Viewpoint
by Thomas R. Cannon, A.I.A.
on behalf of the Board of Directors of the
Wailuku Main Street Association/Tri-Isle Main Street Resource Center
As returning chairman of the volunteer Wailuku Main Street Association (WMSA)/Tri-Isle Main Street Resource Center (TIMSRC), and chairman of the volunteer General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC), I have seen first hand how hours and hours of volunteer work can be thwarted by inaccurate biased reporting in Maui’s dominant newspaper, The Maui News. The Sunday (2/12) front-page story by Ilima Loomis about WMSA/TIMSRC is a case in point. Although Loomis asked for and received (within less than a day) our fact-based responses to her baseless allegations, once again, just as with GPAC, this reporter shows a strong and obvious bias in her flawed stories.
GPAC was formed of 25 volunteers picked to represent the grassroots community’s interests in creating a 20-year General and Maui Island Plan. TIMSRC is a non-profit organization with a working and advisory Board of 23 members that has worked successfully for 26 years to protect and enhance Maui County’s small towns, unique lifestyle, our Hawaiian/multi-cultural heritage, and to represent the interests of Maui’s grassroots community, the “moms and pops” who built and sustained our towns. Both groups have worked to validate a bottom-up grassroots effort to provide for the best Maui Island Plan for the next 20 years for Maui’s residents. The work of both has been hampered by less-than-accurate Maui News stories by Loomis.
As Chair of WMSA/TIMSRC, I am now tasked with informing the public of the errors in the Loomis Sunday article, point by point. Ms. Loomis informed us of some allegations and had our factual response prior to publishing her “story” but chose not to include most facts. She did not inform or allow us to respond to all the unfounded allegations in her story.
Under a sensationalized headline “Groups funds unaccounted-for”, the piece starts out saying officials can’t account for how WMSA spends tax money. This is irresponsible reporting when both the County and Loomis know that WMSA is independently audited every year. The truth is that WMSA has had “clean” audits every year for 25 years. We serve the needs of ten towns, not just Wailuku. The professionally certified audits confirm that WMSA has lived up to the requirements of our County contracts, and have earned our granted compensation. The Council allocated funding for WMSA/TIMSRC as an independent voice of the grassroots with a proven, award-winning locally-based process, not so that the Planning Department could control us. This biased story is ruthless in its unconscionable, unbelievable, attempt to put WMSA/TIMSRC under-the-bus. WMSA/TIMSRC funding is accounted for quarterly with specific payment details, including consultant names and a narrative, with the details Loomis implied were missing.
Loomis notes a comment by Planning Director Spence that we have a huge amount of “unspent revenue from prior grants”, which is just flat out wrong and was obviously used for its shock effect. WMSA/TIMSRC has accumulated reserve funds from both the public sectors and private donations over its 25-year existence, due to frugal business practices. There is substantially less in the bank account than the exorbitant amount erroneously referred to as “unspent grant funds” in the Maui News article. The organization uses the accrual basis of accounting. It is fiscally responsible for a nonprofit organization to have reserves on hand because funding for nonprofits fluctuates with the economy. In recent years, we have seen many nonprofit organizations fold due to the lean economy. WMSA/TIMSRC has developed though a process a list of planned projects that will be financed by funds in excess of necessary reserves. We have saved for a rainy day. Isn’t that the right thing for a non-profit to do?
Our contract with the County is not a reimbursable type, but rather is a grant-in-aid, where we provide specific and general services to the County and the public for a specified fee. But, the article quotes Spence saying that our first quarter report stated that we had expended exactly 25% of the funds “to the penny”, when everyone (including Spence) knows that the 25% initial payment was specified upon execution of the contract. The article’s spin was to imply that our books are too clean and we must have juggled the figures to bill exactly 25%, when this is obviously false. Our second quarter report clearly shows payments to consultants/contractors, to the penny. As of December 31, 2011, 47% of the current year’s grant funding has been expended, with a detailed list sent to Spence with expenditures to date by category. Also not mentioned is that Spence inserted a noteworthy additional requirement in an initial draft of our contract, buried in a list near the end of “Exhibit B”, that would have required WMSA/TIMSRC to provide (in addition to the services the Council agreed to) a whole new “Small Town Code” (approximate cost: $150,000) with no additional compensation. The clause was removed, but speaks to a lack of fair dealing. We used every effort to try to meet with Director Spence from July through October 2011 to discuss their method of administering our grant, but he consistently refused to return emails to Clark and was unavailable to meet with the Board saying he was too busy and not taking any appointments for the foreseeable future.
It is important to note our grant in aid should not be confused with a consultant contract. Contract terms were fully vetted in a prior meeting with Budget Chair Pontanilla, Corp. Council, and Planning during the budget process. No provisos were added by the council for additional scrutiny of this mutually agreed upon contract. Spence seems intent upon micro-managing our non-profit and usurping the authority of our 501(c) 3 governing Board. His comment in reference to 16 design and project reviews in Makawao just goes to show how out of touch the department is with the grassroots of our small towns. In the second quarter we have reviewed, tracked or worked on more than 16 reviews/activities in Makawao alone. Projects that are in a state of completion or ready for initiating an application process are listed in the 4th quarter final summary reports, as we have always done.
