LISTEN UP > Lynn Tilton: A Target Fighting To Tell The Truth ?

Lynn Tilton Podcast: The Fight For My Truth To Be Told

Lynn Tilton concludes her podcast series, 7 Years A Target discussing her own fight for the truth to be told.

Source: Patriarch Partners March 10, 2017

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• Lynn Tilton Writings, Misc, Podcast

BIG Military Contracts Go Boing for Lynn Tilton + MD Helos

Admittedly, your MesaZona blogger finds it hard to describe Patriarch Partners Dominatrix WonderWoman  Biz Exec Extraordinaire Lynn Tilton . . . Good news and bad news. After a recent setback in February under her 6-year scrutiny by the SEC, she was all-out last week @ HeliExpo 2017 as The Diva of Distressed Debt in a public relations-blitz, looking for a little love in military contract awards

MD Helicopters Touts Rotorcraft Developments

Curt Epstein March 2017

MD Helicopters CEO Lynn Tilton described the company’s situation as a “good news, bad news story."

Source: Business Jet Traveler 
“The good news is we are oh so busy, the bad news is we are oh so busy,” she told the crowd

noting that of the more than 50 helicopters the company will build this year, all will have block changes, such as glass cockpits. “We may have been a bit late to the game but we have finally taken every aircraft over into glass and digital, and I think we’ve done it with some gusto,” she said.
Tilton credited the company’s military contracts for the transition. 

In what is described as a cost-cutting measure, MD Helicopters has taken strides to bring more production in-house, including the single-engine fuselages, construction of which was formerly split between Monterey, Mexico, and Mesa, Arizona. GOOD NEWS FOR MESA
All fuselage production has now been returned to Mesa.
Tilton claimed that each part manufactured in-house results in savings of 35%, which could be reflected in the helicopters' bottom lines.
The company will also soon be bringing training in house, offering specialized programs for police, rescue, military tactical, weapons, night vision goggles, and specialized mechanic training both on premises in Arizona and deliverable on-site.

The company was able to embrace new technology research and development that comes with certifying military aircraft and reinvest into new programs that enabled it to develop programs such as the 6XX single-engine helicopter.

Appearing at this year’s show, Tilton said the unveiling of the aircraft on MD’s booth was “a defining moment” for the company.
The company began development of the MD 6XX as a scout attack helicopter, but said it will also pursue certification of a civilian version that would likely have applications as a law enforcement or emergency medical services (EMS) aircraft — and it’s in EMS configuration that the aircraft appeared at the show.
Rather than featuring the company’s famous NOTAR anti-torque technology, the MD 6XX has a more traditional four-bladed tail rotor and an extended composite tail boom, which MD claimed will deliver 40 percent more anti-torque power. The use of the tail rotor is also said to provide a reduced noise signature.
Its six-bladed main rotor will utilize S411 blades from Helicopter Technology Company. The bonded blades have a three-section airfoil design, said to offer more efficient operation, a reduced noise profile, and better autorotation characteristics. Tilton said she believed the blades would provide a performance boost of about 10%.
In the cockpit, the 6XX will feature the Genesys Aerosystems IDU-680 avionics system — the same suite planned for the MD 902 as that aircraft evolves into the MD 969. It will also have boosted flight controls for a reduced pilot workload, digital three-axis autopilot, and will be instrument flight rules capable.
The aircraft will be powered by a Rolls-Royce M250-C47E3 engine, and Tilton said it would be fly-by-wire, as well as featuring several types of new technology in development.

These include

• a “radar cocoon” akin to the sensing capabilities provided in some automobiles for use in degraded visual environment conditions,
• utilizing LIDAR, radar, and camera technology
• the capability to deploy and recover drones.
  

Tilton said her connections to the automotive industry were helping to streamline the development of some of the new technologies in the aircraft. “You can’t be in the [automotive] industry if you’re not building an autonomous vehicle,” she said. “We’ve been able to bring a lot of that technology to the aerospace industry. The cocoon technology that we’re building right now, which is an incredible safety feature, is all done with automotive technology.”                    In terms of its projected performance, Tilton said the MD 6XX will have a 5,500-pound (2,500-kilogram) maximum gross takeoff weight; a 3,200-pound (1,450-kilogram) useful load; a 500 nautical mile range; a cruise speed of 140 knots with a maximum of 160 knots; and a 20,000-foot ceiling. Tilton said the MD is aiming to have the aircraft available on the market by the end of 2018, but didn’t set a certification timeline for the civilian version.

