Let the legal billing begin.

Grace Han Stanton
Perkins Coie, LLC
1201 Third Avenue, Suite 4800
Seattle, WA 98101-3099

June 29, 2007

Dear Grace,

This letter is to confirm receipt of your letter dated June 26, 2007. I would have responded earlier but, as you know, email addresses at domain registries are notorious farming ground for spammers. I don't normally check that email account and found your email and attachment by chance late last night. To ensure timely delivery of future email messages and attachments, please use mark@esd15.org, as this line of communication is directly related to matters concerning community interest in the performance and financial stamina of the Edmonds School District.

I will attempt to address your apparent concerns one-at-a-time and in the order they appear in your letter. For clarification's sake, I am assuming that you are referring to the Edmonds School District when you use the acronym ESD15. My response assumes this to be the case, even though during my six years with the District, I have never heard them use ESD15 in that manner.

You mention in paragraph one that "in light of my resignation", Marla requested control of esd15.org. While I did not resign, I can appreciate you have a client to protect and making mention of this inaccuracy may bolster future defenses by your client. I did not resign but was constructively terminated.

While it is true I was the Planning and Property Management Specialist for the Edmonds School District, I was not directed to register esd15.org nor was I ever compensated for time spent working on esd15.org. My web development responsibilities with the District were confined to the creation and maintenance of http://www.edmonds.wednet.edu/propertymgt. The registration of esd15.org was done on my own time, at my own direction and while using my own equipment. I was interested in reducing the noise in and around my cubicle. Every time a prospective developer would call Bret Carlstad and ask for more information about the District's available property, he would recite the entire domain address numerous times and always end up spelling portions rather slowly. With all of the calls being received, it made personal sense to shorten the address and reduce the amount of time spent filling our work environment with background noise. I would recommend that you or your client contact Bret Carlstad to confirm that he never provided such direction and that all of his web concerns were restricted to the official web site at http://www.edmonds.wednet.edu and its associated sub-domains.

All information that was once contained at esd15.org can also be found at http://www.edmonds.wednet.edu/propertymgt. All of the original web pages are hosted on the District's server. Of course, on June 7, 2007, when my access to voicemail, email and my assigned hard drive were terminated unexpectedly, I could no longer verify if any of these documents still exist. I am optimistic that District staff can easily recover them with the new password assigned to my user account. As a dedicated community servant, I would be happy to meet with the District's network support staff and show them precisely where all of those web pages reside.

While it is true that the District's logo was used to promote the District's available properties, all such websites located at esd15.org have been deleted. Of course, anyone with web development experience can tell you, deletions may not always occur until the site is updated. That update occurred recently and it is my understanding that all logos and District-related documents at esd15.org no longer exist.

For the record, I have had a number of meetings with Marla Miller to discuss the creation of an Operations website at esd15.org and would have released the domain in the process. She repeatedly expressed no interest in doing so. I have all such email communications and would be happy to share them with you when this matter goes to court. Let the record also show that at no time did the District ever pay for the registration of the domain, the hosting of the site, or the maintenance of the many web pages. The use of esd15.org was provided as an extension of the many attributes that I brought to the District.

Your assertion that esd15.org is being used to promote my personal real estate business is preposterous. It is and shall remain a conduit whereby staff and community members can have an open and honest conversation about matters of importance to them. The index page for esd15.org provides a direct link to staff email, as a convenience, and a domain-specific search engine driven by Google to expedite the manner in which District-specific information is found. The index page also clearly states that the Edmonds School District does not maintain the site and is not responsible for its content. If users cannot read the disclaimer, the rest of the website would be illegible as well. Quite frankly, the suggestion that this website would confuse the end user is nonsensical and rather insulting to the intelligence of esd15.org's visitors.

The Edmonds School District is an educational organization and uses the edu suffix. Esd15.org is not an educational organization but rather a not-for-profit, community forum promoting and discussing issues related to a public resource, namely the Edmonds School District. When time allows for the processing of the countless comments and responses, more not-for-profit views and comments will appear shortly.

I appreciate your deadline of July 6, 2007, and have given you an additional week to develop your legal case by responding as promptly as possible. I apologize if this letter is not the response you were expecting. My attorney is out of the country and my response is provided to expedite the conclusion of this issue.

Sincerely,

Mark Zandberg