Updated, 12:08 a.m. Tuesday, comments from Jack O’Dea, email from Alan Rossi;
12:48 a.m., quote from William Westcott
NORWALK, Conn. – Reports of Norwalk Economic Opportunity Now’s (NEON) imminent emergence from the scandals and controversies that have gripped the agency for the past few years are, apparently, premature.
Attorney William Wescott, who was named chairman of the NEON Board of Directors on May 8, resigned from the board Monday, Sept. 23.
“After a great deal of careful consideration,” Wescott said in a letter emailed to the other board members, “I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that my resignation is necessitated by the impossibility of fulfilling my fiduciary obligation to this organization under current management circumstances.
“For several months now, our board has been repeatedly presented with management crises which are frankly inexplicable. Issues of paramount importance to the organization, including our financial solvency and our required compliance with state and federal laws, have been neglected, or worse, outright concealed from the board long past the point when these matters should have been brought to our attention under any reasonable management structure. When this board inquires why it is that such urgent matters were not reported earlier, we are often given explanations which, to my mind, are plainly not believable.
“As a volunteer, I cannot offer my best advice and fulfill my fiduciary duty without receiving information in a competent, timely manner, or when I cannot be certain of the accuracy of the information that is reported to me. Without this confidence which is necessary, I have no choice but resign effective immediately.”
NancyOnNorwalk was not immediately able to reach Westcott for comment.
Board member Jack O’Dea, an outspoken supporter of interim CEO and President Chiquita Stehenson, said he had lunch with Westcott “two weeks ago Friday” and was surprised he resigned.
“I don’t recall hearing him make much of an issue with any of this stuff so I don’t know how to interpret his letter,” O’Dea said.
Westcott was “not a strong chairman,” O’Dea said. “I don’t think it makes a lot of difference,” he said.
Board member Alan Rossi walked out of the Sept. 11 board meeting during an executive session. O’Dea said Rossi had repeatedly questioned NEON’s financing during the executive session, and Westcott shut him down.
Rossi subsequently sent an email to NEON board members with the subject line, “NEON on the brink.”
“I am extremely concerned about NEON’s future, a concern that was intensified by the meeting that we had last week with the Head Start administrators,” Rossi said.
After that board meeting, NancyOnNorwalk asked Westcott about the challenge of being a board member and whether or not he thought progress was being made.
“Everyone here is starting to get to know each other,” he said. “We’re starting to function better all the time. We have yet again a new director. I definitely do think we’re making progress in understanding things that this entirely new board didn’t understand as well before. I think the more we know we can only continue to make progress from here.”
In May, Westcott had sounded a positive but cautionary note when he finished a statement with, “I think our potential is obvious, but the real work that remains cannot be underestimated if we are to see the type of efficient implementation of our resources that would truly make a difference in all eight of the towns that are included in our service area.”
In that statement, Westcott had praised interim CEO and President Pat Wilson Pheanious for putting together a new board “that brings a wide variety of talents and experiences. It is both exciting and humbling to be selected as Chair by this accomplished group. It is my most primary hope that by electing officers and appointing committee members we have now reached the final stages of organizing NEON’s internal needs and that we will soon be maximizing our ability to administer successful programs in the community.”
Pheanious recently ended her 18-month interim appointment and was replaced by Stephenson, a management holdover from the Joe Mann administration. Mann was forced out as CEO and president amidst charges of misuse of funds stemming from an audit by the U.S. Office of Inspector General.
The state Department of Social Services recently demanded more than $300,000 in misused grant money be paid back, and another audit of the social service agency is underway.
Nancy Guenther Chapman contributed to this report.
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