Reasons to Picket -
The Valley-Burbank Org
From:
Newsgroups: alt.clearing.technology
From: pilot@hiddenplace.com (The Pilot)
Subject: Super Scio Archive - <8/9> posts of Aug 97
Date: 25 Aug 1997 14:00:19
Message-ID:
Subj : Super Scio - The Valley-Burbank Org
THE VALLEY/BURBANK ORG
This place deserves the foot bullet of the year award. It does
more to drive people out of Scientology than most pickets. You
should send them donations to help them stay in business so that
they can drive more people away and into the freezone. It has
what is called an "ARC Broken field" which means that it has
gotten its public so pissed off that they stay away and act like
antis.
First off, its proper name is The Valley Org. The dividing line
between the Valley (Studio City, Encino, North Hollywood, etc.) and
Burbank is only a political boundary (Burbank is a separate city
and the valley is part of LA). Its a ten minute drive over the
mountains north of Hollywood. The area is famous for Valley Girls,
Universal City, and the expression "Fur Shure". Physically it is
the San Fernando Valley.
At one time there was a prosperous series of missions (I think
that there were about 5 of them) in this north LA area. Then SMI
wrecked them (1980 timeframe) to form the Valley org and also, I think,
a Burbank org which promptly collapsed and was merged into the Valley
org.
Although the org was only a shadow of the mission network it
replaced, the valley is a big prosperous area and they did manage
to make one good org there which at least had a decent reputation
and could deliver services. Until, that is, the PAC order which
offloaded any SO members with childern, sending them to outer
orgs.
The result was that a bunch of SO members took over and began
driving the org into the ground. This included the ED (executive
director of the org).
They managed to lose most of their technical staff, pissing them
off and driving them away by one stupid order after another.
According to one ex-staff member (not disaffected with Scientology
in general), they were sitting there with about a hundred thousand
dollars worth of auditing hours paid for but not delivering and
instead of trying to deliver anything, the orders were continually
to sell more to get the income up with no interest in actually
delivering anything.
I heard not one but two different stories from people who had
tried to use them as a place to get a friend or relative started
in Scientology. In both cases, the person I talked to had gone
to great lengths to determine the exact right starting courses
that really got the new person excited and got them to pay for
it and start on course at the Valley org. And valley had no
technical staff and couldn't really deliver and found some way
to get the person off of course (because they had no resources)
and then tried to sell them expensive services (which also could
not be delivered) and hounded them and ended up getting them
so pissed off that they want nothing more to do with Scientology.
The place is almost deserted. While driving by the Burbank location
one Saturday a few years ago, a bunch of us decided go in and look
around (being OTs, we were not thier prospective public and could
avoid being reged - which means being hounded by the registrars).
The ED himself came rushing down to run the bookstore for us (he didn't
manage to sell us anything - too slimy).
But it was a beautiful location and very nicely fixed up. Its
one of the few areas in the Valley that has upscale foot traffic.
They were crazy to let it go. They told their public that they
were moving to get more space. But I heard that there there was
a huge unused area in the back of the Burbank location. Apparently
they had made a short term low rent deal when they moved in originally.
Probably the lease had expired and they moved rather than pay more money.
I have not been to the new location, but it is further north,
does not have foot traffic, and its near the area on Sepulveda where
people go to pick up hookers. Rumor has it that it is smaller
and that all the endless work to build auditing rooms etc. has
to be repeated.
The old Burbank location would be ideal for a freezone org if
they were not afraid of getting harrassed by people driving up
from the complex.
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