By Edwin Crayton/Opinion
When I was in the second grade, my mom gave money to my sister and me to buy her a birthday gift. We bought her toys. Naturally, she saw through this little scheme by her little ones. She spanked us appropriately and then made us return the toys and buy her a real gift. We did. But I learned a valuable lesson. I don’t remember her exact words, but she made us realize we were thinking about ourselves, not her and she also somehow got across to us that when you serve someone, you make them and their interests the top priority, not yourself. All these years later, I remember that powerful lesson. It was quite a gift.
I mentioned that little parable about my personal, early shortcomings because it returned to memory as I considered what is happening with the Natchitoches Community Improvement Foundation (NCIF). A series of very wrong and very expensive actions seem to indicate that like me and my sister, they’ve lost sight of who should be the top priority. I mean the top priority is the people of Natchitoches. Years ago, in a judgment, a district court told NCIF their purpose is to distribute money to benefit the people of the City of Natchitoches. In the late 1990’s, the funds were awarded in a settlement after Tennessee Gas was involved in a pcb spill into Sibley Lake, drinking water source for Natchitoches. The judgement made it clear that the money was to be distributed through grants in the areas of recreation, education, housing and economic development and also given away in the form of scholarships. Reading the judgement, it seems clear that empowering the people of Natchitoches to improve the town through a fair, democratic and wide distribution of these funds was the idea. Unfortunately, for the most part, it has not worked out quite that way.
There’s an old saying, “Actions speak louder than words.” Well, the actions of the current NCIF Board seem to indicate the board is constantly putting their own interests over the interests of the people of Natchitoches. In NCIF’s universe, in so many ways, the citizens of this town are treated as if they don’t matter. Read the court’s judgement which states what NCIF should do, then check out what NCIF actually does, and you will see they don’t match up. For instance, Both the judgement and Bylaws make it clear that the public is to be given access to meetings and this is so citizens can obtain information and give input. But attend an NCIF quarterly meeting and you’ll see that the public doesn’t get to give much input in reality. Most of the meeting, the board talks and makes decisions without public input. It’s only at the very end of the meeting after everything has been decided that the members of the public are allowed to give brief input. In fact, sometimes, some NCIF Board Members actually walk out as members of the public are speaking. Such actions indicate that the public’s input is not important to this board. Otherwise, they’d make it a priority. The public also has a hard time finding out what’s going on with the money as the foundation’s treasurer doesn’t give treasurer’s reports. Major red flag. Not having treasurer’s reports at public meetings seems to indicate that NCIF doesn’t think the public has a right to know what is going on with these funds, even though, as I said, these settlement funds are designated to help citizens of Natchitoches. The board has only four public quarterly meetings a year. In three meetings so far, I’ve not seen even one treasurer’s report. Zero. And it’s over $2 million dollars.
The judgement says the minutes of all meetings should be published in the local papers. The reality is, the minutes are not published in the local papers. The judgement also says notices of meetings are to be published in the papers 15 days prior to the meeting. Although notices are often printed in the papers, they are also often not printed in the papers. At the July meeting, the time was changed apparently at the last minute and at that meeting, it was announced that the change even caused the court-appointed master to miss the meeting. In short, it’s hard for the public to find out when and where meetings are. How then can they attend? Even when you get to a meeting it can be weird. I attended a February public quarterly meeting and the Chairman Harold Bayonne tried to turn me away, claiming it was not for the public. I told him it was indeed a public meeting and showed him the announcement saying that it was for the public. He let me in. That meeting was an election meeting and the public was invited to send in nominations and attend. But when they began the election, they asked all members of the public to leave the room and then the board conducted the election in secret. Why? And of course, there’s that recent audit in which a certified public accountant said the current board has $22, 345 in unaccounted for transactions. If they don’t know what happened to $22,345, why let them oversee $2 million? Especially when they don’t keep adequate documentation or provide treasurer’s reports?
Recently, a judge stopped the board from spending money and gave spending authority to the Court Appointed Master Christopher Sylvia. Good, but perhaps the court should have gone further and suspended all spending. Mr. Sylvia has been helpful a time or two. But although the idea of appointing a special master to help NCIF comply with the judgement was good, it hasn’t been a game changer. In fact, seems to me, basically the issues discussed in this article happened on Mr. Sylvia’s watch. In fact, at one NCIF Quarterly Public Meeting, I asked Mr. Sylvia for a grant application. He said “no”. Considering that his job is to help the board comply with rules, doesn’t it seem odd that he, a master appointed by the court, would deny a member of the public a grant application? Red flags are everywhere. Previous NCIF Boards have given community organizations grants after having them go through a written application process. The recipient organization was then given a check to use as it needed. Sounds like what the NCIF Bylaws say should happen. However, this current NCIF Board is now creating their own projects and funding them. There are two problems with that. First, how can 15 people decide what is best for over 18,000 people? Second problem is when NCIF is both funder and receiver of funds, doesn’t that mean they are writing checks to themselves? Conflict of interest? And again, remember they have a track record of not keeping documentation. What about checks and balances? It just doesn’t feel like this money is safe.