Half dozen board members have resigned
A long-standing and once influential neighborhood group appears to be slowly crumbling because the organization’s leader is keeping its financial records under wraps.
Three board members of the Ocean Park Community Organization quit last week because its chairman, Rick Laudati, hasn’t responded to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court demanding that 2000 and 2001 financial statements be made public.
The complaint was filed in September by former board member Tom Fuller, who — among others — has been asking for the organization’s financial records for more than a year. They say Laudati has ignored their requests. So far this year, six board members have resigned over the issue. last week, said he and other board members had tried to work with the OPCO board in the past month to answer Fuller’s complaint.
“There was frustration about the slow pace of OPCO getting the financial information together,” Glasser said. “The fact that it is slow in coming, that’s frustrating.”
“There was frustration about the slow pace of OPCO getting the financial information together.” — — ELAN GLASSER Former OPCO board member
OPCO had 30 days to respond to the complaint, which was served Sept. 17. That deadline came and went with no response.
“We were trying to encourage the board to get an attorney and get a settlement for Tom,” Glasser said. “Being on the board and the fact that I couldn’t personally provide these documents to a community organization that should be available to them... I certainly felt that some of the information could have been provided.”
Gary Clouse, a Santa Monica-based attorney who is representing Fuller, said he is unsure what the next course of action will be since OPCO hasn’t responded to the complaint.
Fuller, who is mystified that an organization of which he is a part continues to ignore him, said one possible option is to ask the court for a summary judgment.
“Basically, it says you didn’t respond so you lose,” Fuller said. “At least give me the courtesy of saying I exist... this has really alienated the organization.”
Laudati hasn’t responded in the past month to requests from the Daily Press seeking comment. Susan Love Loughmiller, an OPCO member, said on Saturday that she was unable to locate a board member on such short notice when the Daily Press sought comment on Friday for this story. Loughmiller declined to comment.
OPCO, which was formed in 1978 as a community organization for the Ocean Park neighborhood, is a nonprofit corporation. Under California law, OPCO is required to provide its membership with financial records, according to the complaint. And because it has-n’t, it is operating illegally, which opens the organization and its board members to liability, some say.
One of OPCO’s functions is to review development projects and make recommendations to the planning commission and city council on whether they should be approved or denied. Some board members who have resigned said they did so because there is no protection of liability when the legality of the organization is being challenged.
Board members Audrea Golding Bitler and Ted Winterer, who along with Glasser, attempted to work out a resolution, also resigned last week reportedly for the same reasons.
“Not having an attorney regarding the issue was concerning for us,” Glasser said.
Clouse said OPCO and Laudati, who controls the records, are going to have to face its membership and provide the records eventually.
“It’s been strangely quiet,” he said. “But they don’t have the luxury of ignoring this lawsuit.”
Glasser said the OPCO board had made some progress in the past month in getting financial records for 2002, but not for the previous two years, which are the statements in question.
When Fuller got involved in OPCO in early 2001, he asked to review the accounting books and all financial records, as well as a list of the organization’s current membership.
In his written request to Laudati in June 2001, Fuller said he was concerned about an apparent discrepancy between the number of reported members compared to the small amount of membership fees collected. Both the size of the organization and the size of its bank account are unknown.
By the end of 2001, Fuller and other board members wanted the documents to review before the organization’s annual congress in February of this year, when all of its members gathered to elect board members and discuss issues. They also requested that Laudati provide monthly financial statements.
Fuller said that this past August, he got an e-mail from Laudati declining to release the records.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 25, 2002. Read the original PDF.