South County Senior Center board member Earl Schuster announced his resignation from the board April 28 in a letter that denounced the membership’s bumptious, months-long push for control.
“The people involved in this movement have done a terrible disservice to (the senior center),” he wrote. “We have lost our focus, our reason for being.”
Schuster was a first-term board member whose three-year term was scheduled to expire in December 2008. He sent the letter to the other board members April 18, but his letter wasn’t public until April 28.
The letter questioned the future viability of the South County Senior Center, a sensitive topic for the 1,500-member center, which is housed in an old, city-owned building on Edmonds’ waterfront.
“We are behind on fundraising efforts, committees have been reformed without any discussion or courtesy communication, and we have some very serious issues to resolve,” Schuster wrote. “We have placed ourselves in a weakened position, and one of my concerns is that with planning underway for the waterfront development project the mayor or council or both may reevaluate this building and its value as a revenue stream, and we’ll end up partnering with Lynnwood Seniors on their turf.”
The city has no plans for the senior center building, Mayor Gary Haakenson has repeatedly said.
The center’s dispute has been long and complicated, but it began in October when popular executive director Farrell Fleming was fired despite the membership’s loud protest.
Fleming’s dismissal sparked a struggle for power between the board and a membership that wanted a voice in how the center was run. The board has nominated and elected its own members and officers for the center’s 40-year history.
After a legal settlement, a March 12 officer election was held. Nearly 600 people voted, and four rank-and-file members were promoted to officers of the board, including new board president Rose Cantwell.
Schuster was named in the lawsuit which forced the vote.
Two subsequent board meetings have not gone smoothly, as the elected minority and the 18-member non-elected majority have clashed. In particular, Cantwell’s committee assignments have drawn the majority’s ire.
Cantwell declined to comment on Schuster’s resignation specifically, but acknowledged that the meetings have not gone well.
As she came into office, she hoped to rewrite the center’s bylaws to allow members to vote for every board member.
Instead, she has run into a hostile majority which has acted illegally, she said. Cantwell pointed to the majority’s March 19 nomination and installation of a new board member, Bernie Sigler. Sigler had not been approved by the current nominating committee, nor were center members notified about his nomination in advance, as the center’s bylaws require, Cantwell said.
The board majority said Sigler’s nomination was old business that had been continued from 2007.
“I am going to talk to whoever I have to talk to in order to see that this board is responsible to their written laws,” Cantwell said April 28. “If I have to go to the attorney general of Washington state, I will. I am going to find out answers.”
Schuster’s letter specifically called out board member Liz Windgate, who has sided with the members during the dispute. Schuster called some of her public statements “destructive” and “inciteful and false.”
The board’s side of the story has not been convincingly told, he said.
Windgate called Schuster’s letter sad, and said he was out of touch.
Fundraising efforts are underway, including a planned MayFest event May 17 at the center, she said.
Furthermore, the membership is more focused than ever, she said.
“The members have not lost their focus. They are moving forward to do their thing, despite the oppression and lack of cooperation from the board,” Windgate said April 28. The board is “disdainfully refraining from being any help,” she said.
More member empowerment is unnecessary, Schuster said by phone April 28. The center needs to move on, he said.
“The members were very angry (with Fleming’s dismissal). They loved him, and he’s gone,” Schuster said. “They felt powerless in the decision, and they were. It was a board decision.
“That is the rallying point, and I admire their energy and their spirit,” he said. “But that is the nature of being a member of the South County Senior Center.”
Reporter Chris Fyall: 425-673-6525 or cfyall@heraldnet.com
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