Transcript of the Testimony of Ron Darby

Date: November 15, 2013 Volume: I Case: In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation

Printed On: November 30, 2013

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Ron Darby

In Re:

Joplin Critical Investigation

Page 1

IN RE:

JOPLIN CRITICAL INVESTIGATION

SWORN STATEMENT OF

RON DARBY

Taken on Friday, November 15, 2013, from 9:33 a.m. to 9:51 a.m., at the law offices of Juddson H. McPherson, LLC, 626 S. Byers, in the City of Joplin, County of Jasper, State of Missouri, before SHARON K. ROGERS, C.C.R.650, a Certified Court Reporter and a Notary Public within and for the County of Jasper, and State of Missouri.

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In Re:

Joplin Critical Investigation

Page 2

APPEARANCES

MR. THOMAS E. LORAINE Loraine & Associates, LLC 4075 Osage Beach Pkwy., Suite 300 Osage Beach, MO 65065

tellaw@loraineandassociates.com

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Page 3

S T I P U L A T I O N

IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED that this Sworn Statement may be taken by steno-mask type recording by SHARON K. ROGERS, a Certified Court Reporter, and afterwards reduced into typewriting. It is further stipulated that the signature of the witness is hereby waived, and that said Sworn Statement of said witness shall be of the same force and effect as though said witness had read and signed Sworn Statement.

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Page 4

I N D E X

Page/Line

DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE

5-4

E X H I B I T S

(sic) - typed as spoken (ph.) - phonetic

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Page 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. RON DARBY Having been first duly sworn and examined, testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE: Q. Mr. Darby, we met here in the hall a little bit earlier for about two minutes and we introduced ourselves and now you said you didn't mind being sworn in and giving me some information, if any, that might be helpful in the three areas that I described to you. Would you please state your present occupation? I'm retired from Kimberly Clark Corporation. You had a career with them? Yes, sir. What did you do with them, sir? I was a National Account Manager. Okay. More recently have you served on

something known as the JRC? Yes. Tell me what that is. It's the Joplin Redevelopment Corporation and prior to the tornado it was a tax deferral group that recommended tax deferrals to the City Council for new businesses coming into

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In Re:

Joplin Critical Investigation

Page 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Joplin, and after the tornado it was the financial arm really for the rebuilding of the Wallace-Bajjali group and the City. So after the tornado you've worked closely with Wallace-Bajjali? Yes. Were you ever hired by them? No, sir, I was strictly a volunteer. A volunteer that worked pretty hard? Well, not only myself, but the other members. I mean we had 161 people killed and all the devastation and the injuries and we felt like we had a responsibility to those people to help rebuild Joplin the best we could and that's what we did. I mean there's still a lot of vacant lots obviously, but anything that was going to be rebuilt is already built in the private sector pretty much? Well, not really. The private sector along

with the Wallace-Bajjali group, I mean there's a lot of private stuff going on and some public stuff, too, so it's kind of a team effort I would describe it as. Have you ever seen the Wallace-Bajjali

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Page 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. A. Q. contract for the City? Yes. I understand that they are somewhere in the rough area of 80 million and the money to be made if things come to full fruit, is that about right, if you know? I don't remember if that's exactly the number, but it was substantial. It was

probably in that area the way I remember. And what relationship did you have personally to get Wallace-Bajjali to come to the City? I had nothing involved in it. Who did? The City Council. And what they had was they

had a citizen's group that interviewed six or seven or eight, I don't remember exactly how many companies that do that type of thing, and then that group recommended Wallace-Bajjali and then the City Council approved it, but the JRC had nothing to do with it. Okay. group? Yeah, a few. There was quite a few on it. Do you know who was on that citizen's

The way I remember it was probably 15 to 20

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Page 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. Q. Q. A. different people that Jane Cage, C-A-G-E I think it is, she was like the chair person of it to my knowledge and Doug Doll who is the President of Arvest Bank, he was on it, and just a group of citizens. Was Mr. Woolston on that? Not that I know of. though. Was City Manager Rohr on that? No. Did the City or JRC either do any due diligence before the contract was hired with Bajjali other than this citizen's group? No. When you were the Director of the JRC give me a time frame? Were you the Director at the I don't know that,

time of the tornado itself? Yes, sir. And subsequent to that how long did you serve? I did two three-year terms. Actually my term

for the second three-year stint was over in July, but they asked me to stay until the end of August because we had some things to get done so I stayed an extra month and a half.

