On Wednesday, Sept. 18, the Redwood Coast Senior Center Board voted to fire Executive Director Charles Bush.
On Tuesday, Sept. 24, Bush was at work in his office, the thrift shop was open and lunch preparations were underway. Last week, he wasn”t sure where he would be today, having been told the board of directors had voted to fire him but then hearing the baffling news that he hadn”t actually been fired. The news of the firing-non-firing has been all over the Internet and on the newspaper”s website and Facebook page.
The vote has bemused and divided the community and confounded several board members who voted. Some board members insist Bush, who has been on the job for about five years, was not actually fired. But they can”t or won”t explain. Bush himself isn”t sure. He took a sick day last Friday and was back to work this week.
The nine-member board is comprised of Kathleen Johnson, president, James Graham, vice president, Syd Balows, Robert Bushansky, Sandra Donato, Gin Paul Kremen, Lonne Mitchell, Ronalie Silveira and Lizette Weiss.
On Tuesday, Bush said all employees were coming to work. He encouraged everyone to continue supporting the Senior Center in Fort Bragg.
“Our Senior Center is much bigger than any one person. It remains financially precarious. Especially with federal budget cuts, we rely on the generosity of our wonderful community. I would encourage everyone to please keep giving. We need it now more than ever,” Bush said.
This newspaper contacted board members by email, but most didn”t respond.
“We did not fire Charles,” board member Lonne Mitchell told this newspaper. This particular quote has been relayed by two other board members as their only response, with no reply to follow-up emails.
Although nobody has said, they must feel they are bound by confidentiality of closed session, which two Bush supporters on the board may have violated.
Confusion reigns
The board contention has confused staff and inflamed the community, where Bush has numerous fans and supporters and no vocal detractors. Many stories have been published on the local listservs, often presenting contradictory accounts.
Many Senior Center users are outraged by the vote, which they feel was wrongly secretive and inept. Apparently, the board never formally consulted with an attorney, either before or after the vote.
Board President Kathleen Johnson told this newspaper on Tuesday that much wrong information was being circulated, including in news accounts. Board members who voted to fire Bush say they have been threatened and even assaulted since the matter was revealed. They are unhappy with the two board members who have spoken out publicly.
Fighting back tears, Johnson said she and other board members have been barraged with hundreds of emails in the past week, most containing accusations and criticism “quoting things that are not true.” She has been verbally abused, one person spit on her and her car was keyed in the past week, she said.
Vote in question
According to several reliable sources, the vote was 4-2 for the firing with two abstentions. Board member Bob Bushansky walked out before the vote, saying the meeting had not been properly noticed or posted.
The meeting came with no agenda and the board failed to go into closed session before discussing the firing, he said. The vote was by secret ballot.
“I informed the board, all eight other members, that any actions taken at an illegally held meeting had no legal standing. The board president said that she didn”t care what I thought, they were moving forward anyway,” said Bushansky.
Robert”s Rules of order does allow for secret ballots for nonprofits like the Senior Center. Secret ballots would be prohibited for a public agency, which the center is not.
“Everything that took place in the last two months regarding personnel took place in executive session,” Johnson said Tuesday morning. “We cannot comment.”
A key point in all this is whether the board, having called a special meeting on Sept. 18, met first in open session then formally closed the public meeting and moved to closed session.
If that happened, Bushansky and Balows appear to be in the wrong. If not, Bushansky believes the entire action is void and the board president would bear the responsibility for holding improper personnel discussion in open session.
It is certainly standard practice and required for government agencies to start a special meeting as open session. But it”s not clear from the bylaws or Robert”s Rules of Order if that is also true of the Senior Center board.
If a closed session was properly held as Johnson claims, the speaking out by two Bush supporters would be a violation of the bylaws and all standard practice for every board of directors.
All board members are required to keep confidential what happens in closed session, even if they don”t agree with it.
