Looks like everything published on this site about PACE Airlines is finally coming out in court as the Trustee Allman filed a complaint last week showing the troubles with PACE go back to the beginning and never got better. I won’t bother re-writing a very thorough article from The Journal by Richard Carver, “Pace set for a fall – Bad business model, mismanagement led to failure, lawyer says.”

I will point out however that back in October 2009 we posted that Lee Booth had taken over PACE Airlines and was the primary for weeks. The paperwork filed by Edwin Allman III, the Chapter 7 trustee, without a doubt claims Rodgers signed over PACE to Booth and that Booth had indeed taken PACE assets. It appears Allman also states many of those assets are now missing. Unfortunately The Journal doesn’t have a link to the latest court documents so hopefully they will get those online soon.

In other PACE news employees recently discovered PACE did not file 2009 employee earnings with the Social Security Administration.

Well Dell has extended again the final closing of it’s Winston-Salem plant, why do we say Winston-Salem anyway considering where it’s located but I digress. Anyway most likely due to labor issues in Mexico Dell has decided to keep the plant open allowing some 400 employees per The Journal to keep getting those paychecks. I say per The Journal because the reports I have put that number a good bit less but that’s all rumor.

Recent labor events in Mexico and problems with PC Electronics component maker Foxconn are likely the cause for this extension.

Ben & Jerry’s will be providing FREE Ice Cream to everyone on Tuesday from noon till 8 P.M.. They will be accepting donations at the three Triad locations for various local charities.

Contributions at the Shops at Friendly Center location will go to the Greensboro Children’s Museum. Donations made at the Palladium at Deep River store in High Point will go to the N.C. Shakespeare Festival. Contributions made at the Harper Hill Commons store in Winston-Salem will benefit the Children’s Museum of Winston-Salem.

Harper Hills

151 Vinegar Hill Road
Winston-Salem, NC 27104
Phone: 336-768-0511

The Shops at Friendly Center
Greensboro, NC 27410
336-856-2178

Palladium
5836 Samet Drive
High Point, NC 27265
336-841-2178

Well today is the day Hanes Mall will start kicking the kids out after 6PM unless they are accompanied by an adult, or so they say. The interesting thing to watch for is how will this policy be applied because who is to say a 16 year old is 16 or an 18 year old is 18? Will mall security go around asking for I.D.’s and kick anyone out that doesn’t have one? Will teenagers with their disposable cash walk away in protest to the policy?

Multiple websites have shown up calling for a boycott or repeal of the policy and even if this doesn’t have traction is the negative publicity something any retail center want when times are as tough as these?

FaceBook – Boycotting Hanes Mall

Hanes Mall Petition Site

Of course neither site appears to have much traction so maybe it will be much to do about nothing as the saying goes. There is even less traffic on this within the Twitter crowd we one would expect to be abuzz if the younger crowd was upset about this so one might assume the number of “kids” Hanes Mall is ejecting is limited to a small group of teens.

In what is the final act for PACE Airlines Judge Thomas Waldrep has entered PACE into involuntary Bankruptcy. On December 2, 2009 multiple creditors filed a petition to start the liquidation of PACE Airlines almost a year and half after PACE stopped paying it’s lease agreement with Smith Reynolds Airport. Interesting enough nobody representing PACE Airlines showed up at the December hearing.

We posted back on October 27th that it had been reported that CEO William Rodgers had signed away any interest in the company. What information was available appeared to point to Lee Booth had taken various assets and was likely setting up shop in Burlington however that is about all that was known or maybe rumored would be better. It appears the attorney appointed by the courts to handle this case is as much in the dark as everyone else as he was quoted as saying, “I will examine corporate officers under oath to determine the ownership.” Edwin Allman III who was appointed as Trustee further went on to say if he can recover any assets the legal fees will be paid first then creditors with the 400 or so employees owed back pay “would be pretty high up" the list of creditors”. While I would like to think he is right I have enough experience with things like this to know employee back pay will be considered  unsecured debt while the multiple companies owed $10 million or more will likely be seen as secured debt  and secured debt always gets paid first.

Of course there are still charges against William Rodgers for failure to pay insurance premiums while months later the N.C. Labor Department is still “investigating” the failure to pay wages.

My last comment on this is at what point is the Airport Commission called to the carpet on allowing PACE to go a year without paying it’s lease obligations? Remember the Airport Commission is also in hot water for allowing it’s contractor in charge of runway expansions per a 1997 Grant to not pay it’s subcontractors. I’ve not heard or seen anything else on this and the Journal certainly hasn’t covered this.

Reports and rumors are coming out that Verizon will be releasing multiple new phones in the upcoming months. From the much anticipated iPhone to more Android based phones it looks like Verizon has finally decided it’s time to upgrade their less than unique phone lineup.

The latest rumor to show up is all about a new Android phone from Motorola called the Devour. Basically it appears to be a slightly less advance version of the Motorola Droid so expect to see pricing be slightly lower although it will run Android 2.1.

It also appears HTC will be releasing an update for the Eris to push it to Android 2.0 or 2.1. Of course how quickly Verizon will make the update available is anyone’s guess. If your wondering why running Android 2.x is such a big deal it has several major updates such as supporting multiple Exchange accounts as well as a browser update.

Of course with CES coming up there’s always a lot of news and rumors about new products and not to be outdone Palm is rumored to have a new Palm Pre Plus ready for Verizon. This will be a slightly larger and newer version of the Palm Pre.

Lastly will there be an iPhone for Verizon? It was a given last year but as the year ended most had cast doubts on Verizon’s iPhone plans. There are those however that still see an iPhone in Verizon’s future probably sometime in the summer as Apples releases it’s newest version of the huge successful iPhone. With little to go on the belief is the new iPhones will be smaller, have a 5MP camera, be built by AsusTek vs. Hon Hai which makes the current models, use a Qualcomm hybrid CDMA/WCDMA chip that allows multiple cell carrier signal types  and show up mid year.

Of course let’s not forget to warn anyone looking at Verizon for a new phone they have enacted a new $350 cancellation fee on their “Smartphone” line so if your thinking of buying now and switching if and when they release an iPhone you may want to change those plans.

Word is Dell will keep the Winston-Salem plant open for a few more months allowing around 400 workers a little more breathing room. No further information is out there as of yet but I’m sure we will see local leaders take all the credit somehow.

Dell has informed the state that it believes it met the requirements during it’s years of operating in North Carolina and will not repay those monies. Governor Bev Purdue and other state representatives have said Dell would be forced to repay all the incentive money they were given however Dell has claimed some $6 million is covered in the agreements and will not be repaid. The Governor’s Office has released a “corrected” statement saying Dell may be able to keep some North Carolina taxpayer money.