 

See more at Vertical Mag

While Tilton admitted that testing for the upgraded Rolls-Royce C47 E3 is taking longer than expected, she said the 5,500-pound, clean-sheet design is expected to fly by the end of the year, and the company could achieve certification by the end of 2018.    

BAD NEWS

Zohar CLO Funds Target Lynn Tilton in $1 Billion Lawsuit

Tilton-created funds accuse founder of ‘fraud, theft and mismanagement’

By Peg Brickley  The Wall Street Journal Updated Jan. 17, 2017 9:29 a.m. ET

Source: Wall Street Journal

 

Lynn Tilton is hoping for a little love from the Trump administration.
The private equity executive, known as the Diva of Distressed Debt, believes a Republican-led Securities and Exchange Commission will be more reasonable and end her nearly two-year regulatory nightmare.

By Carleton English   January 31, 2017 | 9:30pm

Peg BrickleySource: New York Post

Lynn Tilton Podcast: The Fight For My Truth To Be Told

Lynn Tilton concludes her podcast series, 7 Years A Target discussing her own fight for the truth to be told.

• March 10, 2017


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• Lynn Tilton Writings, Misc, Podcast

 

OPEN CALL FOR PROTOTYPES > To Improve The Flow of Accurate Information

Knight Prototype Fund seeks early-stage ideas to improve the flow of accurate information
March 13, 2017 by John Bracken and Jennifer Preston
Source: Knight Foundation
The deadline to submit your idea is 5 p.m. ET on April 3, 2017.
Winners will be announced in June - up to $1 million in grants with an average size of about $50,000

The internet is a wild place, and the way we receive and process news is complicated.

As our reliance on digital platforms grows, we are swimming in misinformation and kept separate by social media algorithms that push us to talk to people with whom we already agree.
Four out of 5 of us don’t trust the media.
And local news—which tell us what’s going on around us—is in trouble with a lack of solid financial models.

At Knight Foundation, we’re driven by the belief that informed citizens are the key to a healthy democracy.
Today we, along with Democracy Fund and Rita Allen Foundation, are launching an open call for ideas answering the question:
How might we improve the flow of accurate information?

We’re looking for technologists, journalists, designers, teachers, researchers, and others who are eager to develop ideas to help build trust in journalism and address the spread of misinformation. The call is open to U.S.-based individuals, for-profits and nonprofits. We don’t believe a handful of grants can fix the information ecosystem, but we do believe working together can spur some ideas, and we can learn together what’s likely to have the most impact. 
We’re doing this as a call for prototypes.

We’ve designed the Knight Prototype Fund to quickly develop and test early-stage ideas.
We expect to award up to $1 million in grants with an average size of about $50,000. Each grant comes with a two-day training on building and evolving ideas through prototyping.
If you have more questions about the call, please review our FAQ and follow #prototypefund on Twitter.
We’re open for your ideas today through 5 p.m. ET April 3. Apply here.  We will announce winning projects in June, and look forward to reviewing your ideas.
John Bracken is vice president for technology innovation and Jennifer Preston is vice president for journalism at Knight Foundation. 

Mesa Repub Bob Worsley + His Shameful Tax Schemes

SHAME ON YOU Bob Worsley!

Once again today, dear readers, your MesaZona blogger is finding it hard to live up to his last name - mellow I am not.
For months now a group of 'highly-influential friends' referred to here as THE FOG, with disclosed and undisclosed real estate ownerships, family connections and/or overlapping business interests [some of whom hold onto elected political offices here in Mesa and the Arizona State House] have been playing their hands for their questionable own personal financial gains on the table of schemes gone-bad.

Most recently the taxpayers of Mesa REJECTED one of their campaigns back in November 2016. . .  that one involving the mayor and the ASU mascot Sparky used in a privately-financed $500,000 Public Relations stunt that back fired in a major screw-up.... Here they go again!  
For months now there's been another Pie-In-The-Sky scheme thrown together, cooked-up coining the phrase COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT DISTRICT, the subject of more than a few posts on this blog site:
March 6 THE PRICE IS RIGHT > Click here
March 4 KEEPING YOU INFORMED: Anyone here in Mesa Howling ... Click here
Feb 19 BEWARE: When Giles, The FOG, and Worsley Use The Phrase . . . Click here

Filling in some more details today from a non-profit group of actively engaged citizens and journalists, here are some excerpts that you are encouraged to read



Will another city spend tax money ....

