July 22, 2020

Writer’s email: mgolden@ridetarc.org

Councilman Markus Winkler

LOUISVILLE METRO COUNCIL
601 West Jefferson Street,
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Via email: Markus.Winkler@louisvilleky.gov

RE: TARC

Dear Mr. Winkler:

We wanted to follow up with you on our conversations. TARC has made a firm
commitment to working with the Metro Council openly to aid this investigation; TARC and the
Metro Council are aligned in a desire to shine the powerful antiseptic of sunlight on Ferdinand
Risco’s tenure at TARC. As such, we were shocked at the impression left at the July 14, 2020,
Government Accountability Committee that TARC was not being cooperative with David Beyer.
Apparently you were left with the same impression of his testimony and seek to file legislation
against TARC’s board members.
Let it be clear. Mr. Beyer asked for TARC’s help on May 29, 2020. In the six weeks
that followed, TARC has provided unprecedented assistance to Beyer in his investigation. Each
and every one of our seven Board Members provided an interview to Beyer lasting hours. Each
Board Member provided open and candid information with Beyer and, importantly, disclosed to
Beyer the names of any known victims within their knowledge. In some cases, these Board
Members followed up their interviews by doing research for Beyer and providing him additional
information to make sure that he had as much information as possible. To claim that they were
anything but cooperative with him would be highly inaccurate.
Beyer also had open access to employees at TARC to conduct interviews, and no witness
was withheld from him. He took the opportunity to interview every Director Level employee at
TARC. Just like the Board Members, these employees candidly disclosed their awareness
concerning these troubling facts and specifically provided Beyer with the names of any known
victims within their knowledge as well. Like the Board Members, some even followed up on the
interviews with additional information to aid Beyer on his path. Thus, over 19 TARC Board
Members and employees were interviewed over the course of at least 40 hours and were fully
cooperative.
Moreover, Beyer has had ready access to documents and papers that he has requested.
Indeed, in some cases, TARC has even suggested and provided documents that he did not
request. TARC continues to do so and Mr. Beyer will be returning to TARC to continue his
document review this week or next. In addition, TARC has agreed to provide cell phones and
computer tablets from the former Executive Director for forensic analysis and they are in Metro
Council’s possession.
Some of Beyer’s testimony last Tuesday regarded the names of witnesses and victims
interviewed by TARC’s External Investigative Legal Counsel. While the External Investigative
Legal Counsel did spend more than two hours on the phone with Beyer in March 2020 going
over the entire course of their investigation and sharing their preliminary findings with him, they
did not provide the names to him because many requested anonymity. The names of the victims
as developed by external legal counsel during their investigation have not even been disclosed to
the TARC Board to protect the victim’s anonymity and avoid re-victimization. According to the
External Investigative Counsel, they attempted to come to terms with Mr. Beyer to allow him
access to the information he sought but to also guarantee victim anonymity. They report that
Mr. Beyer did not consent to her terms.
After Mr. Beyer’s testimony last Tuesday, TARC reached out to him to break this
morass. I believe I have a good working relationship with him. We proposed giving him the
names he sought but demanded some measure of protection for the witnesses’ and victims’
anonymity. An agreement is in place to accomplish that end and I have reached out to him to
provide him those names. During our conversation, I also advised him that his testimony likely
left an unwarranted impression that TARC had been uncooperative and implored him to rectify
that misimpression. This obviously did not occur given your proposed legislative action.
In conclusion, TARC has been very cooperative in this investigation. As we discussed,
there may be matters which TARC cannot provide, but if there are, we would like to address any
such issues as they arise and discuss them openly prior to legislative action. As we expressed on
the phone with you, if there are to be votes taken on TARC—especially if you have the
impression that TARC is not being cooperative—we would very much like the opportunity to be
heard prior to that vote. We have reached out to the Committee Chair and made a similar
request. It is my understanding we will be invited on July 28, 2020, Committee meeting. We
would hope that in the spirit of cooperation indicated by the above, you would advocate for us to
have an opportunity to be heard if additional concerns arise.

CC: Laura Douglas, Interim Co-Executive Director

Margaret Handmaker, Interim Co-Executive Director
TARC Board Members
GOA Committee Members