Norwalk pols among those on former NEON board

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8 responses to “Norwalk pols among those on former NEON board”

1. jlightfield

   September 29, 2013

   FYI The NEON board according to a change of its by-laws in 2007 is supposed to have 18 members. For example, in 2009 you are missing Rick McQuaid and State Rep Joe Miolli.

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2. Norwalk Spectator

   September 29, 2013

   I think that there are somethings that everyone needs to keep in mind, one of which is that the Board Members are not involved in the day to day administration of an organization like NEON.
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   Secondly, in the other NON NEON article, Ms. Davis pointed out that Board members had asked questions and had not been given the answers. Right, wrong or otherwise, it sounds like this is what happened.
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   I don’t know the ins and outs of this whole situation, but it sounds like the problems are beginning to surface. I know people talk about transparency and accountability and the phrase “should have known” will probably be tossed into the mix before too long, but “should have known” and “knew” have two different meanings.
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   I’m still of the opinion that NEON should be shut down but I also believe that the past Board members were kept in the dark just the same as everyone else.

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3. Jlightfield

   September 29, 2013

   The fiduciary responsibility of NEON and for that matter all corporations, profit or otherwise, lies with the board of directors. If the board did not hold staff accountable for the lack of accurate financial reports, then the issue becomes the failure of the board to act. There are numerous free advisory groups that specifically help non profits and their boards act with proper due diligence and practice. NEON’s problems with accounting and Head Start date to at least 2003 if not a decade earlier. The consistent theme has been the failure of the board to manage its responsibilities let alone manage the goals and objectives that staff are required to meet.

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4. Norwalk Spectator

   September 29, 2013

   As I said in my earlier comment, the “should have known” argument wasn’t long in coming.

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5. Don’t Panic

   September 30, 2013

   But “should have known” is absolutely the correct standard.
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   Anybody missing a fiscal reporting deadline in a public company would know that their job was at risk. That folks here did not feel the need to respond to board questions is a management problem on top of a reporting problem.
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   It is unclear here what this board thought its job was.

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6. dawn

   September 30, 2013

   Thje board can only doo so much. They cannot make the financial records appear before them.
   They also are not able to discern what is true and false unless they are in there every day.
   the only mistake they made wich makes them at fault is that when the truth began to come out they continued to accept what they were given.
   When the truth came out they needed to clean house.
   they needed to look for a director with a background that was going to help fix things not take someone who lied about her credentials and was a part of the original problem.
   Had those steps been taken correctly they would not be in the mess they are in.
   My husband keeps telling me that they don’t really want to fix the problem because the money that is being “MISSPENT” is lining someone’s pocket.
   And I still cannot believe that the state has not stepped in and done what Norwalk has done, which is cut them off from funds until the financial book are cleaned up.
   If the faucet gets turned off the crooks will run for the hills.

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7. Norwalk Spectator

   September 30, 2013

   Thank you, Dawn. I agree with you. It’s baffling to me, too, as to why the State and the Feds haven’t stopped the money flow.
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   It’s all too easy to arm chair quarterback and pretend that you or others would have known something that someone else didn’t.
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   It’s important to remember that the point of theft or embezzlement is not just to take what rightly belongs to someone else, but to GET AWAY WITH IT. That involves deception. How many times have there been interviews on the news broadcasts with people who were deceived by others? Bernie Madoff comes to mind. His victims included no less than fifteen banks and the Town of Fairfield pension fund (ouch!)along with a Fund group in Darien. And you all can say, “They should have known.” Take a look at some of the companies and names on the list. You’ll be surprised. I was.
   s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_madoff_victims_20081215.html
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   I think it was a very prudent and wise move on the part of the City to stop funding when they did. I also think many of the board members, both past and present tried to rectify or at least understand what was going on and when they couldn’t, they left the Board.
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   I don’t think NEON will ever get out from under this cloud and still feel the best course of action is to shut it down.

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8. Oldtimer

   October 1, 2013

   Instead of cutting off the grant the City had been giving Neon for many years, appointing a qualified accountant to Neon staff to get Neon’s books in order and take full control of spending could have solved a lot of problems two years ago. It is clear Neon desperately needed somebody to take control of cash flow. Cutting off the City grant without helping fix their problems just added to them.

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