Jane Murray: Promises, Promises (Part 1)

THE LEXINGTON CULTURAL CENTER SCANDAL

Jane Murray has repeatedly promised that she will make Portsmouth "a regional cultural center" and that she will implement a "cultural master plan" for Portsmouth, just like she has done in other cities. This master plan will include museums, and parks, and historical centers, as a part of her plan to "restructure" our entire city.

On her website, Murray lists the following achievements in her statement of qualifications:

* Lexington Cultural Master Plan – project director for planning, coordinating, and implementing final plan which included more public monies for the arts, an arts & culture district, a children’s museum, and a new cultural center * Lexington Children’s Museum – project director for design/build and grand opening of KY’s first children’s museum; worked with a public committee and design team on planning and design * Lexington Cultural Center – director for project planning, design, and operations; headed team of museum planners, theatre consultants, architects, engineers, community members * University of Kentucky Basketball Museum – director for feasibility study; organized and directed professional consulting team, all meetings, functions, reports

At first glance it is an impressive list. However, as we reported a few days ago, there is much more to the story. Murray's responsibility for the UK Basketball Museum failure was a true financial fiasco for the City of Lexington and the University of Kentucky, which remains as $100,000 a year burden to the University to this day. We are amazed that she would even include the Museum on her resume. The only sense in which the museum was ever a success was the amount of money that Murray earned from her services in connection with the now-bankrupt museum.

Jane Murray's bankrupt UK Basketball Museum (now defunct)

We believe that the protracted, embarrassing failure of the Basketball Museum, after a string of failures in government and business, was the real reason Jane Murray dropped her married name, Jane Vimont, in favor of her maiden name, and returned to Portsmouth.

But the museum story merely opens the door on a much larger story of broken promises, failure, and scandal for the City of Lexington, the State of Kentucky, and Murray herself.

The basketball museum failure had its beginning several years prior with an even bigger fiasco and financial loss for the City of Lexington: the Ben Snyder Block scandal.

As you follow the story below please note the words in BOLD text and how they are interconnected. (Anyone who believes the Marting's project was a dastardly scheme should really be shocked by the Lexington "Art & Culture District" scandal.)

All information from Lexington Herald-Leader stories is indicated in parentheses. (LHL, date of article.) All Lexington Herald-Leader articles are available on-line for a fee.

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY/LEXINGTON

After graduating from Ohio State University in 1975, Jane Murray studied sociology at the University of Kentucky where she got her Masters in 1977. While at UK, Jane Murray met and later married Richard E. Vimont, a Lexington attorney, who had received his Law Degree from UK in 1960. Vimont was an influential lawyer in Lexington which connections in the Mayor's office. Vimont went on to form the influential Lexington lobbying firm of Vimont & Wills. (Vimont still practices law at age 73, specializing in "corporate law, animal law, and equine law." He has also worked part-time in the Fayette County Attorney's office since 2006, when he sold his law firm Vimont & Wills. He and his current wife, a UK professor, have a successful horse farm outside of Lexington and are major donors to Democrat candidates.)

Vimont was a good last name to have in Lexington. It helped Jane Murray-Vimont to get several quasi-government jobs in Lexington and Frankfort starting in 1977. In 1986, Jane's husband, Richard was working in the mayor's office, representing Lexington on several issues. That was the year that Jane Murray-Vimont was hired as Lexington Mayor Scotty Baesler's Legislative Liaison, a position created especially for her. (LHL, 8/12/86). One of the issues that Richard Vimont would later work on for the City was the negotiation for the lease of property to build a children's museum. (LHL, 8/16/89).

BEN SNYDER BLOCK PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS

As Baesler's legislative liaison, Jane Murray-Vimont was responsible for development of a "Cultural Master Plan" for Lexington to help revitalize the downtown area. Her responsibility included extensive travel to other cities and meeting with major lobbying and consulting firms.

(NOTE: In her press conference Wednesday, Jane Murray slyly claimed that she did not go on "any of the trips mentioned in the [1996 Lexington Herald-Leader] article except for one." If true, this is a very sneaky denial. Murray's travel in and out of the US as Legislative Liason was extensive, as other news article from the period show.)

