thetwist

Seniors haven't forgotten the shock of finding their "club" in jeopardy and the effects of the complete restructuring of MVG's programs and hierarchy, in order to save the agency.

For the most part, MVG's nutritional program has survived with substantial help from the city of Lemon Grove, the Lemon Grove School District and its other vendors, many of whom arranged special terms of repayment or forgave debt altogether. Nobody wanted to see the seniors with no place to go, or worse, go without the availability of free lunches, regardless of who was responsible for the close shave.

MVG's board of directors voted to write off the missing foundation monies as a loss, and made great use of Craig Lake's financial expertise in the reorganization of their debt. Other board members partnered with MVG department heads, in a concerted and time-consuming effort to bring the agency back to health.

Lake was later formally hired on as executive director of MVG, a position which had previously been eliminated as part of the agency's restructuring.

MVG has been plagued for years with financial and management problems. Since its aggressive 1998 debt and management restructuring, the agency has represented that it is in great shape, but has maintained its old, nagging problem of being able or willing to ante up the documentation to justify its own back-patting.

The Senior Center lease agreement between the city and MVG expires on August 30, and renewal proposals with differing dollar amounts were bandied back and forth at the August 17 council meeting, each entity wanting to pay less than than the other for the next lease term. Besides the rent amount, continued costly support from the city in the form of maintenance is in the balance.

During the lease part of the agenda at a Lemon Grove City Council meeting of August 15, questions about more arrearages in bills to the tune of $30,000 were fired at a stoic MVG board president, Mike Telles. He offered no explanation or details about approximately $19,000 in past due payables or for a controversial $10,000 loan from senior citizen and local political activist (and treasurer for Lake's recent unsuccessful campaign for mayor), Leo Bodin, to the agency.

Telles brought insufficient documentation to back MVG's justification for a rent roll-back, and brought nobody from the agency with specific knowledge of MVG finances with him to assist in answering council's questions about the new debt, numbers of participants cited in MVG's request, or the submission of audited financial statements.

Telles deferred to his board of directors, saying that he preferred to present them with a list of questions from council and staff so that they could address them all at once. Council gave the agency 60 days to come up with the answers they needed in order to decide on the terms of the lease renewal.

Telles remarked outside of the meeting, that council should not have grilled him on those subjects.

MVG board members themselves have complained that they are unable to get satisfactory financial statements, including an accounts payable aging, from the agency's executive director. A current financial statement distributed at the board meeting was incomplete and although a finished one was requested and promised along with backup documentation, it never materialized.

Lake handed to The Twist but immediately took back some prior financial statements at a MVG board meeting for photocopying, and the payables aging was delayed indefinitely because their computer printer broke. The next day, these speed bumps were followed by a flat-out refusal by Judy Moore, who quit the agency at the end of August. Requests to Lake for the information have remained unfulfilled to date.

A curious combination of commercials and affirmations were spouted for excruciating lengths of time at the August MVG board meeting.

"It bothers me that the city wants to single out Lemon Grove only with a prejudicial attitude," said board member Donna Pasanen. "I would hate to see us get into the type of situation where we would have to require that seniors go to only their own city for services."

Although Telles assured the board that the city was trying to respond to the concerns of taxpayers, Lake said it was the first time he's ever heard of the city using a "nickels to noses" method of criteria for calculating in-kind services and rent payments.

"I don't understand why there's still a problem with money," said senior Norma Block. "Why did they (MVG) have to borrow money?"

Block's question was followed by a serial affirmation from the board, one by one: "We don't have problems, no problems at all."

Lake explained that the county of San Diego requires that every bill has to be paid by the end of the quarter (June 30), and that the loan was simply to cover a gap in the time between then and when funds were forthcoming. "We had an accounts payable balance of $19,000, and we brought in $140,000" said Lake. "We used to float $30,000 to $40,000 in debt."

Board member Dorothy Monacelli had a less complicated explanation. "We have no problem with money; we're fiddling around with accounting systems!" She was referring to the agency's struggle to re-computerize their accounting system.

As Lake is also a Lemon Grove City Councilman, a possible conflict of interest became a political point of contention, as the city subsidizes the senior programs with reduced rents, maintenance and other "in-kind" services. The loan from Bodin, enacted without previous board consent, only aggravated the issue, given Bodin's political connections to Lake. It became a convenient target with Lake's usual detractors, mostly supporters of Mayor Mary Sessom.

Last January, fellow council member Jill Greer asked Lake to obtain a ruling from the Fair Political Practices Committee (FPPC) to determine if his positions with MVG and the city were in conflict with one another, and if so, what solutions could be taken to avoid further conflict. Lake chose to take a safe stance in the meantime, recusing himself from the entire city budget process as well as any discussions on the dais regarding the Lemon Grove Senior Center or its programs.

Although Lake said he filed the request with the FPPC for a determination, the city later confronted him with an FPPC statement which said they had never received such a request. Lake then said he would re-file, but again, there has been no notification to the city that he has filed, or that there was any determination made.

In the meantime, Mesa Valley Grove's finances can't heal a moment too soon. The Joan Kroc center will open in two years, and some of MVG's seniors are already signing up to participate and help in forming the senior programs. The Kroc center has said they are not interested in duplicating the nutritional program of MVG.

However, if the city of Lemon Grove decides not to continue the amount of underwriting it has in previous years, and MVG's fund-raising efforts continue to be fruitless, duplication may not be an issue by the time the Kroc Center opens.

Losing Your Lunch?

The Mess at Mesa Valley Grove