The Sidebar

Last year The Sidebar was first to report Annabel Melongo's federal lawsuit against Cook County State's Attorneys, Sheriff Tom Dart, and other county officials.

Looks like I'm first again with the amended complaint filed yesterday by Melongo and her attorney Jennifer Bonjean which includes the complete timeline of the case, including the almost two years she spent in jail for posting recordings of benign phone conversations on the Internet, the result of being prosecuted under a statute that has been overturned as unconstitutional by the IL Supreme Court.

The 21-page document also details the roles of Carol J. Spizzirri and her Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF); the organization's relationships with current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, and former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman; ABC7 reporter Chuck Goudie's SALF exposes; the $9 million in tax dollars awarded to SALF; and much more.

Page down to view. Click here to download a copy.

(Circa 2005) Front row: former SALF Director of Communications Ciprina Spizzirri and her mother, Carol J. Spizzirri; Back row: former Maywood, IL mayor Ralph Conner,* former Palatine, IL mayor Rita Mullins, former SALF Public Affairs Representative Dane Neal

The complaint also takes aim at the felony computer tampering charges filed by Spizzirri against Melongo on October 31, 2006. Almost eight years later, that case appears to be headed to court, according to the website tracking Melongo's cases (click and page down).

If/when that case goes to trial, presumably Spizzirri -- who reportedly now lives in a mobile home park in San Marcos, California -- will be obligated to testify.

Click here for a compilation of media reports about the Melongo case.

Click here for a compilation of media reports about Spizzirri and SALF.





* 7/4/14 update: A previous version of this item identified former SALF Operations Director Vince Davis as the cowboy wearing the duster coat in the photo. Yesterday I received an e-mail from Davis -- seen in the video clip below escorting Carol Spizzirri when she freaks out and flees the room mid-interview -- informing me that Mayor Conner (who died in 2010) dressed up as the cowboy. 

I regret the error and I appreciate Davis -- whose June 10, 2007 e-mail about U.S. Sen. Barack Obama helping to fund SALF (see below) -- was reported in a June 25, 2013 Dubuque Telegraph Herald article -- bringing it to my attention -- PMH

Two and a half years ago, the office of Health and Human Services Inspector General Dan Levinson instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate what happened to millions of tax dollars the agency awarded to a tainted Chicago nonprofit and the role of a career CDC employee who moonlighted as the group's Corporate Treasurer.

As Sidebar readers know, the nonprofit was the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a politically-connected, high-profile, now-defunct FEMA member organization that since November 2006 has been the subject of dozens of exposes and reportedly is under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General for the possible misappropriation of $9 million in federal and state funds.

And the Dubuque Telegraph Herald recently reported that in June 2007, SALF was anticipating $10 million in funding sponsored by a former U.S. Senator named Barack Obama. 

So what kind of investigation did the CDC conduct?

The agency ignored my questions, but thanks to my congressman Rob Woodall, the public may get an answer to that question.

Per an October 11, 2010 article in The Hill, Levinson was asked to investigate $3.3 million the CDC handed SALF -- click here for the breakdown -- and "the relationship between the nonprofit and CDC Deputy Director Douglas Browne, who served as the nonprofit's corporate treasurer from 2004 to 2009."

Via the minutes of the January 26, 2007 meeting of SALF's corporate board -- note that the meeting took place after ABC7 Chicago had aired three scorching I-Team exposes of SALF:

 

"Mullins" is Rita Mullins, former mayor of Palatine, IL and SALF's second-in-command. "Spizzirri" is SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri, reportedly now living in a trailer park near Carlsbad, CA. (Click here for a bunch of photos of the two SALF gals hanging out with prominent public officials.)

In a November 8, 2010 letter, Levinson's office punted the SALF mess "to CDC for further review, and appropriate administrative action as this matter appears to be more appropriately addressed through CDC's administrative review process."

A couple of years later, I tried to find out what kind of "administrative review" the CDC had conducted.

Sherri A. Berger MPHS (via her CDC bio)

In a June 5, 2012 one-paragraph letter, here's what CDC Chief Operating Officer Sherri A. Berger wrote me:

At this time, the agency has completed its review of this matter and intends no further action.