Another of Jane Murray-Vimont's responsibilities was the acquisition of Downtown property, in an area that came to be called the Art & Culture District. (This district never materialized. The "cultural site" is now occupied by the Fayette County Courthouse. More on that later.) This process of property acquisition was helped along by Jane's attorney husband, Richard. (LHL 7/18/94.) The major portion of the property was located in the "Ben Snyder Block," the site of the old Snyder downtown department store,a former City landmark. Jane Murray's involvement in the City's acquisition of this property has ramifications that continue to this day.

In 1989, two years after Jane Murray-Vimont joined Baesler's staff and served as his liaison for the planned cultural center, Baesler convinced the State of Kentucky to buy the Ben Snyder block at cost of $9 million dollars. In return Baesler committed the city to build a number of projects on the site, totalling $60 million, or else the City would have to pay the state back the entire $9 million purchase cost. This caused quite a stir in Lexington, due to the enormity of the commitment, which included:

• A $60 million World Trade/Cultural Center with high-rise office tower
• A large parking garage
• 34,000-square foot museum "to celebrate the science and technology of Kentucky"
• A UK Basketball Museum
• Renovation of the Lyric Threater, a traditional Black Theater in downtown Lexington with a historic legacy, and
• Two new theaters, among other improvements

This is the Lexington Cultural Master Plan that Murray takes credit for in her statement of qualifications and on her website, and mentions frequently at public events:

Lexington Cultural Master Plan – project director for planning, coordinating, and implementing final plan which included more public monies for the arts, an arts & culture district, a children’s museum, and a new cultural center (from Murray's website)

As we will see, Murray's Cultural Master Plan was quite a failure.

For over three years, Murray-Vimont led the City's efforts to recruit developers to build the improvements the City had committed would be built on the Ben Snyder Block in accordance with the Cultural Master Plan. During this time, no developers could be recruited. None of them believed the City's Master Plan figures and projections were accurate (HLH, "Finances May Spell 'Curtains' for Cultural Center," 7/75/92). Murray-Vimont and Baesler went back to the state with scaled-down plans. The state ultimately accepted the new less ambitious plans, but still required certain things to be built as originally agreed.

• Rather than building the proposed "World Trade Center High-Rise," they allowed the City to substitute the expansion of the nearby Lexington Center. (The World Trade group that was supposed to be housed in the new high-rise relocated much of their staff to Louisville when the new building was scrapped.)
• The state allowed the city to buy an older parking garage nearby as a substitute for a new one on the site paid for by the state.
• They accepted Baesler's commitment to build the basketball museum at UK rather that the cultural center site.
• They accepted the new children's museum as a substitute for the science and technology museum.
• They allowed to City to acquire two historical buildings (Embry's and Lowenthal's) which would be renovated and substituted for the two theaters.
• The historic Lyric Theater still had to be restored.

FEET TO THE FIRE But despite all of the substitutions, the State still required Lexington to at least build a $14 million cultural center there, or pay back the $9 million the State paid for the site. And by 1992, Mayor Baesler was already preparing to run for Congress. He put the responsibility for getting the scaled-back cultural center built squarely on Jane Murray-Vimont's shoulders, the woman who was responsible for the "Master Plan" in the first place and had pushed for the use of state funds. She led an uphill, and ultimately fruitless, battle to convince the City Council to borrow over $14 million from the State of Kentucky to build the downtown cultural center. In promoting her ideas, she gave the Columbus City Center Mall as an example of what was needed in Lexington. (The Columbus City Center is now defunct.) But Council was reluctant. As the Herald Leader said: "Over the last five years, Lexington has debated what a cultural center should contain and whether the city can afford to pick up the tab." One councilman said, "a $14 million project is such a dead weight right now that it scares me." Even Baesler's Vice Mayor (who became mayor after Baesler)Pam Miller was hesitant. She worried about the cost and said that a cultural center "is not going to be the turning point" in the City's economic problems. (LHL, 7/5/92, page A4)

Two more years of fund-raising and lobbying by the City and Jane Murray-Vimont failed. The cultural center project was dead. As the deadline of 12/31/1994 approached, the City could not afford to repay the $9 million dollars. But Baesler had been elected to congress and he and Jane Murray-Vimont were already in Washington, DC. The new mayor Pam Miller ultimately ignored the state's demands.

