Intimidating and Threatening Tactics Being Used Against GPUT members

Jeff Beardall and his group are continuing to engage in intimidation, scare and bullying tactics to attempt to disrupt and destroy the progressive party movement in Utah.

Last Thursday night Beardall, the self-proclaimed spokesperson of the Green Party of Utah, appeared at our party secretary’s retail shop and threatened her with an “investigation” regarding the transfer of funds over a year ago from one GPUT account to another GPUT account. (small history: the party secretary was granted consent by the council to transfer funds because one council member was writing unauthorized checks against the account without council approval and was not informing the treasurer of such expenditures. Read her account at Response from Secretary and Response from a member.)

Friday, Beardall called the tabling organizer of an event that the GPUT tabled at Saturday, (which had been arranged several months ago), stating that he was the “legal represenative” of the GPUT and that our group had no right to be tabling.

Saturday, Beardall showed up with Diana Hirschi, a suspended GPUT member, and even though they were told to go away and not talk to us, they insisted on standing in front of our table, arguing with us, shoving the copy of the Utah elections site web page of political parties in our faces (all after we told them to leave us alone). They did this 3 times. The police were notified and arrived at our table to take a report.

Interesting how Hirschi is a self-proclaimed expert on consensus and non-violence.

The premise of Beardall’s and Hirschi’s unsolicited argument is that the GPUT has no right to be using the name “Green Party of Utah” on our petition. Beardall et all have no right to tell us this. We will not change **anything** until we receive word from the Director of Elections that we have to. It is only then that the name issue will be addressed.

Additionally, Beardall still attempts to maintain that we have no right to use our non-profit entity “Green Party of Utah, Inc.” to be involved in political activity. This was very telling in that it is apparent that Beardall STILL does not understand the nature of the variety of non-profits. “Green Party of Utah” non-profit operates the same as a PAC for the political party and is not subject to the same criteria as a 501(c)(3). Green Party of Utah has no intention of filing for 501(c)(3) status since it will not operate as a charitable or educational organization as defined by that section of the IRS code. In other words, contributions made to the Green Party of Utah will not be tax deductible. This has been explained in internet and website documents numerous times.

Here are the ways that Beardall has been continuing harassing, violent, and stalking behaviors (aside from the above mentioned events).

– Illegally obtained the website domain’s agent’s password to steal the party website

– Issued the threat of “consider yourself on ‘notice'” (whatever that means) in an email from March 14, 2005

– Followed the Utah Delegates to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the GPUS convention to create a scene and attempt to unseat the Utah delegates

Also, Beardall has been sent two cease and desist letters from our lawyer.

A couple of comments made to us at our table by these inviduals:

Hirschi: “We’re going to stand out here [in the middle of the walkway] and inform the public.”

(Note: We obtained 21 pages of signatures during the event.)

Beardall: “Prozac and Paxil are the highest prescribed in Utah and maybe you should take some.” (directed towards our party secretary who became agitated during the insistent confrontation after telling the antagonists to go away.)

It is interesting to note, also, that these two individuals chose to engage in confrontation only when there were women present at the GPUT table. As soon as Tom showed up, they ceased attempting to engage us in confrontation. In fact, Beardall, who has never been introduced to Tom, yelled out “Hi Tom!” from a distance when Tom arrived in the booth. He did the same thing in Tulsa to us both, even though we had never, ever, engaged with him in any way. He acts as if we all are old buddies.

And he’s telling us to get prozac?

One of the event organizers then appeared and tried to talk us into getting “all of us” together to talk about this. I refused as did our party secretary, on the grounds that we felt threatened by Beardall et al and that we had already filed a police report. I told this organizer that I didn’t care if they were permitted to have a booth there, that we just wanted them away from our table. She seemed satisfied with that solution and offered a booth to Beardall and Hirschi since there had been some “no shows” that day. Hirschi then responded with the statement that it was getting too late in the day (it was before noon and the event ended at 7pm)and therefore declined the offer.

Both Beardall and Hirschi left about an hour after attempting to get our booth shut down. Hirschi showed up later in the evening with her husband but did not stop at our booth.

So it appears that they had no intention of doing outreach and were there merely to try to get our table shut down and cause a disruption. Just like it happened in Tulsa, where Beardall showed up three days into the convention, caused his disruption, then left.

After I arrived home Saturday night, there was an email from Beardall waiting for me that had been copied to me but sent to our party secretary, again threatening her with legal action, by virtue of being contacted by local authorities, if she did not return the money Beardall has accused her of “stealing” from party funds. This was an unsolicited email, which I regard as SPAM, as I have never given Beardall my personal email address, and has now been reported to the Federal Trade Commission. This email threat, coupled with the threat issued to her (in front of me) at her shop Thursday night, I believe is called EXTORTION.

One thing Beardall keeps maintaining is that our secretary had “removed herself” as an officer of the party. I’d like to know where the proof of that is, because that is a blatant falsehood. Just like the claim in front of the GPUS delegation in Tulsa that he had been a “member of the Green Party for 8 years” (the GPUT has not been in existence for 8 years; there is no record of Beardall being a member; he has never been a registerd green up through 2002 according to public voter registration records.).

It is interesting to note that ever since the Beardall group gained recognized status from the elections office, they have not been seen at any outreach events. Once they obtained their goal and got what they wanted, they stopped doing Green Party outreach. They have no intereset in building their party, only causing disuption and attempt to control anything and anyone having to do with the Green Party.

The affiliated group, however, has been continually engaged in outreach opportunites.

Beardall employed the same tactic of contacing event organizers for other events in the past several months.

Also important to note that, despite the fact that the Beardall group has continued to engage in confrontational strategies, the GPUS-affiliated group has chosen not to be confrontational and has not approached the other group in any situation.

Bullying is not o.k.

The key values on non-violence have definitely been violated here by this factional group. It is very telling as evidenced by Saturday’s demonstration of that violation.