I wrote back and asked for specifics, but never received a reply.


In recent years, my congressman Rob Woodall (GA-7th District) has helped me to obtain related information from CDC director Thomas Frieden MD, who, like Ms. Berger, has expressed zero interest in what happened to the millions of tax dollars his agency awarded to SALF and Browne's role as the group's treasurer -- click here and here.

So last month I asked legislative aide Chase Murray in Rep. Woodall's office if the congressman would ask Ms. Berger to provide details about the alleged investigation.

Here's the result, including copies of the correspondence discussed above -- click here to download a pdf.

So will the CDC give straight answers to a member of Congress? To find out, keep reading The Sidebar.

As I've reported in a string of items, since last year Illinois State Senator Tim Bivins (R-Dixon) has been asking tough questions about what happened to millions of tax dollars awarded to the Save-A-Life Foundation.

SALF was the scandal-ridden Chicago nonprofit that's reportedly under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General.

According to the author of an anonymous poison pen letter to the senator and copied to the AG, it's all a misunderstanding.

And it's all my fault.

As Sidebar readers know, SALF was a high-flying Chicago nonprofit that used to be the darling of Illinois media with connections up and down the Prairie State's political food chain -- Dick Durbin, Jan Schakowsky, Arne Duncan, John Shimkus, Emil Jones Jr., Paul Vallas, Gery Chico, and other worthies.

Here's Rita Mullins, former mayor of Palatine, IL, and Carol J. Spizzirri -- the gal pals who helmed the organization -- and my father at a Washington, DC conference that was supposed to move their organization into the big leagues:


Instead, a year later the SALF hit the fan when ABC7 aired the first of four scorching exposes. Since then, there have been dozens more print and broadcast reports, including a March interview I did with an Illinois paper.

Per a San Diego newsweekly article about her sordid history, Spizzirri hightailed it to a mobile home park near Carlsbad a couple years ago.

Sen. Bivins tagged Spizzirri and Mullins in this acerbic letter he sent to the IL Attorney General:



Turns out the senator's letter really got under somebody's skin.

Check out this anonymous screed he received that portrays me as slightly worse than Charlie Manson. (I've redacted a paragraph consisting of crapulous allegations about a third party.)



For fun, I'll try and fact-check the claims in the letter. It shouldn't require much effort.

For example:

To enlighten you, the students of Dixon schools were taught/saved lives with SALF's life saving curriculum instructed by off-duty Dixon City Fire Department EMS professionals, which operated through a Branch at St. John's Hospital, Springfield.

Sen. Bivins -- misspelled "Bevins" by the cluck who wrote the letter -- lives in Dixon and was Lee County Sheriff for 20 years. Here's what he wrote me:

I did talk to one of the longest serving fireman in my town and he doesn't recall any such program (SALF) ever being offered here.

As for my motives, I'll leave it to others to decide whether this page of media reports that resulted from my whistleblowing efforts constitutes a "hit list" -- and what may have compelled me to take a closer look at Spizzirri's organization.

Carol Spizzirri and my father (then 85 years old) at SALF's US Conference of Mayors presentation, January 19, 2005

One last question.

Why is the skank who wrote the anonymous letter to Sen. Bivins giving me grief about my father? Per this ABC7 report, it was Spizzirri and her organization that kicked him to the curb:

Video clip from 1/19/05 presentation to US Conference of Mayors in which Save-A-Life Foundation founder/president Carol Spizzirri introduces, then lip-kisses and embraces my 85-year-old father (with whom she had a personal relationship). SALF is now reportedly under investigation by the IL Attorney General. According to a January letter from IL State Senator Tim Bivins, Spizzirri celebrated Xmas 2011 at Mullins's home in Palatine. 

From Save-A-Life Foundation in limbo, an October 11, 2009 Chicago Tribune article by staff reporter Lisa Black:

(Carol) Spizzirri launched a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching children emergency response techniques, raising at least $8.6 million in federal and state grants for her Save-A-Life Foundation...(Spizzirri) estimates 2 million children took the classes, many of them from the Chicago Public Schools.