Instead of Jane Murray-Vimont's "cultural center," Lexington's leaders built a County Courthouse on the controversial site. It's called the Robert F. Stephens Courthouse. By coincidence (?), that's where Jane murray's ex-husband Richard still practices today. He has a nice office. They have great post cards.

But it is NOT a cultural center.

The state finally tired of the City's shenanigans, and filed a suit against Lexington for "misappropriation of funds." Eventually a settlement was reached that involved the City paying back only part of the money. Other terms of the settlement included the completion of several commitments that Jane Murray-Vimont had made on behalf of the Mayor, which still remained unfinished-or un-started. As Baesler's former liaison, Jane Murray-Vimont was involved in the negotiation of the settlement. The terms of the agreement were finalized in a now-infamous "Memorandum of Understanding" or MOU.

OUTRAGE OVER "SECRET" MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING The secret memorandum was agreed to in Feb. 1995. Jane Murray-Vimont (the champion of openness and transparency in Portsmouth government) was part of the closed-door meeting where the MOU was signed, as Baesler's representative. However, the group refused to release the MOU or the meeting minutes to the public. Local arts groups were outraged! They filed a Freedom of Information request which the City ignored. The arts groups took the City to court. The full MOU was finally released in 2005. (Note that the MOU was not released until six years after the opening of the UK Basketball Museum in 1999.) The decision in the memorandum controversy is now incorporated into Kentucky's Open Meetings Act or OMA.

"The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government violated the OMA when it met in closed session to discuss its dispute with the state concerning the "Ben Snyder Block." 95-OMD-57. Even if the discussion concerned a sale or acquisition of property, a public discussion "would have no effect on the prices of the property" which had previously been agreed upon." Ky. Rev. Statute 61.81.810 (1)(b).

(No wonder Murray is such as an expert on the Sunshine Law.) BACK TO THE BASKETBALL MUSEUM To some extent, most of the scaled-down projects that Baesler and Murray had previously committed to, in order to try to pacify the state over the failure of the Cultural Center Complex, had been completed by the time of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. Only two major projects remained that had yet to be started. 1) Renovation of the Lyric Theater, a historically Black theater that the City had acquired through eminent domain under Baesler and Murray-Vimont. It was to have been made into an African American cultural center as part of Jane Murray-Vimont's original "Cultural Center Master Plan." This how it looked when Jane Murray-Vimont developed the Cultural Master Plan, in 1988 and how it looked when she left Baesler's office in 1995. It's also the way it looked until a few months ago. The 1995 Memorandum of Understanding agreed to penalties to the city of $500 per day if the renovation of the Lyric was not complete by 1/27/2010. But the museum sat abandoned until July of this year, when community leaders broke ground on the project, with penalties looming. (When we visited the site, it looked like not much had been done. A time extension may be needed.)

2) The other major outstanding project that the state was still demanding in 1995 was the construction of the UK Basketball Museum.

In 1995 after years of various scandals and leaked stories to the press that she was leaving Baesler's staff (LHL 7/3/93, LHL 9/18/94, LHL 9/25/95), Jane Murray-Vimont finally severed her long-term professional relationship with Congressman Baesler. She announced that she was taking a position with Lord Cultural Resources of Toronto, Canada, a major consulting firm that develops master plans for museums and cultural centers. Murray-Vimont represented Lord in 1996. Whether she is still connected to Lord Cultural Resources is not known. (http://www.lord.ca/)

But according to the Seretary of State's Office of Kentucky, Jane Murray-Vimont started Jane Vimont and Associates (aka JVA) in 1993. And JVA's first client and its major client was the UK Basketball Museum. And our story begins to come full-circle.