Arizona Coyotes are banking on it

By Christian Britschgi  /   March 13, 2017  /   News  /   No Comments

Source: WatchDog.org
Earlier this year, Mesa Republican Sen. Bob Wolsey [seen at far right with friends] introduced legislation that would allow for the creation of a new type of taxing entity known as a community engagement district, in which tax revenue could be diverted to pay for the construction and maintenance of sports facilities that could also benefit him and the FOG here in Mesa - conflict of interest claims were widely published in media, including a number of posts on this blog site.

Arizona Senate President Steven Yarbrough and House Speaker John Mesnard, both Chandler Republicans are mentioned in this featured article. 

Under the proposed legislative trickery plan , a host city could opt to set up a CED, in which up to half of eligible state sales tax revenue — which typically would go to the state general fund — could be diverted to pay for construction of a sports facility. The CED would also gain the power to independently add an additional 2 percent surcharge.
The plan failed to gain traction at the tail end of the 2016 legislative session, but has since attracted the enthusiastic sponsorship of  Worsley, who dubiously claims that it keeps the team in Arizona without using state tax money. Instead, he says, it would “create new revenue, new jobs and new tax dollars where today none of that exists.” Also saying said he crafted the bill to be “location agnostic.”

Sean McCarthy, senior research analyst for the Arizona Tax Research Association, described the bill as “the least transparent way to provide a public subsidy to a team.”
Contrary to supporters’ claims that the bill would not touch state funds, McCarthy argues that the diversion of sales tax revenue from the general fund is in effect no different than using the tax code as a means of appropriating funds.
A Senate fact sheet on the bill acknowledges that it would have a negative fiscal impact on the state general fund, both from the diversion of funds and from any migration of economic activity from “from fully taxable areas to the CED.”
McCarthy also criticized the claim that a CED would produce economic growth, telling Watchdog that most of the activity associated with stadiums could be classified as commercial retail and that “moving commercial retail around does little to stimulate your economy.  You do nothing to change disposable income in an area.”
This squares pretty closely with the economic literature on sports facility subsidies, which has repeatedly found that they produce little in the way of economic benefits either for cities or the taxpayer.
Aside from fiscal conservatives, opposition is also percolating among Senate Democrats, and Yarbrough has told the Arizona Republic that it does not yet have the votes to pass.

 

Millenials So Bad . . . They're Different

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden told the BBC this week that he blames millennials for the government’s secrets being leaked to the public.
“In order to do this kind of stuff, we have to recruit from a certain demographic,” he said, referring to government surveillance. 
Image to the left taken from March 7 2017 Issue of New York Magazine by George Packer

Can You Keep a Secret?

The former C.I.A. chief Michael Hayden on torture and transparency.

The former general, now in 'private practice' has come out of the shadows in a BBC video saying this:

“And I don’t mean to judge them at all, but this group of millennials and related groups simply have different understandings of the words loyalty, secrecy, and transparency than certainly my generation did.”
He specifically cited whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden and speculated that whoever recently gave the CIA spy tool files to WikiLeaks was also likely a millennial.
“Culturally, they have different instincts than people who made the decision to hire them,” he said
Video on the source also > The Intercept
Hayden’s theory, however, doesn’t hold water.  

Whistleblowers and leakers have been a fact of life throughout United States history — and before its existence, too.
In 1772, Benjamin Franklin — born about 276 years too early to be a millennial — obtained letters from Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts, in which he mused about repressing the rights of colonists. Franklin leaked the letters, and they were used by the movement for independence to rile up the colonies against their British rulers.
It’s a tradition that has continued in generation after generation.
Consider Daniel Ellsberg, who was 40 when he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, exposing widespread government deceit about the Vietnam War. Or Mark Felt, who was almost 60 when he helped formed the basis for the Watergate stories under the pseudonym “Deep Throat.”
To the extent that Hayden is right that millennials are different, it’s that younger people value privacy — the core issue behind Snowden’s leaks — more than older Americans.
A 2013 Pew poll found that millennials were more skeptical of government surveillance than any other age group — with 45 percent of millennials saying it was more important for the federal government to “not intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terror threats” than “to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy.”
Among those 65 years old and older, just 26 percent held that view.
A 2015 poll commissioned by the ACLU found that 56 percent of Americans between the ages of 18-29 had a favorable view of Snowden, while just 26 percent of those above the age of 55 shared that view.