If that's accurate - according to a number of records, including an official statement I received from Carol Spizzirri - a generation of Chicago students were taught to perform the Heimlich maneuver on drowning victims, an unapproved treatment that preeminent medical and water safety organizations had already determined was ineffective and potentially lethal since it wastes time and may cause vomiting leading to aspiration.

The millions of public dollars that funded SALF came from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Guard, and numerous Illinois state agencies.

The following is from last year's Washington Post. In parentheses, I've added dates with links to the supporting documents.

(The Heimlich maneuver has) been utterly discredited as a way of rescuing a person who is drowning, and can actually do serious harm to someone who has just been pulled from the water, numerous experts say.

...The list of experts who reject the Heimlich maneuver (to revive drowning victims) is lengthy: The American Red Cross (2000); the United States Lifesaving Association (1996); the American Heart Association (2000); the Institute of Medicine (1995); the International Life Saving Federation (1998).

...Dr. James Orlowski said he has documented nearly 40 cases where rescuers performing the Heimlich maneuver have caused complications for the victim. Orlowski is chief of pediatrics and pediatric intensive care at University Community Hospital in Tampa.

Via a Cleveland Scene cover story by reporter Thomas Francis that references the IOM's 1995 benchmark report rejecting the use of the Heimlich maneuver to revive drowning victims:

"The Institute of Medicine is the crown jewel of medical intelligentsia in the United States," says (drowning expert and retired Coast Guard Admiral Alan) Steinman. "They looked at this issue and said, 'Bad idea.'"

Former SALF medical director Stanley Zydlo MD at a 2009 book signing (source)

Five years later, SALF's medical director ignored the IOM report and the other organizations.

From Water Rescue Sequence: The Controversial Role of the Heimlich Maneuver (in drowning rescue) the year 2000 article by Pamela Mills-Senn which was the Rosetta Stone for much of my later research:


Since there are no published studies supporting the use of the Heimlich maneuver for drowning rescue, it's unclear what "documented literature" Dr. Zydlo researched.

His time might have been better spent researching SALF's founder/president. 


From Where Did the Save-A-Life Money Go? by Don Bauder in the November 17, 2010 San Diego Reader:

(Carol) Spizzirri was a darling of politicians and bureaucrats, although it was a matter of record that she had been convicted twice for shoplifting. Save-A-Life began raking in money from government grants.

...(Spizzirri) had told (ABC I-Team reporter Chuck Goudie) that she was a registered nurse. But the station reported that the institution from which she had claimed to receive her nursing degree had never given her one. A hospital in which she had claimed to be a transplant nurse said she had been a patient care assistant, which is akin to a candy striper....

...On May 18, 1992 - four months before the fatal accident - Christina filed for an order of protection against her mother...The complaint stated that Spizzirri had struck Christina “on several occasions and threatened her on many occasions.

Per the May 30, 2000 Los Angeles Times, Ellis & Associates, the lifeguard training company discussed in Mills-Senn's article, dumped the Heimlich-for-drowning protocol shortly after her article appeared.

But SALF continued to teach and promote the treatment.

Here's a May 3, 2001 workshop held at the Illinois PTA's annual convention:


A year later, my father told reporter Angela D. Sykora of the Grayslake Review (IL):

SALF executives Rita Mullins (in the red turtleneck) and Carol Spizzirri (seated) with Mike "Heckuva job, Brownie" Brown at January 23, 2003 signing ceremony when SALF became a FEMA member organization, US Conference of Mayors annual meeting, Washington, DC. Six years later, as first reported by The Sidebar, FEMA kicked SALF out.

Astoundingly, in January 2003 SALF became a member organization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

My father marked the occasion with a joint letter to FEMA chief Mike Brown and Carol Spizzirri (page down) that included:


In other words, FEMA was fully aware that SALF's training program was putting the public at risk as the agency provided SALF access "to train and educate children and families in basic first aid through the Citizen Corps network of state and local councils."  

Two years later, from SALF's annual "Bridge the Gap" convention in 2005:


Here comes the clincher.