Jane Murray; Promises, Promises (Part 2 of 2)

MORE SCANDALS AND BACK TO LEXINGTON By 1995, Jane Murray-Vimont's relationship with Congressman Baesler and his staff had soured, following a string of negative stories in the press and highly public snafus. She was also divorced from her husband, Attorney Richard E. Vimont who was a powerful influence in City and County government. It was clear that she was on her way out as Baesler's chief aide. Murray-Vimont didn't get along with Baesler's Washington staff, particularly Chuck Atkins, his Chief of Staff. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported: "...the constraints of the office have soured [Baesler's] chief legislative aide, Jane Vimont. She recently returned to Lexington to work out of his district office and is looking for another job. 'With 15 years of experience in government policy, [Washington] is really not a place for me in the long run.' " (LHL, 7/3/93) Later, at a time when Republicans were making inroads in Kentucky, Democrat Baesler was trying to distance himself from liberal associates. The article entitled "Baesler Is Hard Worker With Conservative Streak" (LHL, 10/13/96) referred to Jane Vimont as "one of his more liberal staff members." This indicates another reason that Murray-Vimont did not fit in. CREDIT CARD SCANDAL But Murray-Vimont was still working for Baesler, when the credit card scandal broke. (LHL, 7/25/95) Despite Murray's curt denials on her website and at her press conference last Wednesday, the credit card story was a serious issue and a major embarrassment for her boss at a critical time in his political career. And she was central to it. This story of her missing receipts, bizarre and expensive gifts, and extravagant travel resonated with the voters and Jane Murray-Vimont didn't handle it any better in Lexington than she has in Portsmouth. Read more about that story here: http://p-townunderground.blogspot.com/2009/10/3-questions-jane-murray-must-answer_25.html BEN SNYDER BLOCK APPRAISAL SCANDAL

However, the biggest snafu that hung over everyone's head like a grey cloud was the on-going Ben Snyder Block mess. It continued to haunt Congressman Baesler all the way in Washington. In 1994, The Lexington Herald Leader called it "The $9 Million Dilemma" (LHL, 9/18/94), in a front page article that featured Jane Murray-Vimont prominently, including her photograph. A key dispute involved the City's purchase under Baesler of a large parcel of real estate in the Ben Snyder block with state funds. Had Baesler decided to buy the block before or after deciding to build a downtown cultural center on the site? There were allegations of fixed appraisals, sweetheart appointments to boards, and pay-offs. The story said Baesler was "facing persistent questions about whether Lexington bailed out Southcreek's owners [a downtown developer]--his supporters and campaign contributors--with the state's money." Jane Murray-Vimont, as the City's cultural development point woman, was repeatedly referenced. The article cited her handling of appraisals that increased sharply in a short time.

The next day another front-page article appeared: "Cultural Center Unlikely, Leaving Lexington To Find New Use For Snyder Block." (LHL, 9/19/94), again featuring Jane Murray-Vimont.

THE BIRTH OF JANE VIMONT & ASSOCIATES, INC. (11/12/1993)

In November 1993, during Scotty Baesler's first year in Washington, Ms. Murray-Vimont formed a corporation, Jane Vimont and Associates. (She refers to it as "JVA, Inc." in her statement of qualifications.) But Jane did not leave her position as Congressman's Baesler's Legislative Director until two years later, late 1995. During this two year period, she spent much time in Lexington trying to clean up the mess she and the former mayor had made with all the cultural center issues. She attended meetings with developers, investors, and consultants. Also with state regulators and bureaucrats who were trying to make the City meet its obligations. Murray-Vimont was party to all of the inside information. She sensed opportunity and she shrewdly positioned herself to take advantage of it.

Specifically she was party to the secret February 1995, Memorandum of Understanding negotiated between the State and the City of Lexington. This memo listed which projects the State of Kentucky was going to force the Lexington government to construct. The group fought vigorously to keep the information away from the public, outraging the Lexington arts community, who tired of seeing there long-promised cultural projects languishing. They demanded openness from their government representatives including Murray-Vimont, but the group keep the information away from them for ten years until the State Attorney General determined the group had violated Kentucky's Open Meetings Act, or "Sunshine Law." The landmark ruling finally forced memorandum's release in 2005. (See "Jane Murray: Promises, Promises-Part 1")

In the meantime, Jane Murray-Vimont had access to the secret details. And Jane Vimont and Associates, Inc. was her means of taking advantage of her inside information.

UK BASKETBALL MUSEUM-INSIDE TRACK (LHL, 5/10/99)

Even before leaving government employment, Murray-Vimont's had already secured a lucrative contract for her new company. In 1994, she helped to incorporate the UK Basketball Museum, and the museum board, in turn, hired her as "project manager and fund-raiser", even though she was still employed on Congressman Baesler's staff. Of course, this was the very museum which Murray-Vimont had already committed the city to create as part of its state-ordered settlement. Over a three year span, the museum board paid her company $465,000.

