Rink of Dreams

…and Other Small Town Nightmares

Greg Meakin

Chapter 3

A SUPREME EMBARRASSMENT

Boy, it’s been tough staying quiet for five years. As the town of Bremerton, Washington has been going about its business since the summer of 2004, I have been watching. Watching from afar, watching from under the radar…just watching and taking notes.

It has been difficult keeping my mouth shut for a change, that’s for sure. How nice to finally be able to speak up. What a relief, actually. For those not in the know, let me briefly review:

I am the original founder and owner of Bremerton Ice Arena in Bremerton, Washington. The chef of the original recipe, as I often describe my secret sauce for promoting ice arenas. Way back at the turn of the century, I had this brainstorm of finally bringing an ice rink to Kitsap County. I built an arena and opened the doors May 16, 2003. I was able to stay open for almost one full year. Less exactly three days, if I recall. Which I do, vividly. (I wanted desperately to stay open for at least a year, so that I could permanently stamp a business track record into history — and I’m glad I did).

I then lost my shirt financially. The Bank foreclosed, and I was kicked out in the summer of 2004. The building closed for a short spell, then reopened with The Bank being the new owner. It is doing business to this day, although most county residents don’t know it.

And that’s pretty much it. To those who weren’t watching, that is.

Today, when I ask locals about Bremerton Ice Arena, the majority do not even know where it is, whether it is open or not, or what’s going on there. I then say to myself, “Good marketing Joanne. Really good marketing.”

But let me back up. Why am I only able to speak up this long after the fact? Well, because the simple rise and fall of a local developer-entrepreneur-hockey dad ended up becoming a very long and very complicated story. Not to mention very cruel. And it’s really too bad, because it could have had a quick and happy ending had cooler heads prevailed.

Turns out, a big legal fight over the arena ensued in November 2003, with the first foreclosure volley by the Haselwood legal team against me. Astonishing, but the epic battle is still not over. Indeed, there is a pending court case scheduled for trial in 2010! But the BIG part is over. When I say big part of the bout being over, I am referring to the Supreme Court of the State of Washington. Evidently, the squabbling parties needed the highest court in the state to figure things out for them.

The court made its official ruling on June 25, 2009. The legal whodunit was finally solved!

And that is why I can now speak. Think of it as my coming out of the ice closet – the freezer of ostracization, perhaps. In a quarter-century of playing hockey, I learned that even the most gentlemanly player will drop his gloves on occasion. I guess this is one of those few occasions for me. My disgust is that deep.

You are kidding, right? A legal donnybrook from 2003 to 2009? And they’re not done yet? Wow. But stay tuned…maybe the Governor or the President of the United States will be involved with this some day! Or maybe even the Prime Minister of Canada, eh?

In any good war, you must have combatants. In the courts, these pugilists are called PARTIES. That always seemed a paradox to me. In the case of Bremerton Ice Arena, The Bank mentioned above is actually a person named Joanne Haselwood. This is not uncommon in real estate development, where a private investor plays the role of bank and lends the money for a project. We all know that real banks only lend money to those who don’t need it.

The National Bank of Haselwood

Her attorney once described Joanne and her late husband Chuck as the “National Bank of Haselwood.” This because they had lent so much money over the years to businesses and properties. Some of this real estate was Haselwood-owned, and some not.

I have no idea how much real estate Joanne Haselwood and her subsidiaries own or control at this moment, and it really is none of my business. When I heard the tally years ago, it was a BIG portfolio in the City of Bremerton alone. I mean really big. And just like a bank, Joanne Haselwood often held mortgages on those properties. Picture a Monopoly board.

Without The Bank, the game can’t move forward. Without The Bank, you can’t collect your $200 for passing GO. In Monopoly, the mortgage payments are reflected on the Deed. You know; the cards with the different colors and street names. Payments on these little cards range from like, $2 to $2,000 depending on the property and how far along it is developed.

Once my ice arena was 100% developed, my mortgage payment to Joanne (which I am not ashamed to say I was never able to pay) was near $40,000 per month.

During the construction phase alone, I had paid Joanne Haselwood close to $250,000 in “mortgage interest” payments. Gossipy local critics would snort that the money was not cash, but rather borrowed funds from Joanne as part of my construction loan. My answer to that would be “Uh, did you figure that out all by yourself?” As with any construction loan, I OWED the funds, plus interest.

And $250,000 is a lot of money, in almost any business arena.

What I am to understand from today’s management, is the current arena business would not be able to pay ONE DOLLAR of a monthly mortgage payment — and hasn’t since taking over the rink operation from me in 2004. During that period, I was chided publicly for not making my mortgage payment. But then again, this was before modern things like routine foreclosures, short sales, and loan-modifications came into vogue! In the olden days of 2003, a bailout was something you did to your boat when it had a bunch of water in it.

