Letter to the editor

September 12, 2003

Dear Editor

The September 12, 2003 article Bankruptcy for Skypark concerns me greatly. Skypark's Chairman, a certified public accountant Burlingame Councilman Joe Galligan? either elected to not act on his accounting knowledge/skills or did not possess the accounting knowledge/skills to develop a business strategy that would have prevented Skypark's financial tragedy. With Councilman Galligan's 1999 bankruptcy prediction, what changes were made within Skypark to prevent their financial prediction. If Councilman Joe Galligan had trouble guiding Skypark through troubled waters, what do the residents of Burlingame foresee for the City's financial future?

The residents of San Bruno stand to face even more financial hardships if Skypark does file bankruptcy. Councilman Galligan, would you be willing to make Skypark's books, 1999 to present, available for public review? With all of the talent within the area, I feel confident there is someone able to resolve Skypark's financial woes and not deprive San Bruno of their rightful income.

Rich Grogan
1450 Columbus Ave.
Burlingame, Ca.

– Written by rich grogan

Posted in General

2 responses to “Letter to the editor”

Michael

September 15, 2003

I am not here to defend Joe Galligan, because I do not know the circumstances, but as a CPA myself, I would like to clarify the position of a CPA. Since Joe has his own Accounting firm, I must assume he is doing Skypark’s taxes and possibily even their accounting. If he pointed out in 1999 that Skypark was on the verge of bankrucpty, then he was doing his job as an accountant. Accountants do not usually “run the business”. They give the owners the numbers. Accounants are like “intelligence officers” (I also used to be an Army staff intel officer), they brief the users with the best information available. What the “owners” do with the information is up to them.

Again, this is not a defense of Joe, but of the accounting profession. Too often, the general public does not understand the role of an accountant. Anyone who read the pages and pages of documents put out by accoutnants and lawyers during the “dot.com” era could have foreseen the inevitable ballon popping. (Some exceptions: the Enron and Worldcom accountants were flat out crooks).
rich grogan

September 15, 2003

Please accept my apology. My intentions were not to besmirch either CPA’s or the accounting business. My concern is with the idea of Joe being the Chairman of Skypark and a CPA. These two positions are not mutually exclusive. There are professional(CPA) and internal (Chairman)issues that should have been brought into play to prevent this, potential tragedy.

As you are aware, as a Councilman, Joe has frequently expressed opinions based upon his CPA knowledge when making decisions for the City of Burlingame.

Thank you for taking the time to read the Burlingame voice, this is a great grass root effort to let the voices of the residents of Burlingame be heard.

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