Top photo: Students at the University of Washington join thousands protesting the election of Donald Trump in Seattle.

Now @ Falcon Field Here In Mesa: DEA General Aviation USA

DEA General Aviation: US distributor for Cicare helicopters
7 Mar, 17, Source: DEA
Cicaré Rotorcraft announced on the opening day of HAI Heli-Expo the appointment of DEAGA USA as its exclusive distributor for the Cicaré range of helicopters, including the revolutionary Cicaré SVH4 helicopter trainer in the US and North America. http://www.deagausa.net/

DEAGA USA will be responsible for sales, support, training and assembly of the Cicaré range of products in the USA.
The company is currently establishing a sales and product support organization at the company’s newly established base at Falcon Field here in Mesa, recently opening an office and hangar at Falcon Field where it intends to assemble and distribute the SVH-4, 7B, and ultimately other Cicaré models. 
It is also looking to establish strategic alliances to widen the reach in the USA for Cicaré SVH4 Trainer use.

The Cicaré SVH4 ground based helicopter trainer has also received FAA “approval for up to 10 hours towards the total Private Pilot flight training time requirement for Helicopters.”
DEAGA USA is a subsidiary of DEA General Aviation Holdings, a $1 billion publicly traded Chinese company with diversified aviation interests that include engine manufacturers Hirth and Mistral and aerobatic aircraft company XtremeAir.
DEA holds the distributorship for Cicaré helicopters in China, Southeast Asia and North America. Chinese customers already have ordered 48 SVH-4s, and deliveries should commence from Arizona within several months, the company said.
The price is estimated at approximately $150,000 each, and financing and leasing options likely will be available, a Deaga USA spokesman said.
DEA General Aviation Holdings Ltd’s global interests include the aerobatic aircraft manufacturer XtremeAir and rotary company Rotorschiemde as well as engine manufacturers Hirth and Mistral EnginesSee one of the helicopters in action > http://www.cicare.com.ar/en-index.html 
See the SVH4 in operation at: Video Preview Download:www.cicare.com.ar

Unfunded Liabilities > Changes to Public Sector Pension Plans

Making Informed Changes to Public Sector Pension Plans

March 10, 2017

Pensions play a critical role in the ability of local governments to attract and retain the workforce needed to meet citizen demands. The costs associated with this employee benefit, however, can be substantial.
A recent National League of Cities (NLC) survey revealed that over the past year the cost of pensions increased in more than 70 percent of cities.
One in three cities identified these expenses as the factor most negatively affecting their budgets - Mesa is one of these.
You can access and view the report > here

NLC’s latest Municipal Action Guide includes a historical look at public sector pension plans, an overview of approaches to pension reforms, and a worksheet to help local officials navigate decision-making regarding their city’s pension plan.

Pensions play a critical role in the ability of local governments to attract and retain the workforce needed to meet citizen demands. The costs associated with this employee benefit, however, can be substantial. NLC’s new report, Making Informed Choices about Public Sector Pension Plans, examines the reforms that cities have made in response to funding challenges and the impact of these changes. It also offers ways that local leaders can become more active and informed decision makers, regardless of whether their city or state runs their employees’ pension plan.
Pension funding took a big hit as the Great Recession in 2008 materialized. The recession had an added component – beyond its depth and length – that previous recessions did not: a nearly decade-long period of exceptionally low interest rates. This feature of the recession resulted in lower expected returns and therefore higher pension funding requirements. In response, many cities instituted reforms, resulting in improvements to public pension funding ratios.
As part of our annual City Fiscal Conditions report, NLC surveyed city finance officers about the reforms made to their plans since the recession, regardless of whether their city or the state administers the plan. The following is an overview of their responses:

City Pension Reforms, 2009-2016

Change	%
Increased employee contribution rate	33
Changed plan design	22
Reduced benefits	17
Reduced COLA	12
Increased eligibility requirements	8
Increased vesting period	7
Other

Read or download the full Municipal Action Guide, Making Informed Choices about Public Sector Pension Plans.

About the author: Christiana K. McFarland is NLC’s Research Director. Follow Christy on Twitter at @ckmcfarland.

Christiana McFarland

Research Director

Research

Center for City Solutions

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