“Hasn’t anyone financially struggled out there,” I asked myself at the time. Heck, I had to open the arena going into a summer, it was a startup enterprise in a non-traditional marketplace, and it was post-September 11th. How we did such a robust business in the first year with the daily interference we encountered, I will never know. That robust business has never been duplicated since. I had no problem with Bremerton going through a learning experience when it came to an ice arena and hockey. I just didn’t feel like losing everything I owned while everyone learned.

But there was no instant replay in this game.

Now that I’ve had years to reflect, it occurs to me that in Monopoly, The Bank doesn’t have a token on the board. The Bank kind of throws its weight around throughout the game, but doesn’t even have a token! You know those fun tokens like top hats, a miniature iron, or a teeny car. My token would have been a little hockey skate, I think. The Bank doesn’t even have a token in the game, yet is the most important player.

The goal of the board game is to be the last man standing. That’s what the Supreme Court battle was all about; to decide who would be the last Party standing. My wife and I had to begrudgingly bow out of the game in 2004. Begrudging and beat up, that’s for sure. You haven’t lived until you’ve been smacked with a $7 million bankruptcy. I mean, it was like the movie Field of Dreams – but the bank finished foreclosing on the farm instead of Shoeless Joe Jackson appearing. That’s no fun. I had to look my wife dead in the eye as I lost her family home and took her from a respectable net worth — to food stamps. And unfortunately I’m not kidding here.

I mean, I woke up one day as Skateless Greg Meakin for goodness sake!

Go directly to the Supreme Court

But continuing my ongoing book research, Deborah and I drove to Olympia and sat through the entire hearing, blow by blow. At this main event, being the hockey dad I am, I pictured the nine serious judges wearing the black and white referee stripes. The Parties were pretty evident, not unlike a church wedding. You know; a bride side and groom side. In this case, the Haselwood Party was on one side and RV and Associates, a dirt moving company among other things, perched on the other.

Unlike a wedding however, there was an invisible side, which is where my wife and I were sitting.

So what was the fight about? Well, a little over a hundred grand, actually. RV and Associates claimed Joanne owed them more than $100,000 for work they did on the arena. Joanne Haselwood claimed she didn’t. And that’s it.

And remember, you can’t just “go to the Supreme Court.” You have to earn your way there, and buy your way there. What I mean by “earn your way there” is that is you have to tussle through the lower courts first. Then, if the Parties still want to scrap, the Supreme Court may hear the case, if it so chooses. What I mean by “buy your way there” is you must have a great big barrel full of money to pay the lawyers along the way.

When I was a boy in Montreal, my late great-aunt told me one of the differences between Canadians and Americans is that “Americans are sue-happy” as she put it. She continued by suggesting Canadians were more inclined to work things out amicably. There wasn’t the obsession with being strongest. With being right. With winning at all cost.

I have pondered Dee Dee’s words many times in the past five years. With a sadness and frustration you will never know, I came to believe that even if I was able and willing to sue anyone American-style, nothing could ever repay the damage done to my wife and children during all of this. Ever. Other parents might relate. I just can’t get those years back – especially for my twin boys, who are now twenty. In MasterCard commercials those years are known as “priceless.” And this is not whining or posturing; it is a Meakin family fact.

$100,000 sounds like a lot of money. Definitely not a paltry sum. It sure seems like enough to tangle over. But let’s investigate a wee bit, shall we?

First, money due to RV was the LAST installment of an original bill to Bremerton Ice Arena of well over $600,000. As owner of the arena, I paid RV more than $500,000 like clockwork during construction.

Second, when the bill was barely past due (not even delinquent, as money-changers put it) I met personally with Steve Davis, a manager at RV, and attempted to negotiate a monthly payment plan. I had even brought goodwill deposit monies of $5,000 to the meeting to show I was forthright, and to thank RV for its patience. They had worked hard and been nice people. The manager accepted the $5,000 to begin the meeting. Unfortunately, he then said his company was not interested in a payment plan. It wanted all the money immediately and would simply “get it from Joanne Haselwood.”

What I now know is I was naïve to think my gesture would be taken seriously. Had I known how I would later be treated by RV and Associates, I would have thought twice about pledging goodwill anything, never mind money.

And what later raised eyebrows, was during a June 2003 meeting with the City of Bremerton and some of the key players, Steve Davis gave kudos to me and my staff for how well we went about our business up until the previous month. Hmm.

