Lynn Richardson's response to Joan Villereal's letter
The following letter was published in the Akron Becaon-Journal on January 9th, 2012:
Joan P. Villarreal’s Dec. 28 letter, “Girl Scouts in transition,” is an excellent illustration of the problems that Girl Scouts in Northeast Ohio are having with the current board of directors. The board keeps changing its story about why it wants to sell camps.
Villarreal cites two numbers. She points to $7 million needed in “deferred maintenance.”
However, the council report on camp properties listed $1.9 million in deferred maintenance.
Villarreal goes on to say that the council needs $18.8 million “to meet current regulations.” However, board spokesman Brent Gardner told the Girl Scout Council General Assembly this past April that the reason we had to sell camps was because it would take over $30 million to bring them all up to American Camp Association standards.
Then it was discovered that the source of the $30 million figure had nothing at all to do with ACA standards. It was from a chart listing massive, unnecessary construction projects at all the camps.
I find it unlikely that Gardner misunderstood the difference between estimates and wild ideas. He is a professional insurance agent. He deals with facts and figures, charts, data and statistics every day.
It is much more likely that he deliberately lied to the assembly in order to scare us into accepting the board’s outrageous proposal. Hard to accept — but there is no other plausible explanation.
At that time, I wrote to Gardner and the rest of the board and asked them to address the discrepancy between the council report and the assembly presentation.
I received no response. But as late as August, Gardner was still telling the media that our council simply could not afford the $30 million needed to repair all the camps.
In October, the assembly voted on an amendment to the bylaws which would have required membership input into all property decisions.
A majority of the assembly voted for it, but we were just six votes shy of the needed two-thirds majority for a permanent amendment.
Some of the delegates who voted against it were afraid that keeping the camps to the tune of $30 million would have drained our resources.
It’s interesting that after eight months the board has devised a new set of costs.
Why, suddenly, when the evaluation process has supposedly been going on for four years? Where do these new numbers come from? And why did Gardner, as board spokesman, lie to us in the first place?
The list of incompetencies and manipulations is long. I have begun posting them on www.trefoilintegrity.org under the “timeline” tab.
This has gone beyond which camps to keep open. It’s about this organization’s ability to deal honestly and fairly with its members, and with the public which supports it.
We are Girl Scouts. We need our camps. We need accurate and honest information.
We will not accept decisions based on lies, half-truths, omissions or incompetence.
Lynn Scholle Richardson
President, Friends of Camp Crowell/Hilaka
Bedford
Joan P. Villarreal’s Dec. 28 letter, “Girl Scouts in transition,” is an excellent illustration of the problems that Girl Scouts in Northeast Ohio are having with the current board of directors. The board keeps changing its story about why it wants to sell camps.
Villarreal cites two numbers. She points to $7 million needed in “deferred maintenance.”
However, the council report on camp properties listed $1.9 million in deferred maintenance.
Villarreal goes on to say that the council needs $18.8 million “to meet current regulations.” However, board spokesman Brent Gardner told the Girl Scout Council General Assembly this past April that the reason we had to sell camps was because it would take over $30 million to bring them all up to American Camp Association standards.
Then it was discovered that the source of the $30 million figure had nothing at all to do with ACA standards. It was from a chart listing massive, unnecessary construction projects at all the camps.
I find it unlikely that Gardner misunderstood the difference between estimates and wild ideas. He is a professional insurance agent. He deals with facts and figures, charts, data and statistics every day.
It is much more likely that he deliberately lied to the assembly in order to scare us into accepting the board’s outrageous proposal. Hard to accept — but there is no other plausible explanation.
At that time, I wrote to Gardner and the rest of the board and asked them to address the discrepancy between the council report and the assembly presentation.
I received no response. But as late as August, Gardner was still telling the media that our council simply could not afford the $30 million needed to repair all the camps.
In October, the assembly voted on an amendment to the bylaws which would have required membership input into all property decisions.
A majority of the assembly voted for it, but we were just six votes shy of the needed two-thirds majority for a permanent amendment.
Some of the delegates who voted against it were afraid that keeping the camps to the tune of $30 million would have drained our resources.
It’s interesting that after eight months the board has devised a new set of costs.
Why, suddenly, when the evaluation process has supposedly been going on for four years? Where do these new numbers come from? And why did Gardner, as board spokesman, lie to us in the first place?
The list of incompetencies and manipulations is long. I have begun posting them on www.trefoilintegrity.org under the “timeline” tab.
This has gone beyond which camps to keep open. It’s about this organization’s ability to deal honestly and fairly with its members, and with the public which supports it.
We are Girl Scouts. We need our camps. We need accurate and honest information.
We will not accept decisions based on lies, half-truths, omissions or incompetence.
Lynn Scholle Richardson
President, Friends of Camp Crowell/Hilaka
Bedford