I would offer him the initial contract assuming its what I think it is.  I know that we have base salary issues that we would have to deal with.  I basically told everyone to drop it when Mike proposed his numbers.  Again, the offer to you and him were not meant to be insulting but meant to offer something a year early as we did with a handful of other folks.  We naively thought that these would be accepted quickly.  For everyone else that got offered a re-up a year early, they did exactlty that.  

Let me know if you want to discuss it further.

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Belden, Tim  
Sent:	Wednesday, May 16, 2001 9:03 AM
To:	Lavorato, John; Oxley, David; Kitchen, Louise
Subject:	Swerzbin Comp

where do we stand now?  last i heard was an e-mail from oxley (which is on lotus notes and not accessible anymore) which said that we don't think that we are going to get there, but hold on for a few more days while we finalize our decision and craft a really nice decline speech.  it's been a few weeks now, and i am checking status.  do you still want to offer him the initial contract?  i doubt he'd take it but i need to know.  what would you change with his proposal that would be acceptable?  i think that mike has taken this negotiation seriously and deserves a timely resolution.