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May 15 Town Hall Recap:

Public Statement Regarding the Status of OBTC & OBCF

The Ocean Beach Community Foundation held a town hall meeting on Wednesday, May 15 at 7:00 pm to discuss the status and facts of the OBTC and OBCF organizations with the community. Below is a summary of our public statement from this Town Hall:

Introduction

As a board, we have a lot of information to share tonight, so we respectfully request to present everything before receiving comments and questions from the audience. This is an interim report, as work is still underway to uncover all of the missteps of the past and take corrective action. The facts that we are going to share may be shocking and as you process this information it may feel similar to the stages of grief and loss. You may find yourself cycling through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The current Board members and those who have resigned in the past few months are all processing these same cycle of feelings. We have a pulse on the community’s opinion and understand that the OB community wants the Town Council to remain in tact as a 501c4; but after careful consideration and seeking legal and accounting advice, we have come to the conclusion that dissolving the 501c4 OB Town Council and operating under the 501c3 OB Community Foundation is in our best interest as an organization. Tonight we will share facts as to why.

There are 7 remaining Directors on the OB Community Foundation Board who are committed to righting this ship and ensuring the activities and traditions of OB continue into the future. Tonight’s agenda will focus on facts of the OB Town Council, facts of the OB Community Foundation, actions the board has taken so far, wrapping up with the 2024 plans for the organization. At the end of which we will open the floor for input and conversion with the audience.

OB Town Council Status

In the spring of 2023 board members began requesting visibility to our bank accounts and asking for general transparency into the Town Council's finances. Access to some of this information came in December of 2023, after Jenny Brengelman was installed as Treasurer and gained access to our bank accounts. The following is what we subsequently learned.

OB Town Council Bank Account:

OBTC bank account reached a negative balance in January 2021. After 6 months of being delinquent the account was charged off; in July of 2021 the account was turned over for collections.  At that time the bank account was with Union Bank. Union Bank was later acquired by US Bank, making the records more challenging to access. To this day, we have hard copy statements from the closed account and are manually entering credit and debit transaction data into a spreadsheet in preparation for tax filings.

OB Town Council Credit Cards:

It was later discovered that the Town Council had delinquent credit cards that had been charged off, sent to collections. The amounts currently in collections are as follows:

• The previously mentioned OBTC Checking account -$220.42 in July 2021

• OBTC Union Bank Visa credit card -$12,161.95 in February 2022

• OBTC Us Bank credit card/balance transferred from Union Bank -$120.53 in June 2023

OB Town Council Taxes:

For the period of 2018 - 2023, the OBTC did not file its taxes, known as informational filings (990’s) with the IRS. Due to delinquent filing for 3 consecutive years, in 2021 the OBTC lost its federal non-profit status.

OB Community Foundation Status

On the OB Community Foundation, 501c3, we submitted tax filings for 2021 and 2022 late and were assessed penalties by the IRS. We are working towards abatement of these late filing fees and are currently holding on a decision from the IRS. The 2023 taxes are being submitted by our accountant to avoid late penalties.

We have conducted monthly Board meetings to keep the organization on track operationally while we have been addressing the financial issues and missteps that transpired. We hired a CPA and attorney to ensure we are operating within the appropriate guardrails from a financial and 501c3 perspective.

We have updated the bylaws and standing rules to clearly define all required filings with the IRS, state Attorney General, California Tax Franchise Board to ensure knowledge of the requirements and timeline for filing by all future board members and addressed additional items to ensure oversight where required. We have set and approved a budget for our 2023/24 fiscal year to establish a baseline for the events throughout the year.

On the technology front, a new website is in progress that will go live in the near future. We have gained access to several software platforms that, as a board, we did not have administrative access to. Where we have needed to move forward with new instances of a software, we have established new accounts. You will see new OBCommunityFoundation.org emails to contact all of us in the near future.

Since the OB Community Foundation can accept tax-deductible contributions, it is the intent of the Board to promote activities, fundraising events, and charitable activities under the Foundation and all support will be focused in that direction.

Going Forward

The board has taken several corrective actions to ensure this type of occurrence never happens in the future. Additionally, as shared at the January 24 Community Forum, a police report was filed in December. Subsequently, the board has gathered evidence, drafted and finalized a letter of embezzlement with exhibits and submitted this hard copy in a binder to the San Diego Police Department’s Financial Fraud unit in February. We check in with the financial fraud unit regularly and are waiting for the investigation to begin.

We are excited to plan and put on our historical annual events that bring our amazing community together. We have started the planning process and forming event committees, so if anyone is interested in joining us we would love your support. Please reach out through our email if you are interested.

As you know we postponed elections from January due to addressing the state of the Town Council and as a result of all the hard work of the existing members we are ready to launch elections. Elections will be June 26-July 4, with new board members starting their term on July 8. If you are interested in running for a seat on the board, please see submit a written candidate statement by June 23. We plan to host a candidate forum to hear statements live on June 26, here at the library.

Thank you for continuing to support the activities of the board,

   Shelly Parks, President

   Jenny Brengelman, Treasurer

   Gary Gartner, Corresponding Secretary

   Aaron Null, Director, Advocacy

   Anna Firicano, Director, Engagement

   Greg Winter, Director

   Stephanie Kane, Director, Event

Watch the Town Hall Recording

P.S. As a friendly reminder, please email all questions or comments to [email protected]. Note that this email handle no longer represents the Ocean Beach Town Council. This is the only centralized email that we currently have access to and are working towards lifting up a new Google for Nonprofits Workspace on behalf of the Ocean Beach Community Foundation.

Our mailing address is:4833 Santa Monica #7959San Diego, CA 92017Want to change how you receive these emails?You can unsubscribe