Say goodbye to Sonitrol, Shiver, Pye-Baker security charges and more.

Update since I published: DDN confirms “crisis mode,” and a new “white paper” surfaces

After I published this post last week, the Dayton Daily news ran a front-page story on Friday ^[1] based on records obtained through a public records request, including the Training Marbles climate survey analysis. The headline conclusion is blunt. The consultant describes Dayton Metro Library as being in “crisis mode,” and the story reports that roughly 70% of survey respondents did not trust library administration to make decisions on their behalf.

That matters for two reasons:

1. It independently supports the core theme here. Trust and governance have collapsed, and staff believe leadership is not listening. =
2. It increases pressure on the Board to stop hiding behind vague language and start putting clear, dated, public statements into the record.

A “white paper” allegation packet was posted in the comments

I also received a comment containing a “white paper” attributed to a group calling itself Concerned Citizens for a Better Library (CCBL) on my post. The commenter claims this packet was sent to the Ohio Inspector General and the Ohio Ethics Commission. Having experience contacting both of those organizations, I have little hope that anything will change.

I cannot verify that claim at this time. What I can say is that the document is extensive and alleges specific categories of misconduct and mismanagement. The claims include conflicts of interest involving trustees, non-competitive contracting, DPAA-related sponsorship and space issues, budget overreach, and a pattern of senior-staff departures.

One of the interesting contracts it points to is the hiring of a company that also got a no-bid contract from Dayton Public Schools that provided nothing of value- nor was it competitively bid. "The executive director has given contracts to board members, or their friend’s, companies, such as Charleton and Charleton ^[2], to conduct a Human Resources Audit in 2021/2022 when the firm had no previous experience or expertise in this work. No competitive bid was procured. This action is also a non-reported conflict of interest."

As with the Gonzales letter, allegations are not proof. But detailed allegations like these should trigger exactly one response from a competent public board. Produce the paper trail, including payments, contracts, waivers, bids, disclosures, minutes, and authorizations, so the public does not have to guess.

What I am not doing

I have also heard off-the-record personal explanations for Trzeciak’s absence. I am not repeating them as fact, and I am not going to make someone’s private life the story. The story is governance. Who is in charge, who has authority, what decisions were made, and where is the documentation.

Deadlines for Deadbeats

As far as I understand, the deadline for filing a response brief to my merit brief in the Ohio Supreme Court was Thursday. That means either Jon Paul Rion fired Montgomery County Clerk of Courts as his client, Foley ran out of money. or they think they will win on the basis of what's been filed. What the timeline is from here out is totally up to the court.
in the meantime, Foley has managed to start another new side business- "Gem City Water ^[3]" and he hired some agency out of Dallas Texas to do his website. ^[4] I'm guessing he's looking for a back-up career once he gets booted from the Clerk's office.

How to say no to the corporate monsters buying up local security monitoring businesses

I have had 4 Honeywell alarm systems since at lease 1995 and at least 2 since 1990. I started out with a guy named Ron Ross who knew a friend. He bought his monitoring services from a guy locally. When he moved to Florida he sold his "book of business" to the monitoring company. Eventually, he shut down the local monitoring service and farmed it out to a giant call center. Then, he sold out to Shiver Security Systems who were part of Sonitrol and then got bought by Pye-Barker ^[5].

Pye-Barker Fire & Safety is a classic private-equity roll-up play: buy dozens of regional fire/life-safety and electronic security firms, keep the revenue flowing, and stitch them into a national platform. The attraction isn’t just installing alarms and cameras, it’s the “subscription” side of the business: recurring inspection/testing contracts, monitoring, service agreements, and compliance work that produces predictable monthly cash flow. With PE capital behind it and fresh funding to keep expanding, Pye-Barker’s incentive structure is straightforward: keep acquiring local operators that already own customer relationships and recurring contracts, standardize the back office, and scale a nationwide annuity machine out of what used to be a fragmented, hometown industry.

That's when the BS started. I got 4 bills for different amounts for every system for the year. The systems are all identical for the most part- and I sent payment for all of them at the same lowest rate. This started a whole series of bills and threats over about $56 total. That plus, they kept trying to say that I hadn't paid for my home system- despite sending them the cancelled check multiple times.

Knowing how these systems work, there was no excuse not to give a 35 year customer the benefit of a doubt. Instead, they tried to pressure me into signing a 3 year fixed contract to "get the same rate." I showed them a link to a company that would monitor for a lot less, and they just dug in deeper.

I tried to cancel all 4, and they told me one was in the last year of a contract, and that I had to give them 30 days notice. So I gave notice on the 3, and started the process to transfer. They refused to provide my master alarm code, shut off the auto-dialers, did everything they could to make it more difficult. I was paying about $33 a month each, now I'm paying $18 a month and get this- I now have a smart phone app to manage all 4 systems. I went to SafeHomeCentral ^[6] and it's been great. Two of my systems had a PROM chip that was too old for the remote monitoring- and I bought these from AlarmGrid ^[7]and installed them myself. Net cost- about $60 all in. If you live in the Dayton, Springfield, Xenia, Cincinnati region and are looking for lower cost security monitoring, I hope this helps you out.

If you are Sonitrol, Shiver. Pye-Barker and you think that telling Dayton's most read news blog to go pound salt when they ask for a simple price adjustment- and pissing off a long term customer is a good idea- maybe you'll learn now. The hard way.