A raucous crowd of roughly 200 brought a megaphone and chants to a Monday night district council meeting on St. Paul’s East Side, screaming so loudly it took 20 minutes for a single vote.

This month, the Dayton’s Bluff Community Council laid off all its staff. Businesses are demanding money. And former staffers are pointing to one person: the executive director who more than tripled the council’s budget during her tenure.

Although located in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, the Dayton’s Bluff council is one of the most ambitious district councils in the city, owning or co-owning three nonprofit enterprises and serving as a fiscal agent for a half-dozen others.

The very building they were voting in was on the line — with a final balloon payment due for its $1.2 million purchase and renovation: a job and business Enterprise Center that’s already received hundreds of thousands of dollars in city and state funding.

At the climax of their Monday evening meeting, the board voted 6-5 to keep executive director Deanna Abbott-Foster on an unpaid, volunteer basis while they struggle to figure out finances even Abbott-Foster admits are in serious flux.

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“You’ve allowed someone to bury the bodies if there were any,” yelled neighborhood resident Laura Mayo before the vote.

“What we have is a shortage of money, and it’s a temporary thing. It’s a cash floor,” Abbott-Foster said in an interview before the meeting, noting she was stepping down in the spring anyway. “God knows, I’ve made mistakes here. That shouldn’t mean that all my work goes down the toilet, and the enterprise center (building) goes back to the owner and everything gets stopped.”

Board president Jeanelle Foster, in office for weeks, said before the meeting, “Right now we are trying to be smart and get all the answers. There are a lot of rumors flying around. … Honestly, we have just kind of been trying to catch up to what’s going on.”

“I don’t have a hidden agenda. I’m the one losing out,” said Mary Anne Quiroz, the most vocal of the council’s four former staffers. “I just want what’s best for our community. Transparency and accountability.

“Honestly, I don’t know how it snowballed to this point.”

PROBLEMS ARISE

The saga started on Nov. 20, when the council’s staff made a unique appearance before the board. They hadn’t been paid in weeks. And there was $308 in the council’s Sunrise Bank checking account.

Some also complained that Abbott-Foster was abrasive, even harassing. Abbott-Foster was not present at the meeting; she had been warned by an anonymous text, she said.

The board suspended her for two weeks and hired a consultant to look into the staff’s harassment claims. They picked Brenda Beukelman, a former human resources director at HealthEast who was referred by an aide in city council member Jane Prince’s office.

Prince did not return a call for comment about the council, which is in her district.

While Beukelman was investigating, the board’s president and treasurer resigned. Financials were sent to an auditor in Bloomington, to see what a full audit might cost.

“We have not gone with that guy; that’s a question for the board. We are waiting for his response (for a price quote),” Jeanelle Foster said Monday.

Even then, “the board has to decide, do we have the money for that expense?”

On Dec. 1, the board’s executive committee got Beukelman’s report. That day, the council got an email from one of the groups whose money it managed. The group wanted that money back.

“We are requesting to terminate our relationship with Dayton’s Bluff District Council as our fiscal agent effective immediately,” wrote Hmong Americans for Justice, requesting a balance of $24,243, adding they were “appalled and disappointed” by the council’s $308 bank balance.

Three days later, the council dismissed every staff member, saying that given the council’s finances, they had no choice. The next week, the council’s building cleaner sent a letter saying she was owed $198. And the landlord for the council’s community radio station and cultural center also sent a letter. The council owed $3,160 in rent.

No one has made criminal allegations, and the council points out that it has undergone two partial audits this year, a requirement for governmental funding.

“The cleaning lady will pick up a check today. The other staff will be paid,” Jeanelle Foster said Monday afternoon.

That same week, the board’s short-term vice present, Crystal Norcross — who facilitated staff coming before the board — resigned with a public letter on her Facebook page, saying, “I do not want to be responsible for any financial wrongdoing or Deanna’s ‘moving money’ practices, therefore, I am removing myself as Vice President.”

REPORT ISSUED

The Pioneer Press received a copy of Beukelman’s confidential report, which called Abbott-Foster a “entrepreneurial and visionary thinker” but criticized her management skills, saying she did not give enough direction to staff.

The report found “miscommunication, strained relationships and high emotions,” but no harassment.

