Well, that was quick--here's the letter from Jerry:
Hello Lemons Drivers,
I received some very disturbing news about the Lemons / NASA test day last Sunday. I heard numerous things happened like our tech crew and maybe other officials taking bribes and extorting money from you guys. I haven’t finished my investigation to get every last detail, so after you read this, you have any more helpful info, I would appreciate it.
The reports started with an online thread which I forwarded to my top people. Several of my top guys called to me rat out the fink that instigated this. Scott Smith, my Nor Cal Manager is the culprit. He’s out in the boonies right now so I can’t confirm everything until Monday. However, I have the story from multiple independent reliable sources, that all match up. So, I am pretty sure I figured out what happened.
Scott Smith is an excellent employee, running two businesses and one charity for me. He’s a self-starter and go-getter that has really taken ownership in his positions. This enthusiasm leads to vast improvements along the way. The downside is that he sometimes oversteps his bounds. The charity we run is a 501c3 non-profit to teach teens car control skills. Not one person is paid as it’s truly a labor of love. Scott runs theses schools for the non-profit corp and does so with a passion, as he has his own personal tragic story. When we started up this charity, and to this day, we make sure every time we fine someone in NASA the money all goes to the charity. When we collect wristband money and other small amounts, it goes into the charity. We often times guilt our our drivers into coughing up to support this worthwhile cause.
As best I can figure, Scott took it upon himself to engineer a shakedown plan to get some bucks from the Lemons drivers. He instructed our tech guys and other officials to “get some donations, and have fun with it. Take bribes (in cash, cookies, beer, etc) and use excuses to try to get a few bucks from everyone.” It was supposed to be a fun way to generate some more money for the teen school. Also as far as I can tell no real safety issues were compromised and the bribes were taken for a novel cause. Note- things like cookies, beer, etc. was meant as a joke, but if anyone donated that, this kind of stuff always goes to the worker party at the end of the day.
However, just because this is what happened, doesn’t make it right at all. While our NASA guys know all about the teen school and go along with some arm twisting, this was something completely unauthorized and unknown to me. It’s unacceptable, and I humbly apprize to all Jay Lamm and all Lemons drivers in attendance. Scott was in no way authorized to implement a program like this, good fun, or not.
I beg those effected to forgive me; this is ultimately my fault. I am responsible. I also would beg anyone that was mistreated, shakedown, and/or otherwise forced to make bribes to come to me with anything they would like to add, as well as the amount they are out. I will make sure they get every penny back in overnight checks.
At NASA we screw up sometimes. This was by far one of the biggest ever and I can’t tell you guys how sorry I am.
Sincerely,
Jerry Kunzman
Nor Cal Regional Director