March 29, 2007

 

 

Jill Taylor

President

KeyBank Utah Operations

KeyBank Tower

50 S. Main Street Suite 500

Salt Lake City, UT 84144

 

Ms. Taylor,

 

I am writing on behalf of 500 plus parents (living along the Wasatch Front) who are engaged at all levels of Baseball within the State of Utah. I head up a newly formed committee we are calling “The Parents of Baseball Kids”. Our goal? To let the parents of Baseball kids know what is happening to one of our core baseball programs in the State of Utah.

 

We have already formulated a petition with nearly 500 signatures in just 3 weeks. We have parents from St. George, to Ogden, to everywhere in between wanting to understand why KeyBank has engaged in improper behavior over the construction loan to the Athletic Performance Institute and the Utah Baseball Academy. This behavior seems unacceptable and down right suspicious in nature. We can and will reach out across the western United State’s via an email campaign to contact affiliate Baseball programs and parents involved in our sport.  We have nearly 50,000 email addresses just from the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains and the State of California. The Parents for Baseball Kids are angry with KeyBank and want to make certain you are aware of this fact.

 

This whole mortgage issue is creating a situation within our Baseball community that will reverberate for the next 25 years. Why? Because Mr. Keyes just finished refinancing a much larger loan to clean up the mishandling of his construction loan by KeyBank. While your company has its money, plus extensive interest penalties, and required Mr. Keyes to pay KeyBank’s attorney fees to internally investigate your own wrong doing, the parents of Baseball kids are ultimately the ones who will end up having to pay for this bill through higher fees just to keep our Baseball programs alive.

 

In Baseball jargon, every at-bat counts. The following is our understanding of how KeyBank handled its all important at-bat with Bob Keyes, the Athletic Performance Institute and the Utah Baseball Academy.

 

1)      Strike one… KeyBank failed to make payment #6 on the construction loan. KeyBank stated there was no money left in the account. Mr. Keyes spent considerable time and effort to prove otherwise. Finally, KeyBank agreed there was money enough to make payment #6; however, due to untimely efforts by KeyBank, the construction company had already moved forward and placed a Lien against API/UBA. Next, we hear KeyBank announces they can’t make payment #6 until the Lien is paid off. How bizarre. The Parents of Baseball Kids want to know why this must be if KeyBank’s mishandling of payment #6 was the cause of the Lien in the first place?? – This simply does not make sense to The Parents of Baseball Kids.

2)      Strike two… KeyBank’s comment – There is no money left in the account – This caused everyone to start asking questions about where did the money go?!? Can you imagine what parents thought as they learned $15,000 had been requested by a Vice President of KeyBank as part of the loan only to find out it ended up in an LLC account owned by this very same Vice President of KeyBank. Can you imagine our thoughts when we learned the loan officer was fired and this same Vice President then took over Mr. Keyes construction loan. How strange? Can you imagine our thoughts when we learned this same Vice President then informed Mr. Keyes that his additional $100,000 (in cash) that was put into the original loan process as a contingency to help pay against any potential money short fall during the construction pay out was missing? KeyBank could not acknowledge any of this money?  Holy Cow, and KeyBank manages money for a living?!?!?!?  For nearly 2 years Bob Keyes, the Athletic Performance Institute and the Utah Baseball Academy spent countless hours having to justify to KeyBank that KeyBank was holding on to nearly $450,000 in money owned by Mr. Bob Keyes, the Athletic Performance Institute and the Utah Baseball Academy. The Parents of Baseball Kids want to know why KeyBank could not find Mr. Keyes money until all “Heck” broke loose – causing immeasurable pain and suffering to a man, his family and his personal vision for Baseball within the great State of Utah.

3)      Strike three… KeyBank decides the best way to handle this whole issue is to pull the construction loan and begin foreclosure proceedings? At some point KeyBank must be thinking this will all simply go away once  Bob Keyes, the Athletic Performance Institute and the Utah Baseball Academy (along with his entire professional staff) are gone. Forget it. The Parents of Baseball Kids want to know why KeyBank has chosen this method for dealing with its reported mistakes through out this entire loan process. As of today, The Parents of Baseball Kids will do everything we can to ensure that Mr. Keyes, the Athletic Performance Institute and the Utah Baseball Academy will not be going away. For example, because of KeyBank related rumors which are circulating, the Academy has lost some of their customers due to the negative rumors spreading from KeyBank’s suit against them. As such we have encouraged the Academy to place this information out on their web site. Please check out the Utah Baseball Academy web site at  www.utahbaseballacademy.com  Click on the KeyBank Litigation sign to the top right of the home page. – you can’t miss it. 

As the spokesperson for The Parents of Baseball Kids, we would like to know why KeyBank has chosen this kind of effort at the plate with Mr. Bob Keyes, the Athletic Performance Institute and the Utah Baseball Academy. As parents we are truly surprised by Key Banks ongoing judgments to not address the above mentioned issues and to clean up what might be wrong with this loan. We teach our kids not to run away from responsibility and to take ownership of our mistakes. Baseball is one of few sports that acknowledges failure can be overcome with a single hit. With all due respect, the 500 parents currently involved with The Parents of Baseball Kids committee are asking KeyBank to step back up to the plate and finish with a respectable hit.

If you would like, you can reach me via my cell at 801-554-5494 or via my email at prelf@msn.com.  We expect straight forward answers, and once again reiterate the fact that Mr. Keyes, the Athletic Performance Institute, the Utah Baseball Academy and The Parents of Baseball Kids are not going away.  We will be reaching out to the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, Arizona and California. The Parents of Baseball Kids support Mr. Bob Keyes. We look forward to hearing from KeyBank.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Peter Relf

Utah Spokesperson

The Parents of Baseball Kids

 

 

CC:      Steve Hertzke – Get Gephardt – Channel 2 News

            Derek Miller – Director; Utah Division of Real Estate

G. Edward Leary – Commissioner; State of Utah, Department of Financial Institutions

Henry L. Meyer III – Chairman & CEO KeyBank

Lesley Mitchell – Salt Lake Tribune Reporter – Mortgage Fraud: The Great American Scheme

            The Parents of Baseball Kids – Pacific Northwest, Colorado, Arizona, California

            Brad – KSL 5 News

            Brent Hunsaker – ABC 4 News

            Gregory Kratz – Deseret News Business Editor