[asusig] ASU House Update and call for Help Fri, 20 Jun 2003

Greetings,

The Battles with ASU over our ability to remain on Alpha Drive look to be coming to a long period of Truce. Bob Hobbs and Bruce Sedlak lead our side in negotiating a settlement that should see the Houses safe for another twenty years. We are just working on the final details now.

That said there is a very real risk that all of this effort will be for naught if we do not get some Alumni Volunteers to step up. As you know the Consul this last year at the House lead them into a direction they had not gone since 1996. That was into a membership review which has seen the House cut down in size from a 120 man chapter to about 65 right now. They appear to have some good new young leaders poised to put the House right along with some good direction by a new Chapter Advisor and his group of assistants.

The problem lies in that the lender (Constantine Capital, Sigma Chi run group tasked with making loans to Sigma Chi Chapters) we have the loan from that allowed us to purchase the House has a policy of not loaning money to chapters not in good standing. The House at ASU is currently on probation and will not be back on good standing until next May.

We have gotten CCI to agree to extend the balance of the pledged loan (the amount used to buy the building was $162,000 and the balance is about $200,000) for needed and required renovations to the forty year old building. They have placed a requirement in front of us that we need to meet however. The original loan (the entire $362,000) was original covered by a group of alums that agreed to act as loan guarantors in the amount of $33,000.00. CCI is now going to require that the entire loan amount be covered by loan guarantees. The addition $329,000 in notes would be required only until the Chapter returns to Good Standing at which point those guarantees will expire and the original $33,000 will suffice. So far we have gotten a small group to step up to the plate to assist in trying to meet this new requirement but we are only about half way there. If you can help please contact me directly. Here is you has stepped up to help so far and the amount that we are short. If we cannot get this done in the very near term we run the risk of losing the war since the House would not be able to be occupied and/or ASU could condemn the House since we would be in breach of the settlement agreement.

                                              Guarantee      Balance
                                    $329,200.00
David W. Riddle       $50,200.00    $279,000.00     ASU
Mike Dunn             $50,000.00    $229,000.00     Utah State
Marshall Christy      $25,000.00    $204,000.00     UofA
Bill Scott            $25,000.00    $179,000.00     UofA
Bill Harris           $ 5,000.00    $174,000.00     ASU
???                   $50,000.00    $124,000.00
???                   $50,000.00    $ 74,000.00
???                   $50,000.00    $ 24,000.00
???                   $24,000.00    $ -

If you can help with one of the recommended pledges above or any part at all please let me know ASAP.

FYI, We have a letter from ASU indicating they are willing to buy the House for the Apprised value (their appraisal while seriously flawed in undervaluing the House by not being accurate as toward construction etc..) of $580,000.00. So even in the worse case event that the Chapter for some reason does not follow through on the items they are working on to return to Good Status and result in the Chapter being lost the value of the property as Established by ASU more than covers the entire note so nothing is really at risk for the loan guarantors. In fact the House Corp which holds the title to the land and house will extend a lien in the amount of the loan guarantees to offset the loan liability that your pledge would result in for your own personal financial position.

If you have questions please call me at 480-610-8234