When I started researching my father's career in 2002, I already knew he hadn't held a hospital job since he was fired for misconduct in 1976 by Cincinnati's Jewish Hospital.

But I quickly learned that for decades he's been persona non grata in the medical profession.

Besides his crackpot claims that the Heimlich maneuver can revive drowning victims, stop asthma attacks, and cure cystic fibrosis, the Heimlich Institute conducted a series of notorious offshore experiments in which US and foreign nationals suffering with cancer, Lyme Disease, and AIDS were infected with malaria. (For more details, watch Brian Ross's ABC 20/20 report, Is Dr. Heimlich really a savior?)

My father and SALF's second-in-command, former Palatine, IL mayor Rita Mullins

Sure he has a famous name, but what legitimate organization would want him as a medical adviser?

And what reputable first aid training group would teach the public to perform the Heimlich maneuver on drowning victims, as reported by Pamela Mills-Senn?

I wanted to find out for myself so in early 2004, using a pseudonym, I e-mailed SALF and asked for a position statement.

In a chirpy, solicitous February 8, 2004 e-mail, Carol Spizzirri sent me the following. (Page down to view the entire letter which, incidentally, is littered with grammatical errors.)


Were the CDC, the National Guard, and the Illinois government agencies aware that they were providing millions of dollars to an organization that was teaching and promoting an unapproved, long-discredited medical treatment that might seriously injure or kill people?

Did any of these agencies ever review SALF's training protocols? Did any of them ask the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, or independent medical experts to evaluate SALF's program?

What about the prominent public officials from Illinois like Arne Duncan, Senator Dick Durbin, Congressman John Shimkus, Paul Vallas, Gery Chico, and others who promoted and/or helped fund SALF? Were they even aware what SALF was teaching to students in their state?

In days to come, I'll try to get answers to those questions and will report the results here.


8/20/12 UPDATE: I just sent letters of concern re: SALF's faulty, dangerous training to the Illinois Attorney General's Charitable Trust Bureau (which reportedly has been investigating SALF since mid-2010), and to Chicago Public Schools Inspector General James M. Sullivan with whom I filed an investigation request on January 5, 2011. Click the links to view my letters on Scribd.com.






This item has been slightly revised.

Is the Illinois Attorney General pretending to investigate the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF)?

That's the question posed in a December blog item by "Hugo Floriani, Investigative Reporter" on a mystery site called called Illinois Pay to Play. It's a mystery to me anyway. (Hey, Hugo, if you're reading this, could you send me a copy of your driver's license? Okay, I'll settle for a library card.)

Regardless of Hugo's bona fides, Illinois State Sen. Tim Bivins (R-Dixon), who spent three decades working in law enforcement, has raised more or less the same question in an acerbic letter he recently sent to IL Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

IL Sen.Tim Bivins (R-Dixon)

First, some quick catch-up.

Via Possible Charity Scam by Sophia Beausoleil, WCIA-TV News, Champaign-Urbana, IL, October 20, 2010:

Save a Life Foundation was a Chicago based non-profit that would teach children all over the state and country emergency rescue techniques...A representative for the Attorney General's office said they are looking into the organization's charitable contributions and assets.

Click here for the correspondence between SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri and the Attorney General's Office that triggered the investigation.

Don't miss Spizzirri's unusual June 11, 2010 letter to Assistant Attorney General Barry Goldberg accompanied by a weird attached "Cyber Sabotage Activities" report in which I and others are named as "co-conspirators."

Apparently that's what you're called if you ask questions about what happened to the reported $8.6 million federal and state tax dollars awarded to Spizzirri's organization. 

If that's so, according to this recent article, the latest "co-conspirators" are Sen. Bivins and Gery Chico, chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education:

Save-A-Life Foundation is one of a couple organizations Bivins is looking at...The former Lee County sheriff wants investigations and audits of these groups, he said.

Chico agreed.

"I think if there's probable cause for wrongdoing, especially if it involves public money, there ought to be an investigation, sure," Chico said.

I think Hugo would also agree.

Gery Chico receives SALF award from Carol Spizzirri (photo from SALF's 2003 Annual Corporate report)

I don't know if Chico has taken any action, but here's the letter Sen. Bivins sent. For a copy of the original, click here or page down.

