Three members of the Fremont Arts Council's seven-member board of directors have resigned, apparently frustrated by infighting within the organization.

The three board members, Ben Exworthy, Sara McChristian and board president Nick Morse sent out their letter of resignation earlier today:

It is with regret that we, Nick Morse, Ben Exworthy and Sara McChristian, are resigning from the Board of Directors for the Fremont Arts Council, effective immediately. This has been an extremely difficult decision, made more so by our continued hopes for the FAC as an organization, and the potential for it to be so much more than it is.

Though we have only been on the Board for a short time, we have accomplished and initiated much — and weathered much more. In the last three and a half months, we have been accused of working in secrecy, lacking transparency and that we have ignored requests for information. None of these concerns could be less true. Our efforts as a board have been energetic, thoughtful, deliberated, and, at times, pretty creative. We have dealt with a host of issues, many of which caught us by surprise once we were on the Board.

The rest of the reallllly long letter is after the jump

One of the most urgent tasks we had to take on was the scope of issues that the FAC was facing. It was necessary to ask many difficult questions, some of which had not been asked before, including understanding our tax liability, unemployment insurance, an unfiled 990, a lapsed building lease, FAC repairs, and overall financial health, to name a few. This was a lengthy process, as some of this information trickled in or changed repeatedly. Contrary to assurances that the FAC has always had these issues, that things somehow always "work themselves out", and encountering a startlingly indifferent air regarding these items, the issues we've encountered are critically important. It was our legal duty, and our obligation as caretakers for the organization to apply triage, and we took this VERY seriously. With a larger picture forming, we secured a legal team to work on the four primary issues we uncovered: unpaid taxes, personal liability, form 990 fees and penalties and the lack of ever paying unemployment taxes for employees, and started to contemplate revenue-producing opportunities to rectify the overall financial issues.

This alone accounted for a considerable amount of time, sometimes requiring up to 35 hours a week individually, and as a board. We met almost weekly, officially or unofficially, since we were voted in. Our personal liability was magnified by the absence of any Director's Insurance, and that, coupled with the undisclosed extent of the overall financial issues facing the FAC when we accepted our board positions caused at least one member to resign. In spite of this, we still managed to accomplish much more for, and believed in the promise of, the FAC. We rebuilt relationships with various city departments, including the Seattle Police, the Fire Dept, the Special Events and Parks departments and the Mayor's office. Some of these departments had a very negative and cynical view of the FAC based on its history. We repaired relationships with Fremont businesses and increased event sponsorships, and rebuilt and strengthened relationships with former donors and members. We investigated new methods for ongoing fundraising opportunities and completed the 4 Culture Grant with the help of Ann.

In spite of the many challenges we faced, we were encouraged that many community members seemed inspired by our efforts. We generated thousands of dollars in private donations, averaged 1 new or renewing member a day and received many letters of support for the new energy we were applying to the FAC.

Internally, we revamped the Operations Manager position to fit the needs of the organization, primarily in the way of development and fundraising. We tried to fill the Secretary and Treasurer positions with professionals from those fields.

We put together the Feast, acquiring two wonderfully competent individuals to manage event details so as to allow the creative folks — you — to focus on the creation of art and not the nitty-gritty details of the event, and made initial proposals for new art workshops, as well as cleaning up the Power House and arranging for its repairs.

Functionally, we added tools to the organization, including:

- re-creating our website with a focus on meets the requirements of state and federal guidelines for memberships and donations,

- creating a template for a local business donation brochure (which helped generate over $500 in donations in just two days for Trolloween),

- consolidating membership information from 3 separate systems into one cohesive and automated system that pays for itself,

- and streamlined the activities and information for the volunteer board

Ideologically, we envisioned changes for the FAC, which tended to be met with considerable resistance by some. We worked towards making it an organization that is concerned with getting things done rather than the semantics of HOW they get done. We took an introspective look at the organization's vision, relevancy, mission and goals, making efforts to steer it towards accomplishing more community-based results rather than maintaining its current feel as a "clubhouse" organization. We felt the FAC needed to create more opportunities for artistic expression and skills, with less bureaucracy hindering them. Our goals and intentions exemplified our belief in supporting artists, the arts and our community.

Throughout our efforts to fix problems and create changes and opportunities, we have continually met with resistance. It has been stultifying to encounter such rampant infighting, undermining behavior, personal demands, never ending questions, and a voice and email deluge that has put the entire board on the defensive since day one.

We've discovered that many of the most vocal have been more concerned with their rights, rather than their responsibilities, exhibiting a concern only for their individual interests.

We've been frustrated managing people who often demanded far more than they contributed.

Time and again we would be riddled with demands for answers to items comparably trivial, and then vilified for not immediately responding. Of course, no thought was given to our workload or that we were volunteering to do this, only that we were "ignoring" these requests. Though we were willing to provide the minutes requested from various board meetings, we could not obtain them ourselves, as they were only intermittently transcribed and posted by the Secretary.

Unfortunately, this caused a lot of confusion during the Feast and created the appearance of our "secrecy". Through research, we found that the Board has possibly never been in legal compliance, with a minimum of 7 members necessary being incorrect in the Bylaws. With fewer obstacles to wade through, we'd hoped to fill these positions with competent individuals, whose skills could round out the abilities of the current Board members and whose talents were specific to the needs of the organization, changing the board from one based on popularity to one more focused on talents and skills the FAC so desperately needed. We started this work, with ourselves bringing a combined 50 years of professional experience in nonprofit and business management, marketing, event management, program development and board experience.

Despite our best efforts, it seems that the qualities so often talked about by past members and mentioned above were too insurmountable for us to overcome as volunteers. It became apparent that the vocal members of the organization did not want to change or receive our support.

Ultimately, we wish the best for the Fremont Arts Council, and the remaining or future Board members. We feel we have made informed and prudent decisions, and were caretakers to the best of our abilities. Every decision we made was with the best interest of the FAC in mind, and collectively, we stand behind every decision that we made during our tenure. We would like to think that we are passing the torch, rather than passing the buck, and we believe that we have left the FAC in a bit better shape than where we found it. We hope you feel the same.

Sincerely,

Nick Morse, Sara McChristian and Ben Exworthy