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Page 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. So that would have been until 2011 or '12? No, 2013. Tell me what phase of your career with the JRC were you in when the tornado hit? I was Chairman of the JRC when the tornado hit. And what year was that? 2011. So you worked from 2011 to 2013 in charge of the JRC? Well, actually as far as Chairman was concerned the way I remember best it was like 2010 to 2013. They asked me to stay on I chose not to do

another three-year term.

that because they'd have to redo the bylaws and I didn't want them to redo the bylaws for me or future either. I understand. A certain amount of time is

probably enough for anybody to be in that capacity. Yeah, and obvious reasons, you know. Were you on board when the contract for Wallace-Bajjali was actually signed then? Was I on -Were you on the JRC?

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Page 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. Q. A. Q. A. A. Q. A. A. Q. Yes. And you didn't really take any active role in the development of that contract with the JRC? No, sir. Did you sit in on any of the meetings? I sat in on two of the interviews of two different companies that was held at City Hall. There was probably, I don't know,

maybe ten people there plus the companies that they were interviewing and I just listened. One of them was a group out of

Kansas City that our ex-Senator - I'm going brain dead from Mexico, Missouri. Oh, you're talking about the U.S. Senator? Yes. Kit Bond. Kit Bond, yeah, he was an advisor for this company and that was one of the groups that I sat in on, and another one I think they were if I remember correctly out of St. Louis, but that's the only ones. I think they

interviewed like six or seven, but I sat in on two of them. Did you sit in regularly after

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Page 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Wallace-Bajjali was selected on the planning stages? No. Who did? As far as I know the Council and the City people. You don't have any first-hand information on that? No, let me think here. I mean we had a lot

of different meetings on property that we were purchasing and the board had five members and we had lost one due to a tragic thing in his family so now we were down to four. And on the bylaws you could have up to

thirteen, and the last probably couple of months that I was there the City Council recommended we have seven because we were in a situation where we were down to four and if we had someone miss a meeting for illness or whatever we couldn't vote so that's what happened. But we had a lot of meetings and

the people that were at the meetings were the City Manager, the City Attorney, we always had a representative from the City Council. Dr. Rosenberg was our Council representative,

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Page 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. Q. A. Q. but he had some health issues so Mr. Scearce filled in for him for awhile and then Benji came back, but we had Leslie there, the Financial Director, and so on, but we had a group and all the minutes and so on and the Wallace-Bajjali group was there, their representation and so on. And what we did is

we voted on whether to buy property or not, individual properties. Was Woolston involved in that? No, sir. You mentioned that the City Manager was there. Who ran these meetings?

I ran them. Your recollection is both the City Attorney and the City Manager were there at those meetings? At every meeting. I think Brian missed one

meeting, he was on vacation, but his assistant, Peter Edwards, was there in his place. And we had other people from the Tony - I can't

City, not just those people.

think of his name - he was there, and we had probably six or seven different people from the City there at most every meeting.

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In Re:

Joplin Critical Investigation

Page 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. Q. You basically, your company, JRC, is just a holding company? Right. To hold the land? Basically, yes. And you are fully owned by the City of Joplin? No. Well, I guess you could say that. It's

people that were appointed by the City Council to serve on that board. So I mean it's totally controlled by the City Council? Yes. And you're not doing any business other than for the City for this particular purpose? That's correct. Had Wallace-Bajjali assembled property for JRC? Had they recommended property for us to purchase? Yes. Yes, sir. Do they get a commission on that? Yes. And what is their commission?

