From: maskornick@comcast.net
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 4:58 PM
To: rule-comments@sec.gov
Subject: Mutual Fund Proxy Voting Disclosures (S7-36-02)

Gentlemen:
    As an owner of mutual funds in my personal investment accounts and in 
my retirerment accounts I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the issue 
before the SEC pertaining to the proposed requirement that mutual funds 
disclose to their shareholers information as to how they have voted their 
proxies on the stocks in their funds. I have invested in mutual funds for 
nearly twenty years and I have often wondered, given the clout their size 
of ownership gives them, why mutual funds have not been more involved in 
and taken greater responsibility for the management issues of the companies 
they own within their funds.  I have also wondered why, unlike ordinary 
stockholders, mutual funds never seem to even acknowledge, yet alone disclose, 
how they vote on proxy questions.  I believe it would be a VERY GOOD THING 
to have such disclosures from fund managers going forward, and the SEC 
should require mutual funds to disclose to their shareholders just how they 
are voting the interests of their shareholders in proxy matters.  The only 
reason I can imagine why a fund manager would not want to disclose to his 
or her shareholders the record of how a proxy vote was cast on behalf of 
those shareholders would be some type of conflict of interest involving the 
the mutual fund company, its shareholders, and the managements of the 
individual companies contined within a mutual fund.  As a shareholder in  
mutual funds I will always opt for more disclosure and more information!  
                                                                                                                    John T. Maskornick