Worldwide Church of God Real Estate Page 4 Bloody Thursday

Mass sackings at Pasadena campus? I just found this on another website, can anyone addto/confirm this? Dateline Pasadena: "

Every department manager was told he had to call in each person individually and tell them what was happening to them job wise. (The managers have known for the last couple of weeks who was getting the axe). Then once everyone was told, the department managers were to report back to the Facilities Manager on how people reacted to the situation. They seem to be worried big time on how people are handling this.

Many were terminated today. They were told they could work and get paid for two more weeks and then quit or leave immediately and get paid for the next two weeks. A few had their hours cut back and three were placed on retirement. Those remaining will be staying and given more jobs to do.

The plant maintenance department had to lay of 7 people. That left them with three or four people to take care of the entire campus. Custodial laid off 3, Landscape laid off 2 and cut back all the hours for employees. Security retired one person, the Physical Ed guy was retired.

"These are the reasons they said this had to happen this way: the church is dishing out 700,000 a month in salaries and maintenance of the property. 300,00 was going just to the facilities maintenance area. Bernie [Schnippert] and the Board of Directors made the decision that the budget for Facilities had to be cut 35%. "Escrow is now being negotiated to close in March of 2002 (if even then). The escrow process is closely approaching the three year length now. It is coming up for public comment and criticism on Sept 27 or earlier depending on the City of Pasadena Council. There will then be three public meetings for the public to comment and criticize what is going to happen to the property. This is an unknown for WCG and Legacy. Public opinion in Pasadena concerning building, traffic and historical preservation has tremendous clout. There will then be a meeting every 2 weeks until the situation is taken care of -they said this could last at least three meetings, or more if needed.

"SEP Orr is being sold to a redevelopment group that will subdivide the property and place housing and vacation homes on it. Escrow may close on it towards the end of October. They will then terminate the 4 people that work at the camp.

"Some of the employees took the events today in stride, since they knew it was going to happen sooner or later. (Employees are given one week of severance for every year they have worked for the church and one month of medical insurance) Others were very angry on how they were treated and how the employees have been lied to by the administration. For the last couple of years, Bernie and others have stood up in front of the employees and said that the church intended to take care of and reward those who stayed to the end with either a bonus or maybe doubling the severance package. Those laid off today get none of that.

Indications are that they do not intend to keep their word with any of the remaining employees either. Retirement is not guaranteed since they have no money to fund the program. The longer escrow goes, and until Legacy gets 100% compliance in the sale of the property, the price can and will fluctuate (downwards as some insiders are alleging). Bernie [previously] told employees that even if a person was laid off the church would pick the person back up and include them in the retirement program. They gave every indication today that this would not happen either.

"As the employees were struggling with what happened today, the Plain Truth Ministries employees scheduled their employee outing for the day and left at noon, walking by many that had been terminated. That did not go over well. They were losing their jobs while PTM was spending a large amount of money to party with.

"Another person asked a department manger within the Facilities departments whether the department heads were going to take a pay cut also. One of the managers laughed in the woman's face and said , "You've got to be kidding!, of course not!"

Mass sackings at Pasadena campus? Employees that are "very angry" at being laid off should really get some perspective. The writing has been on the wall with the paint peeling for a long, long time. There's a whole world of opportunity out there beyond the employ of the WCG. To be fair I haven't yet seen proof of gross mismanagement by the current administration over WCG finances. Also there are people currently on WCG retirement who are not upper level management and I think they have tried to plan for people who have been terminated but are near retirement age. However, the days are long gone when $30 million could be found in the budget by cutting a few TV stations. I don't think the current management has much wiggle room left.

It's interesting how the City of Pasadena operates. They would vigorously deny it but they are very content to sit by and wait to see if the property will forfeit into their hands. Meanwhile they throw up red tape like confetti. The Pasadena mascot should be the vulture.

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