NORWALK, Conn. – Norwalk Economic Opportunity Now (NEON) can continue to operate with only five board members, board Chairman Mike Berkoff said Sunday.
“We want to move this thing forward. We have the ability to move forward,” he said. There will be grants, he said.
Berkoff confirmed many allegations made last week by board secretary Dale Ferguson but firmly stated that she is not a board member as she does not live or work in NEON’s catchment area. That would have been discussed Wednesday, but there weren’t enough members present for a quorum.
It had been eight weeks since the last board meeting. NEON bylaws call for a board meeting at least every 10 weeks.
“We really thought we’d be able to have a board meeting,” Berkoff said. “We’re working right now with legal counsel to figure out how we operate.”
He suggested Wednesday that NEON might go into emergency status. Legal research has since shown that NEON can go into executive session with five board members, he said.
“We believe we can do almost everything but swear in new members,” he said.
State law requires a CAP agency to have a board consisting of not more than 51 and not fewer than 15 members. The list of board members has been removed from the NEON website. Minutes of the November board meeting list 15 members: Michael Geake, Angela Edwards, Elizabeth Dukes, Katherine Williams, Paola Ochoa, Elda Mas, Terry Adams, Samuel Delgado, Nick Tarzia, O’Dea, Berkoff, Bowser, Peterson, Parker and Ferguson.
Parker, Peterson, Mas, Williams and Geake represent Norwalk, according to NEON paperwork. Ferguson, Robin Peterson and Vanessa Parker have been notified that they are no longer on the board.
Ferguson said Mas hasn’t been to a board meeting since May. Berkoff said he has never met Mas. Berkoff said he hasn’t heard from Delgado in a while, confirming Ferguson’s report that Delgado has dropped out.
Berkoff confirmed Ferguson’s story: there was a Stamford woman at Wednesday’s meeting to be presented as a potential board member. Nick Tarzia, who was appointed to the board in November, was there to be sworn in as well, but in the absence of a quorum neither thing happened.
“It’s just unbelievable that these people that are sitting on the board don’t come to these meetings,” Berkoff said. “They are there to shoot us down (but they don’t come to move things along).”
But he expressed frustration with the people who are arriving to spend their time on the struggling non-profit, which is teetering on bankruptcy in the wake of bounced paychecks in November, described by Berkoff as “the debacle.”
“The problem is that the people that are there are not looking to move things forward,” he said. “Instead of spending the time rehashing then to now and going back it’s very important that we spend the time going forward.”
He then recited the history that has taken NEON to where it is today, beginning with the merger with CTE of Stamford.
“It took them a year to get the company running as one but they were running double payrolls,” he said.
That ate into resources. Then-Mayor Richard Moccia withheld $1.3 million in funding for two years, a $2.6 million loss.
“You had a board there, management then wasn’t smart enough to make the decision to cut their programs, out of the goodness of their hearts or maybe thinking someone would come up with the money,” he said. “It hit the wall back in October. It wasn’t because of Chiquita (Stephenson).”
Nobody was giving the board accounting information, he said, naming then Chief Operating Officer Stephenson and then-interim CEO and President Pat Wilson Pheanious.
“They should have had their numbers and their cash flow straight. It should have been done monthly or quarterly,” he said. “…The issue is if this were to be run like a business and were fiscally responsible it wouldn’t be where it is today.”
NEON’s website sports a new title: “NEON of Stamford (Formerly CTE).”
“There has been no name change,” said Berkoff, who said he was surprised to see the title and promised to find out where that came from.
Yes, it appears that the W2’s were sent out late, he said.
NEON had been using ADP Payroll services but there was an issue because ADP was trying to access the money in the account. There was a tax payment that couldn’t be pulled in order to transmit the checks, he said. ADP dropped NEON.
NEON enlisted Charles Hoffler & Associates in Waterbury, he said. The W2’s were processed at Hoffler-Smith Accounting and Financial Services in Sicklerville, N.J., a sister company of the Waterbury firm, he said.
“From what I understand, they’re late. We’re looking into getting an answer. I should have something this week back from them,” Berkoff said.
Berkoff joined the board in July because NEON has good services that are needed, he said.
“It takes a few months to understand all the legal paperwork,” he said. “It really isn’t until now that I fully understand what is going on. … I don’t think the people who sit on the board were ever briefed on all the legal documentation that you need to do.”
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