Note: I've added links to the names of the four Save-A-Life Foundation principals that lead to more information about them. Quick FYI, Douglas R. Browne is an executive at the US Centers for Disease Control here in Atlanta; John Donleavy is the former president of VELCO, one of Vermont's largest energy companies.

Carol Spizzirri

1930 W. San Marcos Blvd #285

San Marcos, CA 92078

Rita Mullins, Secretary

858 N. Virginia Lake Ct.

Palatine, IL 60074

Douglas R. Browne, Treasurer

2851 Evans Woods Dr.

Doraville, GA 30340

John Donleavy, Director

325 3rd Street South

Naples FL 34102

The Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a Chicago-area nonprofit that has been the subject of dozens of critical media reports since November 2006 and which is now the subject of federal and state investigations, became a member organization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in January 2003.



On September 17, 2009, after SALF founder/president Carol Spizzirri filed for voluntary dissolution as an Illinois corporation, her organization went belly-up. 

Just weeks before, per these records I obtained last week via a Freedom of Information Act request, Spizzirri's organization was dumped by FEMA.

Note that Spizzirri mentions me in her August 1, 2009 last gasp letter to FEMA, dated about a month after her organization withdraw its failed nuisance lawsuit filed against me and others. (Per a Cincinnati newspaper report, that "case was widely viewed as having the potential to set a precedent involving First Amendment protections for online commentary.")








Since mid-2010, SALF has reportedly been under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded SALF about $3.33 million. In November 2010, the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services recommended that CDC review the role of SALF's corporate treasurer, CDC executive Douglas R. Browne.

SALF received no funds from FEMA.

As for Spizzirri - who, according to the San Diego Reader, once "was a darling of politicians and bureaucrats, although it was a matter of record that she had been convicted twice for shoplifting" - she's now living in a mobile home park in San Marcos, California.

SALF executives Rita Mullins (straw hat) & Carol Spizzirri (black pants suit) and US Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (turquoise shirt), Punjabi Sports Festival, Chicago, July 15, 2007 (source)

From Possible Charity Scam by Sophia Beausoleil, WCIA News, Champaign, IL:

According to the Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office, the Save a Life Foundation (SALF) closed it's doors Sept., 2009.  Whenever a non-profit shuts down, the state does an investigation, but over the summer the state received complaints and documents questioning the organizations handling of finances. A representative for the Attorney General's office said they are looking into the organizations charitable contributions and assets.

Here's more for the Attorney General to look into, a letter I e-mailed today (slightly revised for clarity).

(Dr.) Amler graduated from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, moved to New Orleans for a residency in pediatrics and eventually landed at U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

...When she and her husband worked for federal health agencies, they had ties to the Save A Life Foundation, a charity in Illinois that taught first-aid skills to children. The foundation, which received millions in federal grant money, was discredited after a 2006 television news investigation revealed that its founder, Carol Spizzirri, lied about being a registered nurse, the circumstances of her daughter’s fatal car crash (the reason the foundation was created) and the number of children it had trained.

Amler said the CDC assigned her to advise the group on how to measure whether its teaching was effective. After she found out in 2008 that she was listed on SALF’s website as a board member, she called the organization to take off her name.

“I had nothing to do with their board,” she said.

“I think if there’s probable cause for wrongdoing, especially if it involves public money, there ought to be an investigation, sure,” Chico said.

Rep. Rob Woodall (holding copies of SALF documents I handed to him), Town Hall, Suwanee, GA, 11/5/11

A freshman Republican congressman from Georgia is asking questions about a developing Illinois scandal that involves two of the biggest players in the national Democratic party.

Sidebar regulars know that the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) was a high-flying nonprofit that, according to the Chicago Tribune, was awarded nearly $9 million in federal and state funds to provide first aid training classes to millions of students.

Among other problems, records of any training classes are hard to come by.

IL State Sen. Tim Bivins

Last week an Illinois daily reported that State Senator Tim Bivins (R-Dixon) and State Board of Education chairman Gery Chico want "investigations and audits of (SALF)":

“Where’s our money going?” Bivins said. “Where’s our tax dollars going? Where did it go?... As taxpayers, we have a right to know where the money’s going.”

