Categorized | Opinion
Holbrook: ‘My Side of the Story’Community Viewpoint
Posted on21 September 2012.
I have been the subject of several recent articles and several op-ed pieces that have been printed in the Pahrump Valley Times on projects in New Caney, Texas, Pahrump, Nevada, and Huber Heights, Ohio. I want to tell my opinion about these stories.
In 2005, I was hired to help create a new sustainable theme park in New Caney, Texas, near Houston, known as EarthQuest. Then, by
2007, I was hired by the East Montgomery County Improvement District EMCID to do economic development work on EarthQuest, follow-up work on the site for the theme park, and to act as a liaison with the real estate developer selected by EMCID, the Marlin Atlantis Company. In June of 2010, EMCID asked me to work as a consultant to help find a solution for the project when the company that owned the land later filed bankruptcy. I spent the next two years bringing in a new real estate developer, Contour Entertainment Group, and we worked together to revise the site plan and prepare a business case for the project. My role was to be a project advisor on site location incentives, an advisor on public policy issues to support Contour Entertainment Group, and to navigate the bankruptcy of the previous developer for the best interests of EMCID. None of my work for EarthQuest had anything to do with the
financing for this project.
I was not hired to act as a financial consultant and I have no ownership in EarthQuest. My only interest at this time is to be paid for work that I did in 2008 before the bankruptcy was filed.
The Town of Pahrump asked me for more than two years to work with them to create additional destination tourism sites for economic development purposes. My role has been to advise the Town Board about different options for increasing tourism and increasing economic opportunities in Pahrump.
I never said that the project could be a theme park. I fully disclosed my involvement with the EarthQuest project to the Pahrump Town Board before they hired me, and it was my understanding that the Town Board did not have any problem with it. It is my understanding that the Town Board contacted Frank McCrady, President of EMCID, who explained the situation with EarthQuest and wrote a letter of support and satisfaction with my consulting services for EarthQuest. I recommended that Pahrump hire Contour Entertainment Group because I believe that they were the most qualified development company to handle this type of work.
While I was working with the Pahrump Town Board, the media in Pahrump and in
Texas started to run articles about the failure of EarthQuest’s original developer and made it seem that I was somehow linked to its failure, even though I had no connection with the Marlin Atlantis Company.
After I started working with the Pahrump Town Board, Heather Dobrott, who lives in Garland, Texas, about 250 miles away from New Caney, Texas, and who uses a website with the address
www.realscam.com and uses the name “soapboxmom” on different websites, began posting statements about me on the internet beginning in early 2012. In my opinion, her statements about me question my work experience and question my professional ethics. On her website and on other places on the internet, she has called me a “scammer” and a “work at home scam promoter.” I deny these statements.
Mrs. Dobrott posted a comment on her website on March 30, 2012, that I “walked away with 33% of the almost 1 million [dollars] raised” for EarthQuest. I deny this statement. To my knowledge, Mrs. Dobrott has no evidence to support this statement. She has used the word “criminal” to describe expenses I submitted and has written about “Holbrook’s drunken antics” and “drunken soirees.” I deny these statements. I do not know Mrs. Dobrott and do not know what her connection, if any, is to the EarthQuest project. A few months ago, Frank Maurizio wrote a series of articles published in this paper labeling me “The Music Man”, in which he wrote that I am “a proven fraud”, “a scam artist”, and “a liar and a fraud” and wrote “an update” on me and “his scam to cheat [Pahrump] out of its tax dollars.” I deny these statements. To my knowledge, Mr. Maurizio has no evidence to support these statements. I do not know Mr. Maurizio. Cynthia Calvert is the owner of a small newspaper, The Tribune, in Humble, Texas, with the web address of
www.ourtribune.com. She has published several articles about me, including an article dated February 7, 2012, in which she wrote: “But the road that Holbrook has traveled, both to New Caney, Texas, and numerous other towns across the U.S.A., is a long and winding journey, littered with disappointment and controversy. . . .
He was hired and subsequently fired in several locations, mired in controversy.” I deny these statements. To my knowledge, Mrs. Calvert has no evidence to support her statements. Because of the number of postings and
articles about me on the internet, which in my opinion are untrue, when anyone puts in my name in any search engine website, these comments appear at the beginning of the search results because of the way search engine optimization works. When I talked to a company that helps to repair peoples’ or businesses’ internet reputations, I was told that it would take at least $26,000.00 to repair my internet reputation for the first year alone.
Every time I work on a project with a community, I prepare
written agreements stating up front the scope of work, all of the conditions and terms for payment, and the amount of the payments. These agreements are signed by all parties before I begin any work, which was the case with the City of Huber Heights, Ohio. I gave them a written agreement stating my scope of work and stating that I would need the cooperation from city staff people to complete my report for them on an economic development project to increase tourism in this suburb to the north of Dayton, Ohio. This agreement also stated the full amount of the payments for my services. The City Council formally approved my agreement and payment for all of my services in a City Resolution. In working on my final report, I was not getting responses from certain city staffers for information that I needed and told the City Manager that I was not getting the information I needed. The City paid the first two installment payments and gave me every indication — in my opinion — that they were pleased and satisfied with my services until, without any explanation, I was terminated at a meeting on March 14, 2012. I immediately offered to cure and remedy the situation, to no avail. I had learned that
a reporter from the Houston area had telephoned the City Manager on February 29, 2012, asking if the City had a contract with me. The City Manager wrote me an email about the telephone call and called the conversation with the reporter “strange.” It is my understanding that “internet research” had been done and handed to certain Huber Heights’ officials before the March 14, 2012 meeting. The City filed suit against me and the case is in litigation. In my opinion, the conclusion I have drawn is that unsupported, untrue, and false statements posted on the internet about my past work is the cause of my termination by the City of Huber Heights. For those of you who may be interested in more information, please check out the FAQs on my blog at <a href=www.economicdeveloper.wordpress.com.
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Originally Posted by pantherdadX2
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