“You have identified a hole, and we need to do better,” City Manager Denise Turner Roth said.Blogger Billy Jones says he was the one to discover that Grassroots Productions quietly stopped being a non-profit while the city continued to give them money, contrary to city policy.
While there is no mention of how this came to the attention of the News & Record, it illustrates perfectly why reporters should not simply take the word of government bureaucrats; it's not that they intentionally deceive, but things slip through the cracks, get overlooked, are misinterpreted—whatever.
As I've pleaded with News & Record reporters before, when government is taking action based on some asserted empirical information, don't just take the experts' word for it, check the documents, like Billy did.
Non profit or not, Grassroots does a great job putting on events for the City. Fun Fourth and Festival of Lights are two. I would really consider them a contractor providing services to the city.
ReplyDeleteTwo separate issues: yes they do a great job and yes, the city has procedures for funding non-profits (or hiring contractors) that should be followed as a matter of fairness and fiduciary responsibility.
ReplyDeleteI love the way vegetables always excuse the sins by saying what a great job someone does. It's as if they're saying it's okay to rob Peter as long as Paul gets paid.
ReplyDeleteAs for considering Grassroots as a contractor... perhaps after Betty pays back 3 years of back taxes it should be considered.
As always, thanks for the link.
"...pays back 3 years of back taxes."
ReplyDeleteProbably not a major undertaking for a tax-exempt organization (or one that operated as such until last year).
Any organization doing business with the city, no matter how well it performs its task -- and Grassroots does a good job -- should comply with the rules.
Billy, you should eat your veggies...
ReplyDeleteCollards, Not knowing your gender I'll leave that one alone. Perhaps my friend Veggie Head Stalker will season you to taste as he goes both ways.
ReplyDelete