Update
Remember
back in
August
of
2011 when
the city made a deal with Total Baking Solutions (TBS), owned by
the
Roberts Family of Roundup, Montana? The Roberts agreed to
lease the city's newly acquired former Textron building on Nelson
Ave. for one dollar per year for a five year period. At the end of
the lease the company could purchase the building for $1 million. The
purchase price would be reduced by $250,000 if the company would
average 100 new employees over the lease period.
Income
tax revenue from the new employees was supposed to compensate the
city in lieu of lease payments. The city's waste water department had
contributed a half million dollars to purchase the property
As
of 2014 the new employee numbers are believed, by some observers, to
be well under 20. The exact number is not public information.
One
would assume that before making such a significant deal, the history
of the TBS owners past business practices would be researched. This
writer easily found the newspaper accounts below on the internet.
Even more revealing is information obtained as a result of a public
records request concerning correspondence warning the Mayor to beware
of striking deals with the Roberts family..
Alamogordo
Daily News
Sunbaked
Biscuits Replaced 01/01/2008
Year
In review
One
of the most contentious stories of 2007 was the implosion of local
cookie maker Sunbaked Biscuits. The company went belly up early in
the year and disappeared amidst a flurry of lawsuits………….By
mid-January of 2007, Sunbaked closed its factory and informed its
creditors it was seeking a buyer. However, the company at first said
production had halted due to a damaged conveyor belt. The lawsuits
quickly followed…………Sunbaked
and its owners,
Dave
and Chris Roberts,
aren't out of the woods yet. Three lawsuits against Sunbaked in
District Court, brought by Delta Systems, Plastic Packaging
Technologies and Consolidated Electrical Distributors, are still
wending their way through the legal system.
From
newly released correspondence from the Mayor's office:
Allegation:
By a Michael
Morris
Some
of you may remember the Roberts Family of Roundup, Montana that
scammed over $2 million from the taxpayers of Alamogordo [New
Mexico] in the Sunbaked Biscuts scheme. The Roberts are at it again
in Wilmington, OH changing little more than on their website.
Here
the local paper [Wilmington News Journal] explains the rock solid
deal to get a former industrial building owned by the city in a jobs
deal to bake cookies.
Email
to
Mayor Riask from a brother of the Roberts family, at one time a
facilitator for the TBS Wilmington deal.
David,
Just
a few more proof [sic]
of
what have found out and why I left. You will see he Bankrupted a
company called Baking Systems in same address as of roundup [Montana]
also to not pay lines [sic]
and judgments.
Stuart
email
from
stuart a roberts
Saturday July
09, 2011
Dear David
I
needed to send you this along time ago after you were so good to me.
A quick synopsis. I was separated from my family for more than 15
years due to my father and brothers unethical practices. I returned
after my father had asked me and was showing supposedly his changed
ways and nude [sic]
promise that the stock and company would e under my control. This
never happened and in april after learning of the things below in the
blog I left as you may well know. He has since dedicated to saying
unheard of things about me and calling clients and saying things like
I stole etc.
I
have proof of many things of fraud I have located and want to warn
you and the city , he lied to me and all you [sic]
and was good at it. The record can be found from 1981 to 1983 in
Missoula montana under Big Sky baking and in Alamo Gordo and Sunbaked
biscuits along with my brother Chris who is helping him to try and
destroy my good name.
I
will testify against him in any legal action
[sic]
you need to take to recover your,building and costs incurred.
Sincerely,
Stuart
Granted that
this appears, in part, to be a family feud but it should have at
least been brought to the attention of city council and the public in
light of the included newspaper account.
My
personal view is that as soon as the five year lease period expires
the Roberts will seek another location in a poor community hungry for
any job promise. I have encouraged
the administration to make an attempt to alter the agreement with TBS
in light of the fact that the new jobs scenario has fallen far short
of expectations,
Note:TBS has
been delinquent in paying its utility bills to the waste water
department.
Paul
Hunter
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