Businesses and individuals come to WMSA/TIMSRC for confidential feedback and advice on potential projects they are considering. Director Spence is demanding that we reveal these confidential discussions and the names of the people involved. We are bound by ethics and our bylaws from revealing this information prematurely. The Loomis article seems an attempt to assist Spence in forcing WMSA/TIMSRC to reveal confidential sources and/or projects with proprietary rights before that is appropriate. Everything that goes to the County is public information. WMSA/TIMSRC is a private non-profit that has private inquiries. Some relate to our grant. Some don’t. This relationship with the County is intended to be a public/private partnership that leverages the best of both entities. Our year-end report provides adequate information about projects that reached maturity. Numerous times in the article Loomis accuses our Executive Director of using the word “confidential” to parry financial questions from the Board, which she has never done, while our effort to maintain our confidential sources wasn’t mentioned. It almost as if she wants to desensitize the reader to the term “confidential” and its appropriate use.
Every non-profit board will, on occasion, have members who are there for personal benefit instead of believing in and working for the goals of the organization. Both Sam Clark and Bryan Sarasin resigned from our Board in the face of evidence that they had colluded with a couple of other members outside Board meetings and had broken numerous bylaws, long-held Board policies, and contractual obligations. Loomis quotes Sarasin as saying our Board was “dysfunctional”, after she was given evidence that Sarasin and Clark were responsible for any Board dysfunction because of their short-lived leadership. Our Treasurer takes great exception to the claims of these two that they were denied access to any financial records, as this was simply not the case. The Treasurer is the officer of the Board who has direct oversight over these matters. She gives a detailed report of our finances at each regular Board meeting and answers any questions. She opens all bank statements, signs checks and reviews the bookkeepers work throughout the year, and as noted above all finances are independently audited yearly. To give credence to two individuals who are no longer on our Board, who broke Board bylaws and policies, after being informed and given evidence soundly refuting their baseless charges makes a mockery of ethical journalism.
Perhaps most egregious is the article’s implication that the Board ever discussed removing our Executive Director (ED). Although Loomis was given a Resolution that was approved unanimously at a recent Board meeting detailing some of the tribulations the Board and our ED has had to deal with regarding the Clark /Sarasin plot, and affirming Board support for the ED, she chose to report otherwise. The only reason the Board knew of Clark and Sarasin’s plan to remove the ED is that Clark forgot his specific notes on their plan on the table when he abruptly resigned and walked out. The Board has never discussed removing our ED of 26 years, who has consistently received outstanding evaluations, a recent apology, and a vote of confidence from the Board. Our Treasurer, Amy Hanlon, takes exception to a comment made by Sarasin to the Mayor saying our Finance Committee is not provided adequate data. This is patently untrue, and comes from a disgruntled Board member who wasn’t even on that committee. Sarasin’s reported comment that during his term as Vice Chair, the Board was unable “to control” either our ED or the organization, smacks of sexism and insults those who elected him to a position of trust. For Sarasin to have written an unauthorized letter to the Mayor and to have filed a bogus complaint to the State Attorney General’s office shows great disregard and disrespect for the Board. Loomis knew this because she was provided a Board resolution and a letter written for the Board by fellow Board member, Madelyn D’enbeau, former County Board of Ethics Chair.
In 2011, Clark and Sarasin were Board officers for 5 and 8 months respectively. Clark missed more than half of those meetings, and both refused to receive Board Orientation and training, as required by our bylaws. The two colluded and acted in direct opposition to a Board voted-on decision to deal directly with the Mayor and Managing Director, choosing instead to deal with individuals in the Planning Department and subverting our appeal for fair play. They launched a whisper campaign against the ED that implicated County officials as part of their plot. To divert attention from this misstep they conspired to undermine our ED, emailed, and met surreptitiously with two other disgruntled members to discuss Board matters without notifying other Board officers and our office, thereby breaking other board policies and contractual agreements. The current 990 tax form was reviewed by the Board under Clark’s watch and he signed off on its accuracy including the fact that the Board had ample time to review and comment on the document.
Loomis states (again erroneously) that at “(a)t least five board members … resigned in the past several months.” The truth is that the terms were up for two of those five (including Clark), one resigned due to other commitments, and the other two (who also refused orientation and Board training) were part of Clark’s coup.
The article concludes with a comment by a UH Law Professor who was asked a hypothetical question and quoted in one final attempt by Loomis to validate her spin on things. As noted above, her loaded question didn’t relate to the facts at hand and therefore, neither did his response.
It seems clear from the timing of all this misinformation printed as fact, that volunteer groups such as GPAC and WMSA/TIMSRC who endeavor to represent the interests of Maui residents and working people are now going to receive the “full court press” from officials who desire to control the outcome of the Maui Island Plan, which is in its final stages of Council review. This plan for the next 20 years of development on Maui has had a tremendous amount of input from GPAC and WMSA/TIMSRC, who both have tried to ensure that the community’s goals and objectives were the Plan’s driving force and that a long range view is taken. For 26 years, the WMSA/TIMSRC has stood up for what is right and pono, and for Maui’s kama`aina, working residents, and small businesses. Now, we are receiving an unprecedented coordinated assault for our efforts. An assault assisted by Ilima Loomis’ false allegations, and The Maui News. In spite of all this, our organization continues to seek the high road and works hard daily at preserving and enhancing our small towns’ sense-of-place and economic viability.
Sincerely,
Thomas R. Cannon, A.I.A., Chairman
Wailuku Main Street Association/Tri-Isle Main Street Resource Center
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