Defend Youngstown… or Profit from Youngstown?

[TrueDevotion]

I will call Tuesday to get some local quotes for shirts, but I was able to find a Cleveland company and they were about what I figured. Phil buys a lot of shirts and gets a discount for how much he orders.


I added his outstanding violations, he owes $580 in parking, including $150 parking capital recovery fee and $50 for handicapped parking.

[Rick Rowlands]

In your first post you claim $3 to $5 per shirt, and now you change it to $4 to $6 and also misstate that I pay $12. I pay $8.  Well it is only a $2 spread from your newly revised pricing and my actual pricing. You have not actually checked shirt pricing have you?  If you would have you would be quoting actual prices and not a price range that you keep changing.   I could buy cheap screenprinted shirts from Vistaprint for $6 each but I prefer to patronize local firms. 

Maybe he is waiting for the next parking amnesty to settle up? 

[jay]

Is that a list of parking violations for the City of Youngstown?

  Just another source of income for the city 

[TrueDevotion]

Could you please tell me who is selling full color screen printed T shirts for $3 to $5 each as I would like to change suppliers then!  I have a local shop make up my Youngstown Steel Heritage shirts for $8.00 each in two colors, and another out of town place is making some direct printed shirts for $9.50 each.  $20 retail leaves about $10.50 to $12.00 out of which the overhead of running the shop has to be paid.  That is not out of line with reality.

Unless you are ordering small quantities of shirts, you are grossly overpaying. No way you should be paying $12. I don't know much about how his fancy t-shirt business works but no way in heck is he paying more than $4-6 bucks a shirt. Check with Trolio's in Boardman or Eagle Wear in Hubbard.

And as far as my beef with Phil Kidd goes................. I just don't like him, I don't trust him.




Why doesn't the great Defender pay his parking tickets?

[Rick Rowlands]

The one question that should be asked is if whatever assets that were left from YN were indeed disbursed to another non profit organization as required by their articles of incorporation.  His new for profit cannot simply assume ownership of the merchandise and bank account balances and still be in compliance with the law.

[Rick Rowlands]

It is very possible that his tax exempt application was denied based upon his business model.  A non profit organization has to serve a public purpose, but what was that purpose other than operating a gift shop downtown?  The money that YN made from the gift shop would have been declared as unrelated busness income, and if that amount is eyond a certain percantage higher than what he makes from contributions and public support then it would jeopardize his tax exempt status.  UBI would not apply if Phil works as a volunteer without pay, but I don't think he does that.  So in this case converting the business over to a for profit status would be the only option.

Could you please tell me who is selling full color screen printed T shirts for $3 to $5 each as I would like to change suppliers then!  I have a local shop make up my Youngstown Steel Heritage shirts for $8.00 each in two colors, and another out of town place is making some direct printed shirts for $9.50 each.  $20 retail leaves about $10.50 to $12.00 out of which the overhead of running the shop has to be paid.  That is not out of line with reality.

I don't much care for the overall tone of your post TrueDevotion.  Please familiarize yourself with some of the rights and privileges of living in the United States, chief among them is the ability to do what we want with our lives without interference from others.  If Phil wants to run a gift shop downtown and gets enough customers to stay in business then so be it. It is not for us to judge.  I also disagree that he is not bringing in jobs.  He went from being paid by tax money to making his own way as an entrepreneur, and that should be commended. That is 1 job there that he created, and whoever is making the shirts is also benefiting.  But even judging a person's or a business's success on jobs created is incorrect.  A job is simply a means to an end and is not an end to itself.  What is important is what is being produced, not the number of people producing.

[Towntalk]

PK wants to take my place as Mr. Youngstown.

[Youngstownshrimp]

Most of us on this site know who each of us are.
Kindly explain where are you coming from and what are your views of Youngstown.
Also, you can go on the news outlet and Kidd writes for that site.  Read the archives here and you will see a history of the Kiddster from years ago.

[TrueDevotion]

Hey! it has always been my job to blow the whistle on community organizers.
What is your interest in questioning Mr. Youngstown?

I just don't get why people think he's so important when he's just a guy who sits in a storefront the size of a walk-in closet and doesn't really do anything of value. I also think he is just using Youngstown for personal gain.

[TrueDevotion]

Why do you care?  So what if he is profiting from it? It's called capitalism.

It's a big deal to profit when you are a non-profit. Kind of fishy to silently switch over to "for-profit" status...

[Youngstownshrimp]

Hey! it has always been my job to blow the whistle on community organizers.
What is your interest in questioning Mr. Youngstown?

[stewie]

Why do you care?  So what if he is profiting from it? It's called capitalism.

[TrueDevotion]

Defend Youngstown... or Profit from Youngstown?
Does anyone know how much income Youngstown Nation generated during its first year of operation? I heard Phil denied releasing such information that is mandatory to be revealed upon request by a good source, which raises the question: how much exactly is Phil profiting from his Youngstown gift shop?

It is very, very interesting to discover that he filed to terminate his non-profit business Youngstown Nation Inc. on 7/28/2013 [1] and filed a for-profit business named Youngstown Nation, LLC on 7/22/2013 [2].

This should raise some questions to Phil's motives. Why is he reluctant to share how much Youngstown Nation Inc. generated in their first year of operation? What exactly is Phil accomplishing by selling t-shirts for $20? T-shirts are not all that expensive to print, he is paying somewhere between $3-5 a shirt.

Referring back to a Vindicator article in 2007 [3], he boosts that he had quit counting how many of the original "Defend Youngstown" shirts he has sold at 4,000 but estimates he has sold 7,000. If he truly had sold 7,000 of those, that is $140,000 before expense. Factoring in 25% for the cost of the shirt and printing, that results in a $105,000 profit. Absolutely insane.

I just don't understand why so many people view him as a saint of Youngstown. What exactly does he do for the community aside from picking up trash in the morning and attend random events & meetings? He's not bringing in jobs. He's not even a property owner and can clearly afford to be one (he was making $41,000/year that year he was city planner; left that position to go work at the MVOC before starting up the physical Youngstown Nation store).

Sources:
1 - http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:0::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:2118330
2 -  http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:0::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:2216629
3 - http://www4.vindy.com/content/local_regional/288598405126702.php