[Mpls] 10th Ward race & LNA's $83,000 [long]

[Chris Johnson]

> To: Wendy Pareene
> CC: LNA Steering Committee
> From: Julia Copeland, Jeannie Cunningham,Leslie Nitabach, Scott
> Persons
> Re: Unprofessional and unwarranted allegations against LNA volunteers  
> and Staff by Wendy Pareene
> 
> This letter will respond to the allegations in your letter of February
> 10, 2003.  Your letter displays a profound lack of understanding, not
> only of the facts, but also of the appropriate way to raise concerns you
> may have.  As a member of the Steering Committee you have the right to
> raise questions and discuss matters of concern.  In fact, far from being
> prevented from raising your concerns, you have had ample opportunity to
> discuss them.

And etc. etc. ad nauseum for many pages, filled with straw men, red herrings 
and "righteous" indignation.

The one item for me that gives this whole treatise the clinging malodor of 
obfuscatory, well-spun cover for misdeeds is this:  "Your allegation that 
$80,000 is "missing" and that someone might have stolen it..."

I did not see any allegation of stolen money, but I did see questions about 
what how $83,000 was spent and not reimbursed.  If the money is spent, but not 
reimbursed, as the writers freely admit, then where did the cash come from? 
Which account or other purpose was raided to spend it?  It's not like someone 
lost a pocketful of change and it was covered from petty cash.  $83,000 is a 
lot of money.  LNA wrote it off -- but all that means is hay had an 
unrecovered loss.  They still LOST $83,000 somehow.  How?  That's what Ms. 
Pareene seems to be asking.  And that's what many of us would like to know, too.

Confused statements about libel, slander, defamation and threats don't add 
much to the argument, either.  If they have a legal case, file it.  Otherwise, 
such comments sound like empty threats to me -- sort of like the pot calling 
the kettle black, if one is to believe the statements.

The real questions seem to be about the malfeasance, misfeasance and 
nonfeasance at LNA under the watch of Scott Persons and his friends.

I'd also like to know why some neighborhood associations spent tens of 
thousands of dollars of NRP money on staff time and related expenses (e.g. 
telephones at $8,000) and others spent nearly zero on staff, making do with 
almost all volunteer efforts.  That difference really does add ammunition to 
the critics of NRP who say that political hacks just abuse NRP as yet another 
way to belly up to the public trough.


Why is it the guilty are those who always protest the loudest?



Chris Johnson
Fulton