-Feast Fest Head Scouter Jim Dall, Event Manager William Vanderbilt, and 19 other scouters met Wednesday with 27 of the 44 chefs who signed a pact threatening raise demands and walk-away should Stephen Dreim be rehired.
Entering the eighth day without word from Dreim on a $764,000 offer (he said on Tue., Oct. 30 that he was "contemplating" it and he hasn't issued a new statement to the public since), the two sides were unable to reach an agreement and the scouters were unable to shift the position of the chefs.
This is more of a problem for the scouters than it is for the chefs. Even if no ground is gained in the discussions between the two sides, the chefs will still come out on top if Monday, when the official roll call for Feast Fest XVIIII takes place (and after which no more chefs can be added or removed for that year's event), comes and goes without a deal betwixt Dreim and Dall.
"We're fast approaching a deadline," said Stefanie McOneguew, the scouter heading Dreim's case. "We're willing to move, we're willing to make some more concessions to Mr. Dreim, but we need a response from him before we can go forward."
Although he has indicated interest in rejoining, Dreim, who resigned Oct. 18, infuriated at false implication in a bribery scandal and who at that time said he would NOT seek reemployment with Feast Fest if he was found innocent (which he was hours later), could be using silence as a method of saying he never really wanted to rejoin in the first place.
"It's possible Dreim wants FF out of his life," says Mike Vilshire, an analyst. "He very well could have entered into rehiring negotiations with the event just because they badgered him so much about it, and now he's using his silence on the latest offer to let Monday come and go and to let the deal void. That, of course, is assuming he doesn't want to go through with it."
Lyle Lilbridge, an agent for Dreim, said Wednesday that Dreim had hoped for a $1,000,000 offer but that he knew such an offer had "slim to none" chances. Still, he acknowledged that his client was trying to get Feast Fest "to run up the numbers on the contract offer, in the thought process that when they refused to go higher, if Mr. Dreim still doesn't think he's being offered enough, he could issue a pocket veto of sorts...for lack of a better term."
The chefs and scouters will reconvene Thursday, but with every day passing without deals on any sides of this now three-sided series of negotiations, it's looking less and less likely that Dreim will be rehired for 2012--which is exactly what the chefs want.
"He was very belligerent, very rude," an unidentified chef said of Dreim. "I'd prefer not to have to work with Dreim again if I can possibly help it."
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