Mayor Butch Berry arranged an exchange between city council and the Community Center Foundation because at the Jan. 8 council meeting, aldermen approved by a 4-1 vote a motion to suspend all engagement with CCF until the city had performed “extreme due diligence” regarding Articles of Incorporation, lease with the school district, financial records, and income sources. At Monday evening’s meeting, Community Center Foundation President Diane Murphy and CPA Rusty Windle answered those concerns.
Murphy began by pointing out CCF is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit which does not receive any tax dollars from the city and has neither obligation nor accountability to the city. She said the request from council for CCF to present its financials was entirely unprecedented and far outside council’s purview, and she was there solely as a courtesy to the community.
She said more than 400 local businesses believed in the effort to create the Community Center enough to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the project, which to her underscored the value of cooperative efforts. Murphy commented that somehow the effort to find common ground for a potential partnership with the city crossed into suspicions and distrust. “We can do better than this,” she said. “We’re a small town,” adding that CCF intends to continue efforts to build and expand partnerships with community organizations.
Murphy said the Community Center celebrated a wonderful Grand Opening and is open with a schedule of activities on their website.
Windle told council he had performed the financial reviews of the Foundation each year so far, and noted everything has been accounted for properly. He said board members are not paid for what they do, and the Foundation has done everything it was supposed to do with financials.
Alderman David Mitchell said he made the Jan. 8 motion out of doing due diligence as he saw it. He was not making a stand against the Foundation. He said he wanted to be clear about a proper relationship between the city and a private entity and how tax revenue was being used, and appreciated Windle’s answers to accounting questions.
Berry encouraged everyone to move beyond old problems nobody was worried about any more, and Mitchell added to the next agenda rescinding his Jan. 8 motion.