However, even if the Bush supporters were in the wrong for leaking what happened to him and the public, it appears the meeting was not properly noticed or posted, as clearly stated in the bylaws, and thus the question is possibly moot.
Reasons for vote
Why did board members want to take this action?
None of the board members who voted to fire responded to questions about that even though framed so no specific names need be mentioned, nor personnel matters revealed.
Charges against Bush in a document obtained by this newspaper include having a messy office, spending too much time serving and greeting in the dining room and not enough out fundraising. Some board members were upset about the firing of one employee and about a cantankerous senior volunteer woman that Bush won”t fire.
Board members are unhappy the Senior Center has been operating in the red and feel action must be taken now to fix the problem. They want Bush to spend much more time out in the community raising money.
None of the reasons for firing Bush, as presented to this newspaper, seem to involve any urgency that would justify an emergency meeting, or any hint of anything illegal. The Senior Center has shown clean audits, if still in the red. Bush supporters think the vote was held when it was because Weiss was leaving the board this week.
2008-09 Grand Jury report
The former Senior Center board was slammed by the Mendocino County Grand Jury in 2009 for mismanagement in a report titled “Nobody (Is) Was Listening.” Bush, a board member at the time, stepped in as an interim boss when former executive director Joe Curren departed just before the report came out.
“Over a six-month period, jurors documented a striking absence of the active, visible leadership and board oversight that are critical to the success of direct service non-profit organizations,” the Grand Jury wrote.
The entire board from 2009 has since departed. Johnson joined the board in June 2009, after the Grand Jury issued its report.
Bush and chef Sal Meza created special dinner fundraisers paired with cultural events being held next door at Cotton Auditorium. He did a show, “Senior Perspectives,” on the former Mendocino Coast Community Television featuring seniors. He made thrift shop revenues go up for a while, then they dipped back down. Bush also inherited a staff with a history of contention a staff too often rocked by the previous board-ED controversies, from volunteer firings to internal strife.
Bush under fire
The effort to replace Bush began when two members left the board and were replaced by Lizette Weiss and Lonne Mitchell in May of this year. Bush supporters allege those two have led the efforts to oust Bush.
The two biggest issues for the board members upset with Bush are staff discord and fundraising. “Lizette has charged that in five of the last six years the Senior Center has shown a loss,” said Bushansky. “What she failed to mention is the over $200,000 in cutbacks of funding that the center has experienced and that the losses have been less each year in keeping with a cooperative plan with the board. During this time, the center has maintained or increased services and until recently with the same staff. The staff has not received an increase for five years, I believe.
“In my opinion, the reasons for firing Charles had nothing to do with performance or lack thereof … The reaction from the public, the volunteers and the employees has been overwhelmingly favorable towards and, unfortunately, extremely negative against [some] board members. As I said, there was no expectation of confidentiality and the names are out there,” Bushansky said.
Nearly everyone interviewed seemed baffled, confused, bemused and frustrated. “You”re confused? Join the club. And believe me, we know the pitchforks and torches are out. When I know more I”ll tell you more,” said board member Gin Paul Kremen. Kremen didn”t say which way she voted.
Bush and Johnson agreed on one thing the staff has done a remarkable job as all this has been going on. Bush praised the staff and volunteers on Tuesday for keeping the focus on serving seniors and doing a great job.
Johnson also praised the Senior Center staff”s response to the situation and thanked them for “keeping the place going in times of trouble.”
“The staff has been marvelous,” she said, noting that many stepped in and carried off Saturday night”s Fall Celebration dinner fundraiser when some of the usual special events crew dropped out on short notice. Eighty-six people attended the benefit for the center”s meals program.
As stipulated in the Senior Center”s bylaws, the board”s annual meeting to elect officers and replace members who have retired or resigned will be held this Friday, Sept. 27, 1 p.m. at the center, 490 N. Harold St., Fort Bragg. The board will be asked to chose among four applicants, who applied by the deadline to replace temporary board member Lizette Weiss.
