Rep. Williams Should Step Down, Says John Hope Settlement House Board Member
Monday, February 27, 2017
A John Hope Settlement House (JHSH) board member is calling for Representative Anastasia Williams to step down from her position as JHSH board chair, after significant financial issues - and revelations about plans by Williams to potentially close the community nonprofit were uncovered by GoLocalProv.com.
Asata Msalii-Tigrai, who had served as project director at JHSH for over twenty years before being asked to serve on the board two years ago, spoke with GoLocal about the current state of JHSH, after it lost federal, state, and city funding — and is now battling DCYF to keep the childcare center open.
“There was a time that [Williams] did step up, because a lot of the work she did helped save John Hope,” said Tigrai of Williams. “But I do believe from my training and my experience that while elected officials can participate on a community organization board, they never should be chair, because of they way they deal in general, like ‘you vote my bill and I’ll do this’ and all that other nonsense. It jeopardizes the legitimacy of an organization.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTOn Thursday, Superior Court Judge Richard Licht allowed JHSH to keep its daycare open despite being ordered by RI DCYF to close on March 3, which was reported by WPRI.com. The next hearing is scheduled for April 17.
One Board Member’s Concerns
“It was actually about 26 years,” said Tigrai of amount of time she worked at JHSH. “I was Director of Project Basics. I just have a history of working there, but through the years I got to know so many individuals, and families, when I did housing work. There was never a month that someone didn’t say my grandmother went here, or my kids went to the day care center - there’s that relationship with the community and John Hope.”
Tigrai said Williams asked her to come on the board based on her experience and community work.
“When I first got on the board, I found the board to be energetic, and while they were somewhat excited to be on the board, they really didn’t ask a lot of questions about the real operations,” said Tigrai. “One of the problems was this. At the time with Frank Corbishley and Billy Bentley, they were running the agency, but they didn’t come to board meetings, and I found that strange. If the board had a question, they would have been the first ones to answer with the first hand experience, and but they didn’t really come to the board. Soon Bentley left first, and then Frank left less than a few months later.”
“Around the time that we found out we weren’t getting the state funding, there was meeting with elected officials from around that city, and I was at that meeting. It was about what needed to be done,” said Tigrai. “The way those board meetings were scheduled, we maybe had one every three of four months, and for an agency with financial issues, and DCYF, I don’t think we had enough meetings to keep all the board members abreast of what was happening."
"That’s where I had concerns, because of my background. With the status of what was going on, we should have been meeting every other month, and smaller committees," said Tigrai. "Our only semi-active committee was the personnel committee, which I was on, but then it kind of stopped operating to any extent.”
Tigrai said that besides replacing Williams, she believes that there needs to be “a better board, better board members."
“John Hope always had community people and people from the business community. That isn’t what it’s comprised of now,” said Tigrai. “I think we need to get those mechanisms activated that will make us better function as a group of people who oversee the financial mission and that first mission is to provide services for people in the community. We need to get back to that and even though we do provide services to the community, the board needs to be more involved in the programs. I think if you ask any board member what our programs are — most of them say the day care center, or the senior program — they don’t know the half of what John Hope does.”
Related Slideshow: John Hope—Safety Violation Pics
The group Concerned Citizens for John Hope Settlement House brought the following pictures dealing with lack of safety to the attention of the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families.
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