So many questions

This was a multi-million dollar project not just $100,000. Joanne Haslewood, The Bank, had disbursed some $4.5 million at that point. How could $100,000 not be worked out in some way? And golly, the Supreme Court? How could RV have so much clout to force the issue to that extreme?

I’m anxious to find out just the legal fees billed through this whole mess. Alpha-omega, it’s gotta be way over a million bucks. That sure could pay for a lot of hockey tape. Why not work it out somehow years earlier? Why would RV be so aggressive, and Joanne so stubborn? Even if it was the ice arena’s obligation, wouldn’t it have been smarter just to deal with it before it went so far?

I have a few theories of why the long and embittered stand-off. Not that they make good business sense, but that’s another small town story. Maybe I’ll just write about it someday! I have discovered that many people will roll their eyes when hearing someone is a writer. Snooze. The drooping eye lids spring open when the writer’s words discuss them. People are funny that way.

One key date in the arena’s history was September 6, 2002. In retrospect, it was my September 11th. That was Ground Breaking, or as I marketed the event, Ice Breaking. I was shaking hands on camera a lot that day.

By then, RV and Associates had recorded their “mechanic’s lien”– their security interest, much like a mortgage — on the land. Much of the Supreme Court arguments had to do with whether a mechanic’s lien took priority over the “main mortgage holder,” in this case Joanne Haselwood. And that is an interesting argument, certainly one which the nine Supreme Court Justices wrestled with. And in the end, they couldn’t agree either. In a 5-4 split decision the court ruled in favor of RV, and essentially ordered Joanne Haselwood to pay the $100,000 bill plus legal expenses. In doing so, the big court slapped the hands of the little courts, overturning all previous decisions. And believe me, the behavior of the lower courts is a book unto itself!

How I interpreted the billion words in the Supreme Court ruling, is the five winning judges concluded that Joanne had played a maternal role from funding conception, so it was appropriate for Mommy to pay the tab.

Judicial arguments are one thing, but the sad and silly part is this slug fest didn’t have to happen in the first place for two main reasons: The first reason, and most obvious, is had RV accepted a payment arrangement with the one who actually owed the bill (the ice arena and me) there would have been no quarrel in the first place. And please, someone make my day and say no arrangement would be made because “Meakin couldn’t pay his bills anyway.”

The second reason is more judicially juicy, and one you will hear nowhere else. According to my lawyer at the time, RV’s attorney Bill Broughtan had slipped in his client’s mechanic’s lien BEFORE the Haselwood attorney, Gary Chrey (pronounced Kray) recorded Joanne’s.

What that meant, was that RV was essentially the FIRST mortgage holder at $100K, and Joanne was SECOND in line to get paid with some $4.5 million owed to her!

Get this: Technically, RV could have foreclosed on the property as the pseudo “first mortgage holder,” and OWNED Bremerton Ice Arena, then appraised at more than four million dollars, for a paltry hundred thousand bucks! I did say that a hundred Gs is a paltry sum, didn’t I?

Only in America. A multi-million dollar real estate asset for a meager Hundred Large, as they would say in Vegas.

The dirty little secret

But that’s not the whole story. The dirty little secret is Gary Chrey “messed up” the original Deed of Trust paperwork with me and my wife. We had to sign paperwork TWICE. As such, he filed his lien late – at least later than it could have been – and that allowed RV to scoot in its lien before Chrey’s. If not before, close enough, I’m sure. And I heard somewhere that close does count in horseshoes and hand grenades. Can I add liens to that list?

Had RV and Associates not enjoyed FIRST position leverage – the ability to actually foreclose on the property – they could have never caused such legal havoc and deafening noise behind the scenes. Noise that soon spilled over into the community.

For anyone who doesn’t understand liens and legal mumbo jumbo, think of it as the ability to repossess. Like the TV show Operacion Repo. Oh, lawyers can make things sound important and complicated, with fancy pantsy blather. But don’t be fooled. Things like security interest, Deeds of Trust, first mortgages, and mechanic’s liens are all in place for one simple reason – the ability to repo the car, if you will.

One thing I have discovered is lawyers can be obsessed with overcomplicating things. This, in order to illustrate – and perhaps justify – their $300 per hour knowledge. Some clearly believe they are smarter than we civilians. Only an attorney can convince you that running the overall tab of an ice arena to $9 million is smarter than $5 million! Only an attorney would try to convince you that $200,000 in annual gross revenues is better than $700,000!

(When comparing my management era to the Haselwoods’ afterward, these annual revenue numbers are not only close, they’re conservative. And see reference to “close” above!).

