CORPORADOS

CORPORATE TRESPASSING: THIS SEARCH IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE WONDERFUL
FOLKS AT. . .

SEAN LENGELL, WASHINGTON TIMES - The plastic bins that carry shoes, keys
and loose change through airport security checkpoints may soon be
doubling as billboards. The Transportation Security Administration has
announced a one-year pilot program to allow commercial advertisements on
the bins at selected airports. . . Under the terms of the program,
private companies will supply TSA with the bins, metal tables and carts
used at security checkpoints. In exchange, the agency will allow the
vendor the right to place ads inside the bins.

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20070107-101301-3301r


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CREDIT UNION STALLS CORPORADO TAKEOVER

KATHLEEN DAY, WASHINGTON POST - The board of directors of Lafayette
Federal Credit Union shelved a year-long push to convert the nonprofit,
member-owned institution into a for-profit, shareholder-owned bank,
handing a victory to hundreds of members who fought the conversion and
are seeking to oust the board for attempting it. The decision came three
weeks after the board of the Kensington credit union said that members
had approved the plan by an 18-vote margin out of more than 5,000
ballots cast. In a notice posted on its Web site, the board said
yesterday that it was withdrawing the proposal because the "balloting
process has been irredeemably compromised." It blamed the errors on the
accounting firm of RSM McGladrey, which it had hired to certify that the
election process was conducted fairly. . .

McGladrey originally certified the results of the three-month voting
process after it ended in mid-December. But after questions were raised
by the credit union's federal regulator, the National Credit Union
Administration, McGladrey reassessed the vote. Last week it withdrew its
certification.

The NCUA has been reviewing more than a dozen complaints from Lafayette
members, including allegations that some members did not receive ballots
and that some of the marked ballots were handed to Lafayette branch
managers, who mishandled them. . .

Members who opposed the conversion plan said they were happy with the
board's decision but still plan to proceed with effort to try to oust
the nine directors, including Hearne. Scott Stiens, a leader in efforts
to defeat the conversion proposal and a manager at the U.S. Agency for
International Development, said he and others had collected about 700 of
the 750 signatures needed to call a special meeting of members to vote
on replacing the board.

In a sign of how contentious the proposal had become, Stiens said the
board had police eject him Wednesday from the Lafayette branch at the
Small Business Administration in downtown Washington as he tried to
collect signatures. . .

Members who oppose conversion say it would give the board of directors
and managers a windfall from prospective higher salaries and ownership
of stock in the new institution. All credit-union members would have
gotten a chance to buy stock, but few would have exercised that option,
opponents say, because most could not afford to or do not understand the
benefit of buying shares.

They also say turning Lafayette into a bank would mean higher fees and
declining services because the institution would lose the tax exempt
status that credit unions enjoy, as well as losing the free space its
branches now occupy in federal buildings.

Lafayette is one of several dozen credit unions management has sought to
convert to a stockholder-owned bank since the mid-1990s, when Congress
made it easier to do so. In the past year, Wall Street speculators have
targeted credit unions like Lafayette, finding ways to join to be
eligible to buy shares once it is converted into a bank, which they then
plan to sell for a profit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/
AR2007011202089.html

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