...Chico agreed.

"I think if there’s probable cause for wrongdoing, especially if it involves public money, there ought to be an investigation, sure,” Chico said.

That prospect doesn't seem to appeal to this pair of officials who helped SALF obtain big bucks: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin. Click their names and you'll see what I mean.

Back in the day, both spared no praise or support for the organization and its founder/president, Carol J. Spizzirri. Duncan called her "one of my heroes." Durbin told a CNN reporter, "I would do everything I could to help her."

Spizzirri, reportedly a twice-convicted shoplifter whose teenage daughter filed a protective order against her mother, is also prone to exaggeration. For instance, per this eye-popping 2006 I-Team report by ABC Chicago, she claimed nonexistent medical credentials, a bogus college degree, and even fabricated stories about her own child's death to gin up funds for her organization.


After dozens more media exposes, you'd think the elected officials who handed SALF millions of public dollars might want to assure taxpayers that their money didn't go down the you-know-where.

Think again. Despite his calls for oversight, Bivins wrote me, "There is little or no interest in pursuing an investigation of SALF in Illinois."

Such incuriousity may be attributable to SALF's connections to scores of public officials up and down the Prairie State's political food chain.

Click here for pages of photos of some of those worthies posing with SALF founder/president Carol Spizzirri and her second-in-command, Rita Mullins, former 20-year mayor of Palatine, IL.

Here are the gal pals of SALF enjoying themselves at a wedding shower last year for Spizzirri's daughter, Ciprina. Since then, Mama Spizzirri has reportedly relocated from Grayslake, IL, to a mobile home park in San Marcos, California.

SALF's Carol J. Spizzirri & Rita Mullins

As Sen. Bivins wrote me, "It's going to take someone from outside Illinois to expose the SALF scandal."

That someone may turn out to be my congressman, Rob Woodall, (R-GA, 7th District).

This week, Rep. Woodall wrote me that since July he's been asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about $3.33 million that agency awarded to SALF.

According to sworn grant applications and financial reports SALF submitted to the CDC (which I obtained via FOIA), a good chunk of that dough was supposed to be used by SALF to provide first aid training classes for many thousands of students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and other districts.

During most of those years, Arne Duncan was in charge of CPS and had a close relationship with Spizzirri and her operation. He even appeared as a cartoon character on SALF's website:



Here's one problem. In response to a federal court subpoena and public records requests, CPS can't locate any training records.

So where'd the CDC money go?

In addition to Duncan, one person who should know the answer to that question is Douglas Browne who, according to an October article in The Hill, "served as (SALF's) corporate treasurer from 2004 to 2009."

Per The Hill, during those same years Browne was also - can you say conflict of interest? - a Deputy Director at the CDC. From SALF's 2006-07 Annual Report:


Via The Hill:

(Congressional candidate Tim)Bagwell sent an 8-page letter to Health and Human Services Inspector General Daniel Levinson on Monday requesting that the office "review and determine" whether $3.3 million awarded to the Save-A-Life Foundation were "properly administered."

...Bagwell also wants the inspector general to review the relationship between the nonprofit and CDC Deputy Director Douglas Browne, who served as the nonprofit's corporate treasurer from 2004 to 2009.

That resulted in this:



At the beginning of the summer, I spent a frustrating month trying to get answers from the CDC about the status of the IG's request "for further review and appropriate administrative action" about Browne's role.

CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD MPH

After being sandbagged by three CDC departments, including the office of Director Tom Frieden, I wrote congressman Woodall and requested his assistance.

Last Saturday Rep. Woodall hosted a local Town Hall meeting at which I took the opportunity to reiterate my concerns. A few days later, he sent me this. (To download a copy, click here.)



Per the congressman's letter, there's more to come, so keep reading The Sidebar for updates.

Rep. Rob Woodall

In the meantime, I encourage readers to write your own congressional representative, share a link to this item, and request that s/he send a letter of support to Rep. Woodall for his willingness to take a closer look at this rat's nest.

If you do, feel free to e-mail copies to me.