The wife speaketh

This convoluted, Only in America legal story was summed up perfectly by my wife not long ago. As usual, my wife can make sense of her husband’s nonsense. Deborah looked at me and said, “Joanne just treated this whole thing like a car repo.” The headlight went on for me. Yes, she did treat it like having one of her dealerships repossess a car!

It was like she was taking back a laundry mat, or “popping” an espresso stand. Nothing against owners of laundry mats, espresso stands, or scrapbook stores for that matter, but they’re pretty tiny businesses compared to a $5 million community ice arena, which involves tens of thousands of customers, hundreds of thousands in annual revenues, and millions of headaches.

And who is Greg Meakin’s WIFE to make such a caustic claim? Although few involved then or now are even aware, along with her husband, Deborah Anne Meakin was 50% owner of Bremerton Ice Arena, Inc. She was 50% owner of the arena building, the land lease with the city, the Pro Shop, the Ice Café, the 1950’s Soda Fountain, the Video Arcade, the birthday party and conference rooms, and the upstart Synchronized Skating and Speed Skating programs.

And that’s not including 50% of the BAHA youth hockey program, the adult hockey program, the figure skating school — and half of Tanner’s Chowder supply in the Café!

That’s why Deborah Meakin may speak out too, and hold any opinion she chooses. What a great country. The First Amendment is so cool that way. I loved her “Moving Forward Back to Bremerton” theme, “GIMME MY RINK OR GIMME MY TWO MILLION BUCKS BACK!” I love it.

I actually did the math myself. Two million dollars represents the net worth my wife and I would now be enjoying had we not pursued building an ice arena in Kitsap County. (And yes, that factors in the Great Recession, and factors out any future values). I think we’re right on the money here too. Just try me.

A question of ownership

I am still amazed at the lack of understanding and lack of recognition of this “ownership” thing. Once I had secured financing for my project, the public perception in Bremerton was that Joanne Haselwood OWNED the place, rather than just lent the money with a 10% mortgage. My wife and I weren’t just a cute little management team. C’mon, when I look at a house, I see the family who lives in it as the owner — not the bank. Pay off your mortgage and you own your home. It’s the American Dream personified.

I mean, who walks down a residential street, pointing “Hey, there’s Wells Fargo’s house”, or “U.S. Bank’s place?” And goodness gracious, if the homeowner is fighting foreclosure or in need of a loan modification, I’ve never seen anyone run to Chase Bank and attempt to discredit the owner of the house. This actually happened when some of my former employees and vendors ran to Joanne. At that time, a Canadian ice consultant and dear friend of mine told me “Word is out. There is a piling-on of Greg Meakin that we’ve never seen in the industry before.”

Why my wife and I were not recognized — or respected — as the true and only owners of this wonderful rink confounds me to this day. Maybe you need a nine-figure net worth for that, I dunno.

I can’t tell you how many times I heard that I should just be mature and walk away from my ice arena building and business. We’re not talking ego or Hockey Dad naïveté here — we’re talking a FIVE MILLION DOLLAR ASSET, people! During my decades as an auto industry manager, I watched consumers go completely nuts over a hundred bucks. Or a defective headlight. You expect me to just walk away from a decade of toil; what was supposed to be my future retirement? Bremerton Ice Arena, Inc. was a private business we wished to be in the Meakin family forever. Deborah and I also wanted it to serve as our family’s contribution to the community – especially the kids like ours.

I still shake my head when I recall my rink manager debriefing me on a meeting he just attended with Wayne Davis, Haselwood Chief Financial Officer. To paraphrase, I guess the CFO told him that Greg Meakin should be a man and just walk away. My arena manager (being a true Canadian Rink Rat from Saskatoon) retorted that Meakin is fighting because it’s HIS rink! Hello? When Wayne Davis then quipped something like, “It was always Joanne’s rink,” I was stunned. “I wish someone had told me that, Gordy!”

The errors, omissions, and poor judgment I witnessed from this Wayne Davis character was an embarrassment unto itself, especially from ice industry standards. But hey, that’s my opinion, and that is the unfortunate reality out there. Even having college degrees, people are entitled to be complete idiots. I have an arsenal of snippets about this Wayne Davis pinhead, but I will keep those to myself for now.

As an old hockey guy, I will forever say I don’t mind getting my butt kicked. That is sports and that is life. I simply don’t like being invited to a knife fight and my opponent shows up with a shotgun!

From the mouths of babes

But forget all this grown up and edgy talk. How often do the clearest explanations come from the mouths of babes? I will never forget my wife coming to me at the end of a hectic Saturday. Deborah organized and managed certain events for the arena, and her specialty was throwing great birthday parties. And this is not a cutesy thing. As per my original business plan, birthday parties were going to be a key element of the arena’s monthly revenues. And Deborah Meakin delivered a great product.

