
2. Is this what is best for the whole not just a few?
3. Are our officials doing this to better the country or are they doing this to better themselves?
These issues are not about me or you. They are about us. They are about this great nation. We are at a crossroads. Our President is in Asia doing his best to destroy our economy so that he can remake it in what he see fit. The question is does he have “public virtue”? My answer is no.
Posted by NoDFL (anonymous) on November 14, 2009 at 2:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I hope some of you will read this post and learn others however will not even read it and will just attack.
One has to wonder has pubic service become a position of profit rather than a position of honor. Think about this as Ben Franklin traveled in Europe, he noted that there was a violent struggle for appointments to public offices because they paid so well. (sound familiar) He felt this was a serious mistake. In the early history of the United States, community offices were looked upon as stations of honor granted to the recipients by an admiring community, state, or nation. These offices were therefore often filled by those who preformed their services with little or no compensation. The idea of a career politician was a foreign almost laughable. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Franklin gave a discourse on the need to fix the course of American public service so that it would always attract men of public virtue and repel scoundrels scrambling for a soft job. He said: “ Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall at the same time be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it. The vast number of such places it is that renders the British government so tempestuous. The struggles for them are the true source of all those factions which are perpetually dividing the nation, distracting its councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous wars, and often compelling a submission to dishonorable terms of peace.”
part 2 to follow
Posted by NoDFL (anonymous) on November 14, 2009 at 2:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)
part 2
“Sir, though we may set out in the beginning with moderate salaries, we shall find that such will not be of long continuance. Reasons will never be wanting for proposed augmentations; and there will always be a party for giving more to the rulers, that the rulers may be able in return to give them more to them. (Sounds like health care, welfare, Car bail outs, and stimulus) Hence, as all history informs us, there has been in every state and kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing and the governed, the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending in dethroning of the princes or the enslaving of the people. Generally, indeed, the ruling power carries its point, and we see the revenues of the princess constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied (i.e. the current administration), but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes, the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans, (i.e. giving monsy to the green movement acorn and the like) and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, (sun man and the party followers) and enable him to plunder at pleasure.” Franklin foresaw the possibility of profit in public office becoming the means by which an American monarchy could eventually arise; not called a monarchy, of course, but an executive with monarchial powers. I would say that what he feared has come to pass in the last 12 months. This is not one party or the other. It is a system that has been influenced by special interest and political correctness. It is now time to stand up and tell them We want men of virtue not career politicians.
Posted by SunMan (anonymous) on November 14, 2009 at 10:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
NoBRAINS wrote: "Our President is in Asia doing his best to destroy our economy"
Have you always been this stupid?
BTW... when you are ready to walk the walk instead of just talking fallacious talk... I'm more than willing to help you step down, UNenroll from the government health care you say should be destroyed.
Or are you just all blow and no go?
Be a man.
Do the deeds you preach about.
Right now your ACTIONS show comfort preaching to others do as you say and not as you do.
The Bible has a term for that, but I doubt you have the backbone to hear it applied to you.
DO what you SAY: Reject and unsign yourself from what you condemn.
It appears NoBRAINS has NoBackbone
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