Murray-Vimont's expenses were minimal. She was her company's sole proprietor and sole employee. The Lexington Center, which was expanded as part of the secretive Cultural Center settlement with the State, provided rent-free office space to Murray-Vimont and to the museum board, which otherwise would have cost $100,000 to $150,000 per year. Utilities, about $50,000 per year, were paid for with museum funds. With little overhead, Murray-Vimont's contract was indeed lucrative.

But her fund-raising results were dismal, focusing mainly on the sale of gold, silver and bronze medallions that were not as popular as she had hoped. Early on, the museum spent over $200,000 on her plan to give medallions to donors in exchange for gifts. The trinkets raised only $1.1 million toward Murray-Vimont's stated goal of $2.9 million, and the museum was left with over half of the 6500 medals when the program was terminated.

She leveraged as much City funds for the museum as she could manage, about a million dollars. Still revenues were woefully insufficient. Perhaps they might have been better if Murray had spent more time on it.

But she was busy with other "JVA, Inc." projects, as indicated on her website resume. As the Basketball Museum struggled, Murray-Vimont represented a Canandian Company, Lord Cultural Resources, in the collection of some unpaid invoices owed by the Muhammed Ali Center in Louisville which was also struggling at the time. (LHL, 6/18/96) Murray's website resume lists "Round One-project manager for a special exhibition on the life of Muhammed Ali" as one of her "JVA, Inc. Projects," but it fails to mention her collection efforts on the behalf of the Canadian firm.

After three years of floundering, the Museum Board terminated Murray-Vimont's contract. They hired a new director whose analysis was that "it was apparent that the museum organizers," which of course included Murray-Vimont, "had not understood the scope of the project in hard terms. It would cost millions more than anyone thought."

But as described in our previous articles, the Museum ultimately failed despite the new director and the board's best efforts. It really was doomed from the start, being based on the flawed feasibility studies and planning by Jane Murray-Vimont. As she reorts on her website:

"University of Kentucky Basketball Museum – director for feasibility study; organized and directed professional consulting team, all meetings, functions, reports. "

Murray claimed that she resigned from teh museum. But the Board only stated that they had terminated her contract. Murray refused to be interviewed by the newspaper (not surprisingly) about her departure. But the museum said she had taken a job in Canada.

RETURN TO OHIO

If she actually did work in Canada, it may have been because she had worn out her welcome everywhere else. The latter part of her career with Lexington city government was extremely rocky, and surely tarnished her reputation. Her Lexington Cultural Disrtict was still a vacant lot. She was divorced from an influential Lexington attorney. She was deeply involved in reneging on several promises she and/or her boss had made to the State of Kentucky, including a tainted $9 million dollar land deal. Her Washington job was a bust. She had burned her bridges with the "arts community" with her egregious violation of Open Meeting Act requirements. Perhaps the biggest bust of all, one that she could not blame on anyone but herself, was the UK Basketball Museum colossal failure.

Perhaps it was inevitable that she would return to Portsmouth. She claims she came back to care for her ailing mother who lives in South Shore. But she must not need much care. Murray said in a mayoral debate that she warns her mother not to come "into town" and drive on our "dangerous" city streets.

Since her return to Portsmouth in 2002 she hasn't done much. She let her Kentucky corporation lapse in 2002. Another company she owns, Creative Design Images, has also lapsed according the Ohio Seretary of State website. She applied to be a substitute teacher at Northwest High School in 2003. Her application was approved pending a federal background check.(http://www.northwest.k12.oh.us/docs2/District/BoardMinutes/2003/minutes092303.PDF) Her website resume lists her experience as "Music Producer and Writer (2005-present)," but may just be a euphemism.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER

Her biggest activity in the last seven years has been stirring up things in Portsmouth. She filed a major lawsuit against the City she hopes to be mayor of. It may be very lucrative if she wins it.