Birthday parties consistently grossed between $4,000 and $5,000 per month. And don’t believe me, check the court documents. When I last reviewed them, Deborah’s party revenues far exceeded those of the current management team of the arena. That income didn’t pay all the bills for the rink, of course. But it helped keep the lights on for a year!

Deb came to me distraught at the end of that Saturday and told me a story of a young birthday party attendee. The little guy approached her, seeing that she seemed to be in charge of the party, and declared, “This is my grandma’s rink.” Turns out, the boy was a grandson of Joanne Haselwood. I don’t know if the tike realized he was talking to the actual owner of Bremerton Ice Arena. No matter, the seemingly innocent statement really bugged my wife. I took the kid’s words lightly, but having raised three sons herself, Deb told me the child’s remark “came from somewhere. Four year-olds just don’t make up stuff like that, Greg.”

Maybe I should have listened to youngsters more carefully before risking it all!

For any protective locals who might be up in arms about any “bad-speak” here, I wish not to embarrass, and feel no anger or hatred towards anyone. And that includes Joanne Haselwood, RV and Associates – and even me. Just ask any man who loses it all in mid-life — even if he had the best of intentions. Forget just looking in the mirror here. The self-beating and self-forgiveness thing for Type-A guys can be a lifetime battle unto itself. Just ask my wife and kids.

When it comes to my lender, nobody has respected her more than I. In fact, I challenge anyone to find a negative word I have spoken about Mrs. Haselwood in public. (And although begged by one of my more vocal supporters, I will not call her the Wicked Witch of the West Sound!).

Joanne and Chuck Haselwood have indeed donated millions to countless worthwhile causes. They are the Parents of Bremerton, as someone once described them to me. But let it be crystal clear: Going in, this was not a donation or philanthropy. It was risky for all parties, but it was no more than a straightforward business transaction where my wife and I were financially on the hook. And that meant spending our savings and leveraging our family home. “Risk it all!” “What have you got to lose?” and “Just go for it!” are clichés much encouraged — even matter-of-fact — in American business-startup lore.

Take it from me though, losing it all feels much less matter-of-fact when it really, really happens.

As I was often reminded by her legal team, there was nothing personal here. I was even told by one lawyer that I would feel better after my financial execution was complete. I still laugh at that one. Joanne Haselwood is a business woman. As a fellow American business person and core Libertarian, I applaud her. But I am a Buck Stops Here kinda guy, and I don’t believe she should be any different.

In business, as in sports, those at the top – head coaches, business owners, and maybe even elected officials — should be 100% accountable and responsible for all decisions — and all results. Good or bad, informed or uninformed. I can’t stand seeing any leader blowing stuff off on advisors, blaming the lawyers, or claiming to be in the dark.

I am a born and bred pragmatist. Maybe that’s the Canadian in me, I’m not sure. Whether anyone comes clean here and admits it or not, I have concluded the way this whole thing was handled – at virtually all levels — was indeed a supreme embarrassment. And don’t take my word for it. This scathing claim is corroborated by many.

Unfinished business?

What happened in the early going of the arena’s life veered completely off course from my core mission and vision. As with most sports, Hockey Purists strive to grow their sport and share its joy. They encourage the spirit of teamwork, of fair play, of respect for the game, and of commitment to the community. I once heard it called Purpose Driven. Daily, they resist becoming shackled by pettiness, the need for power, and other human endeavors.

But life does move on, as I am only now able to embrace. To this day, I would cheerfully do business again with Joanne Haselwood and her son Rick Wiler, my former auto industry boss. I highly respect both, and have never said differently. But what I will not do is coo over Joanne, if that’s ok? I’ll leave that to others.

Although I guaranteed publicly in 2001 that I would bring an ice arena and ice sports to Kitsap County, I don’t guarantee much anymore. I will guarantee one thing, however: As far as the entire ice arena episode goes, if anyone believes they know all that happened behind the scenes, or have smug answers about how things turned out, I guarantee they have not talked to me recently. If ever.

In this incredible country, I always believed Equal Time was a respectfully shared principle in any political or public debate. Until my cut-short lifetime of owning a private recreational facility in Bremerton, Washington, that is.

As 2010 silently approaches, I feel blessed. Blessed that I have survived to tell this story — and that is not an understatement. Blessed because my wife and I are closer than anytime during our twenty-five years together. And blessed because, God willing, I believe exciting things are just around the corner. Big dreams that might even include Bremerton Ice Arena, you never know. The jury’s still out on that!

But dreams do come true, and miracles do happen. And let no one tell you differently.

Just ask me sometime.

To be continued…