Early
this year, members of the former Board of Directors of PUEBLO
(People United for a Better Oakland) discovered serious management
and fiscal problems in the organization. As a result of this
situation, the decision was made to terminate the Executive
Director and because of lack of funds, to lay off PUEBLO’s
staff. Several meetings were then held with active PUEBLO
members and supporters to discuss the way forward for the
organization.
In those
meetings there was overwhelming support for PUEBLO to continue
because it was seen as such an important asset for the community.
PUEBLO has been successfully advocating on a number of important
community issues for 15 years and in the process has empowered
a large number of Oakland’s residents in their struggles
for community control of police, affordable housing and economic
justice and against environmental and institutional racism
in the city.
The PUEBLO
community decided that in order to rebuild PUEBLO, the old
board members would resign and an interim board be put in
place. The mission of the Interim Board is to oversee a complete
investigation of the organization’s fiscal and management
practices and develop a plan to rebuild the organization.
All parties to PUEBLO’s internal and external disputes
agreed to the creation of this interim board. Walter Riley,
a civil rights attorney in Oakland and a long-time PUEBLO
supporter, was initially sought out as a mediator to begin
sorting out the most critical issues it faced as an organization.
Riley is a trusted member of the larger PUEBLO community
and is as an excellent choice to lead PUEBLO’s interim
board. The other Interim Board members are Grover Dye, former
Deputy Director of Alameda County Mental Health Department,
and Anne Weills, a civil rights advocate and board member
of Youth Together. Francis Calpotura, PUEBLO Founder and
veteran organizer, is an advisor to the board.
The Interim
Board has begun its work and sees its most critical tasks
as the following:
1)
to oversee and complete a thoroughgoing financial audit
of the organization;
2)
to work with past and future funders to explain what
happened and create a plan to turn things around;
3)
to put into place a new board of directors for PUEBLO
that will over see the rebuilding of the organization;
4)
to implement a new management system with strong and
transparent management/executive practices for a non-profit
of PUEBLO’s size, issues and focus;
5)
to provide an assessment to what led to the crisis, highlighting
lessons learned for the organization which can be instructive
to social justice organizing in general;
6)
to develop a short-range and long-range plan to rebuild
the organization and use this crisis to make it an even
stronger, more committed and powerful organization for
Oakland’s working class and people of color communities.