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Page 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. A. Q. 5.75 percent. Has Mr. Woolston, himself, has he worked on obtaining property to be sold to you? No. Never seen him? No. Has his company Four State -Four State Homes. Did they assemble property for you? Well, let me see if I understand what you mean. The property that we purchased on 20th

and Connecticut, there's a big parcel piece of property in there that the library, movie theater, retail area. Yes. Yes, down to the anchor of the grocery store that's going in there, Four State Homes owned a lot of that property in there and, you know, to clear things up there was eight different banks that loaned us a million dollars each. Arvest Bank was the lead bank And every

on the administrative part of it.

piece of property that we bought as a group we voted on, number one. Number two, there

was at least one to two appraisals on every

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Page 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. A. Q. Q. Q. A. piece of property. Then Arvest was the lead

bank, but the other seven banks involved, they went all through the documentation of the purchase, also. So to answer your

question Wallace-Bajjali negotiated with the people that owned the property and then they came to us with whether we would buy it or not buy it. Most of the stuff they

recommended we did purchase, but some we didn't. Did Four State also serve that purchase? We were never involved personally with Four State Homes at all. Do you know if Four State sold property to Wallace-Bajjali? Not that I know of, no. So if Four State purchased property, let's just say if they did, they would have then assembled it and bought it for Wallace-Bajjali you don't know that? No, I don't know that. Assuming there was a commission paid for that service you wouldn't have any knowledge of that? No.

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In Re:

Joplin Critical Investigation

Page 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. So the only commission you knew about is the one you referenced that Wallace-Bajjali received? Yeah, that was negotiated with the City Council. It wasn't the JRC, we had nothing

to do with that, that's what they were paid, but that was the contract they had with the City. Did the City Manager run the City business at the meetings with you? No. So you basically ran these meetings? Yes, sir. What role did the City Manager play? Well, Mark was there at every meeting. just more listened than anything. He

I usually

asked him if he had any comments at the end of the meeting and normally he didn't so more as an observer than anything I would classify that as. As far as the set up of the arrangement with the JRC you didn't really have anything to do with how the system was set up to land bank the property? No, sir.

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Joplin Critical Investigation

Page 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. A. Q. Q. And you really don't know whether the City Manager had any role in that? Not that I know of, no. As far as you know this 15 or 20 people did whatever work they did in selecting the company, that Wallace-Bajjali eventually received that contract, and the next thing you know you're involved with the acquisition of property? Yeah, that's who they selected and that's who we work with. Is there anything else that you know that your name has come up to me and I really don't know how or why it did, but is there anything else that you know that you think I should know because of the topics I'm looking at? Well, what I know I mean what you described earlier was there involvement with Mr. Woolston, and he had no involvement with the JRC at all while I was there, and I was there for six years, over six years. As far as Mr.

Scearce other than he filling in - we always had a Council representative every meeting and Dr. Rosenberg has prostate cancer

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In Re:

Joplin Critical Investigation

Page 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 (SWORN STATEMENT CONCLUDED) A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. problems so he was out taking medical treatment so that's why Scearce filled in for him, but we always had at least one representative from the Council there at the meetings and tried to work as a team, you know, the City and Wallace-Bajjali and the other people involved. You of course know nothing about Bill Scearce's involvement in gambling or anything of that nature? No, I've known Bill for many years, but I'm not involved in that at all. Okay. Those are my topics. I thank you for

coming in here.

I think we're essentially

done here unless there's something else that you know that I don't know. No, I think we've covered everything that I know. All right. Thank you very much for your

courtesy, sir. Appreciate you coming in. Thank you, sir.

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REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

STATE OF MISSOURI ss. COUNTY OF JASPER I, SHARON K. ROGERS, Certified Court Reporter in the State of Missouri, do certify that pursuant to the foregoing Stipulation the witness came before me on the 15th day of November, 2013, was duly sworn by me, and was examined. That examination was then taken by me by

steno-mask recording and afterwards transcribed; said Sworn Statement is subscribed by the witness as hereinbefore set out on the day in that behalf aforesaid and is herewith returned. I further certify that I am not counsel, attorney, or relative of either party, or clerk, or stenographer of either party or of the attorney of either party, or otherwise interested in the event of this suit.

________________________ SHARON K. ROGERS, CCR-650

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