“There is no law that says a supervisor must be kind and nurturing,” the report said.

As for finances, “I do not believe this is a case of embezzlement or activity done for personal gain,” Beukelman stated. “Deanna admits to moving money around to cover expenses. Risk taking, delays in grant moneys, and the lack of anticipated fundraising results … contributed to the current cash flow issue.”

But the report was based solely on staff interviews. Beukelman acknowledged that she didn’t have access to any of the council’s financial data.

“I was only there to look for harassment,” she said in an interview, adding. “But when I was doing the interviews, people always ended up talking about the budget. So that’s why I put it in the report.”

‘BIG RED NEGATIVE NUMBER’

Melinna Sixtos, who worked as the council’s head administrative assistant and bookkeeper since April, talked about a troublesome number in the council’s financials.

“My biggest red flag was when I first started working there, I saw this big red negative number in red,” Sixtos told the Pioneer Press. “The previous person managing books always said she didn’t know anything about it. … They kept saying it was an error.”

Over the year, she watched that number grow from -$68,000 to -$178,000 when she left.

In an interview, Abbott-Foster acknowledged that the council’s 2017 proposed budget was about $470,000 — and they’ll likely only pull in $300,000.

“It was probably a crazy budget proposal. But every year we’d gone up. That was on trajectory,” she added, noting the 2016 actual budget was in the $400,000 range.

She said her own salary was $83,000.

“When I started we were on a $70,000 budget. And each year I was there, we increased the budget by $70,000,” she said.

She blamed the shortfall on several factors: two regular funders, including the St. Paul Foundation, pulled out this year. Their radio station didn’t get any significant underwriting.

The Cultural Arts Center, which houses Quiroz’s private organization, Indigenous Roots, wasn’t on the budget — and cost the council roughly $40,000 in rent, utilities, $2,500 to artists, $1,950 for a video of its opening, and another $2,000 for performances at a 7th Street Live event that never happened, according to Abbott-Foster’s numbers.

Quiroz — who also works as the council’s cultural director, and handled payments for the cultural center — said the council only paid rent and utilities, which they were contracted to do until the center was self-sufficient, sometime next year.

And in September, the council hired a fundraiser, Lupe Castille, to help secure their economic center project. It cost $20,000 and no funds came in, Abbott-Foster said.

In an interview, Castille said she was hired as economic enterprise director for $79,000 with no benefits, to get money for the economic center.

“In three to four weeks, I realized there were discrepancies in the budget. I started to ask for internal financials, in order to get forecasting,” she said. “Funders wanted deeper fiscal oversight, because in the past they had pulled away from funding because of lack of reporting, and timely follow-ups.”

She said she didn’t think it was her job to fill a general budget hole. “For me that wasn’t ethically sound or fiscally responsible.”

Abbott-Foster said fundraisers were hesitant because they knew she was retiring, and nobody wanted to give to a “lame duck.”

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

In addition to the Hmong justice organization, the council also serves as a fiscal agent — meaning it handles finances — for several park and garden clubs, including Skidmore Gardens, Senior Garden, and Stewards of Margaret Park. The council also owns a 100-watt radio station, East Side Radio.

And along with the Latino Economic Development Center, they co-own the building where the enterprise center is located — a workforce development investment that has attracted $250,000 in city STAR grants and loans, and $500,000 in funding from the state Department of Employment and Economic Development. The state Legislature just approved another $300,000 for programs there.

That center is now in flux, Abbott-Foster and board members say.

“He (former building owner Cleo Kelly) wanted his money in April,” Abbott-Foster said. “The only reason he is waiting is he trusts me.”

Kelly could not be reached for comment late Monday evening.

In a written response to vice president Norcross’ public resignation letter, the council noted it had shared the Beukelman investigation with officials at Sunrise Bank, which is considering a loan to make the balloon payment.

The reason: “Five concerned citizens alleged financial mismanagement in their communications with the bank, and the bank insisted on reviewing the report as part of the loan refinancing approval process,” the council’s executive committee wrote.

When council board treasurer Holly Windingstad pleaded during Monday’s meeting that the council might lose the building they were sitting in, she was shouted down by the crowd.

“The community will still be here! We got plenty of buildings!” one yelled.

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