Defunct park alliance transfers funds to city
By Ty Johnson
Published in News on January 23, 2012 1:53 PM
The assets from a dissolved nonprofit organization will be donated to Goldsboro's Parks and Recreation Department persuant to state law -- and plans are in the works to create a subcommittee of the parks advisory board dedicated specifically to Stoney Creek Park's development.
The Stoney Creek Park Alliance, which ceased to exist Jan. 1, will credit the remaining financial assets in its account to the city's parks department for development at Stoney Creek Park -- a donation that amounts to about $3,000.
The former members of the group gathered Thursday to determine what to do with the organization's $4,232.12 in assets. A $415 payment to the Wayne Charitable Partnership for audits and insurance payments in 2011 as well as the payment for half of about a $1,600 loss suffered by the city after operating the Alliance's Howl-o-ween event will be paid out before the assets are transferred to the city.
These final transactions were approved by the group even while some members continued to insist a Stoney Creek Park advisory group existed.
Chairman Sissy Lee-Elmore proposed that the group form a subcommittee of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission in an effort to continue to exist.
"Let's be something. Right now we're nothing because we're dissolved," she said.
But former chairman Peter Roethling contested that the group had not dissolved and in fact could not be dissolved except by action of the Goldsboro City Council.
Roethling likely was referencing Article 5 of the Stoney Creek Park Alliance's bylaws which states the Council may be dissolved with 60 days' notice at any time as the body deems appropriate, but the Alliance agreed at its final meeting as a corporation Dec. 15 to send a letter to the Wayne Charitable Partnership -- of which the Alliance is an affiliate -- asking the group to be dissolved as of Dec. 31.
The letter also requested that three years worth of invoices for pro rata costs of audits and insurance be forgiven. Julie Daniels, chairperson of the partnership, said the nearly $1,000 debt was forgiven due to questions as to whether the invoices were ever mailed.
The Stoney Creek Park Development Committee was a standing city committee that began eight years ago to push the park's development. but that committee was eliminated when the Stoney Creek Park Alliance formed as a nonprofit to solicit tax-deductible donations for the fledgling park, then as an effort to support a $2 million renovation including the installation of a lake at the park.
Parks and Recreation Director Scott Barnard and City Manager Scott Stevens were onhand at the meeting and addressed Mrs. Elmore's request, asking the group to form goals and objectives for the subcommittee, which will become an arm beneath the department's advisory committee.
Roethling and District 2 Councilman Bob Waller pushed the city staff to form the subcommittee's charter based largely on a copy of the Alliance's bylaws.
Stevens said after the meeting that he and Barnard would work quickly to put together the group's objectives and confirmed that there currently was no city committee dedicated to Stoney Creek Park.
Subcommittees typically are formed by the committees themselves, but the Stoney Creek Park subcommittee will be a slight exception to the rule since it has existed in the past and has a willing membership.
Stevens said he in no way wanted to deter citizen involvement with the parks department.