By Pete Smith
Carmel Clerk-Treasurer Diana Cordray is requesting that the Carmel City Center Community Development Organization disclose information about the public funds it managed during 2012 and 2013.
Commonly referred to as the 4CDC, it’s a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization which collects rent from commercial tenants in the James Building at the Center for the Performing Arts and is part of complex financing mechanisms involving the Carmel Redevelopment Commission, city councilor Luci Snyder has said.
The letter was sent to the 4CDC board president on Nov. 20, but because former president Jessica Kruse resigned Oct. 18 and other board member Tom Crowley resigned Nov. 7, the three-person board hasn’t had a quorum to select new officers and respond.
At the Dec. 10 board meeting city councilor Ron Carter was elected board president and new board appointee John Ragland was elected vice president in new member John Clair’s absence. The role of board secretary fell to Clair.
Carter in his new role as board president said that new 4CDC legal counsel Brian Bosma, of law firm Kroger, Gardis and Regas, and CRC legal counsel Karl Haas would need to review the letter before he issued a response.
Citing the State Board of Accounts’ 2012 audit of the CRC and the fact that the city council appointed her as treasurer of the CRC effective January 2013, Cordray requested that the 4CDC:
● disclose the proportion of 4CDC revenues that are public and private.
● disclose revenues that resulted from CRC grants.
● release a full accounting of all receipts and expenses for all public funds in 2012 and 2013.
● release a complete accounting of public funds that were comingled with private funds.
● identify appropriate documentation of the expenditures of public/TIF/CRC funds.
● provide documentation of all revenues and receipts pertaining to the Parking Grant Agreement with the Center for Performing Arts for 2012 that the audit noted resulted in $29,464.38 in uncollected money.
The letter said that the “requests are made respectfully and professionally. While we understand that a non-governmental entity is not technically subject to the same statutory requirements as a governmental entity, we trust that people of your stature can understand the need for transparency when substantial public funds are being transferred.”
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