She led a recall effort against her City Councilman, who resigned rather than be put through the inevitable hell she and her cohorts surely had in store for him. Then she was irate at City Council for not appointing her as the man's replacement. All of her past problems have not dminished her sense of entitlement.

She has been working behind the scenes with two Councilmen and the wife of a Councilman to undermine every effort by the current mayor to make improvements to the City.

What will she do for the City if elected? If you've read this far, you've learned enough to know that Murray has left a trail of tragically failed projects behind her wherever she has gone. We have no doubt she would have the same result here.

Hopefully the information we have found and shared on this website will assist the voters of Portsmouth to select the best candidate to serve the citizens of Portsmouth. Time will tell.

Every elected official needs to be watched carefully. Especially those like Ms. Murray, who don't believe the have the need to explain themselves.

If you sense desperation in the Murray Campaign, even panic, as these damaging and thoroughly documented facts about her government and business failings continue to mount, perhaps now you know why. There is no way she can answer or dispute these charges.

And if she loses this race.................there's nowhere else for her to go.

Murray's Basketball Museum Fiasco (Part 2)

Earlier we reported on the tragic UK Basketball Museum debacle that Jane Murray was a central figure in during the mid-1990s (or what she likes to call "old news"), but which she still promotes on her website as one of the "jewels in her crown." (She did not address the issue at her press non-conference yesterday.)

The following story from espn.com reveals even more startling details. The University of Kentucky agreed to pay-off Murray's museum's "$1.2 million debt" by paying $100,000 per year until the loan is paid. (If your kid goes to UK, now you know what that latest tuition increase was for.) http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3470465

Jane Murray had her hands on every aspect of this fiasco almost from its earliest days, when it was just an idea being promoted around Lexington.

We are still looking into the series of damning articles published by the Lexington Herald-Leader about Murray, and we will be presenting a complete timeline of her checkered career soon.

(http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_multi=LH&p_product=LH&p_theme=realcities2&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_site=kentucky&s_trackval=LH&s_search_type=keyword&s_dispstring=jane%20vimont%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=(jane%20vimont)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no&s_trackval=)

But one particular article from 1999 relates to Murray's claim to fame, the Basketball Museum. Due to her mistakes and mismanagement, the Museum appears to have been doomed from the start. As you read these and other articles from the 1990s, remember this:

Read the article here.Please note that all comments in [brackets] are ours all well as all underlining and bold text. The rest is verbatim from the article. Hoops Museum

Game Over for UK Basketball Museum

Read carefully folks, especially the words in bold: From Jane Murray's website: http://janemurrayformayor.com/index.php/about/curriculum-vitae/ Among her accomplishments, Murray claims:

"University of Kentucky Basketball Museum – director for feasibility study; organized and directed professional consulting team, all meetings, functions, reports. "

From the website, www.ncaa.com:

Game over: struggling UK basketball museum closes

LEXINGTON, Ky.(AP) The University of Kentucky Basketball Museum has shut its doors due to falling attendance and financial problems.

The museum, located in the Lexington Center near the entrance to Rupp Arena, has struggled to find an audience since opening in 1999.

Kentucky deputy athletic director Rob Mullens said Wednesday that the museum, which was not affiliated with the university, was averaging less than 25,000 visitors a year. Consultants told museum officials before it opened that 110,000 fans a year could push through the turnstiles.

Mullens said the university has decided to reallocate its annual $100,000 donation to the museum to help offset $1.2 million in debt.

Link: http://www.ncaa.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/070208aar.html

So "director of feasibility study" and "organizer of professional consulting team" Jane Murray told the UK Athletic Director that they would have over four times the number of fans than they actually had. As a result they had to shut down and ended up $1.2 million in debt. Was Jane Murray unaware of the fate of the museum or did she just assume we were to gullible to look into it? (How did the Portsmouth Times "drop the ball" on this story?) Does this give you a clue as to how she will address the City's problems?That sort of makes her big plans for Portsmouth seem a little hollow, doesn't it? She certainly talks a lot about bringing museums and cultural centers to Portsmouth. We wonder if anyone will ask Murray about that at her press conference. Much more interesting information about Murray's misadventures in Lexington are forthcoming. (All we can say is...no wonder she changed her name.)

UK Basketball Museum (now defunct)

(Jane Murray will probably sue us for using her logo.)