The Headlines for July 30th 2008- My thoughts on ACORN as a member run organization

Is ACORN a member run organzation? Is the board in control of ACORN or the other way around!

Well personally, if what we are being told is true The Staff caught this problem and shared it with one Board member, Maude Hurde who agreed after being talked into it by the management team into keeping it quiet.
As far as more fiduciary oversight? Wade organized his board to be a board that acted on his recommendations from day one. It is interesting how for years we were told to tell people “4 african American women from Little Rock Arkansas founded ACORN”.
Today Wade has finally owned up to the truth, he a white, wealthy, upperclass, hack went to Arkansas and after his friend George Wiley passed on proceeded to found, shape, and design ACORN to serve him. He brags that he founded ACORN today. Well guess what? The reputable true grassroots orgs I know of were indigenous developments that were started by residents of directly affected communities. They weren’t founded by some carpet bagger that picked a spot on a map and said I think I will organize this community to build a non-profit. As sad and prophetic as it it might be of what came to pass over 38 years, the modus operandi never changed.
My first drive went down like this. I was told to pick a block of 1000 households and go there and begin recruiting members who would work with me to organize an ACORN chapter. They had never heard of ACORN and they never got a chance to hire me. They had no say in who or how the drive would be structured because Wade designed the drive to be a certain way over a 10-12 week period. THe members would have 4 organizing committee meetings. If the members wanted to have six I was told by my supervisor to cut it off at four. To organize the “members” to want to do it in 4 or 5 tops. I was told to get them to identify an issue that was winnable and small. When they wanted to go for something that was a systemic big issue I was told to get them to do something like a speed bump or a stop sign. Then I was told they would do a big meeting and then they had to do an action. Regardless of how they felt about it. Regardless of what was going on inthe community. I was told to have the officers identified before they were elected so even though at the big meeting elections were called for, it was really to be an acceptance of predetermined outcomes. This is the big rub abd it has everything to do with why the board did not have oversight. ACORN has always been about predetermined outcomes. Go and read Gary Delgados book about ACORN. It was that way when he left and it is that way now. How can that be considered a member run organization. It isn’t it never was. Iwas organizing a year before my mmembers were asked if they wanted to hire me.. That is a little ridiculous. I organized them for a year and then asked the bord to hire me? Seems like I was hired whether they liked it or not.

ACORN HEADLINES July 27th 2008

Rathke CHIEF ORGANIZER OF THE WORLD, Untouchable Unless indicted

US ACORN WANTS RATHKE GONE, IN USUAL STYLE RATHKE STRUCTURES INTERNATIONAL ACORN SO HE CAN'T BE REMOVED!

MEMBERS WANT REFORM OF ACORN, RATHKE HARDLINERS DUG IN LIKE THE TALIBAN

FORMER HO's BANDING TOGETHER TO BRING NEW LIGHT TO ACORN

ACORN GET'S 7.8 MILLION TO SQUANDER AWAY ON HOME FORECLOSURES WHILE PROBLEMS ARE NOT FIXED!!

SEXUAL HARASSMENT RAMPANT AT ACORN FOR DECADES, STAFF TOLD TO SHUT UP OR LEAVE

Rathke Chief Organizer of the WORLD!!!!

SO as has been laid bare by recent insiders from ACORN and based on what we have known for sometime:

Rathke has been laying his plan to leave ACORN for 8 years. Now we all understand his obsession with building ACORN INTERNATIONAL.

AI is set up with a seperate board outsid US boundaries.

AI has offices in countries with no extradition treaties to the USA.

THINK ABOUT IT ACORN NUT HEADS.

Wade up in front of the room with his little slide shows and everyone sitting there thinking "our offices are struggling here why is he expanding.

Wade can move to India or Argentina with impunity and run WORLD ACORN the WALMART OF ORGANIZING.

Meanwhile back at the ranch members are pissed and many staff are more pissed.

WADE IS EATING LAMB VINDALOO AT THE TAJ ! Dale is carrying his bags and setting up an accounting firm.
Helene is browbeating some poor organizer in LIMA and telling her if she doesn't get her numbers up they will have to close the TIKI hut office they built from scratch because the price on thatch has gone up.

Then Wade will be beamed by satellite to the Annual ACORN Year End Year Beginning Meeting With a Yak carrying his laptop and Sat phone into Hindu Kush where he is positioning himself to make an organizing deal with the Taliban on the Paskistan Afghan border. He is pretty sure he form an alliance with OBL to buy the Taliban.

Thus bringing about world peace and gaining a rise in pay for Sherpas working on Everest.

Wade Rathke is thought to be the father of the organizing technique of just buying up every union and organzation in the world and changing it's name to ACORN.


Rathke Hardliners Dug Into Caves in Arkansas like Taliban refusing to give up control!

Refusing to give up control of ACORN Rathke's innner circle have holed up in a cave in Arkansas intent on waiting out any possible decision to move forward. ACORN USA in an effort to lure them into the open left a stack of bankdrafts from uppermiddleclass communities with checks stapled to them hanging in trees outside the caves. The hardliners refused to come out though in a rare display of common sense they are hoping that a hurricane as big as Katrina will hit New Orleans and people will forget the current conflict in the chaos. Then they will come back in to scrub streets abandoned by residents in an effort to scarf up some juicy federal grants.

Former ACORN HO's Banding Together:

Email lists, phone lists, mailing lists, funder contacts, International network of contacts, allied orgs pissed about the way they were treated.
More coming. Lawsuits

Interchange

This fine individualo has challenged me and is going to some length to show that Rathke is gone and things are changing. I want to give him the chance to state his case. Below is the letter and following is my response.


Anonymous said...
While I'm not clear on why you keep posting about all the negative stuff when the organization is clearly trying to move away from the Rathke era, I respect your desire to try to push ACORN to live up to its values.
But I do want to point out one factual error in your headlines. Wade Rathke is not currently employed by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. He _is_ still the Chief Organizer of an entity called ACORN International, but that organization is separately incorporated. This is important because under the terms of that incorporation the original ACORN, the one he "resigned" from, has only one seat on its Board of Directors. The others are filled by ACORN International members from the various countries where AI operates: Canada, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, India. While the US representative would love to fire Wade, the other Board members have a different perspective and are reluctant to move in that direction.
I think from the outside this looks like splitting hairs from the outside but from a legal stand point, the US ACORN members simply can't fire Wade from his job at AI.
However, because of the fact that from the outside it looks like Wade "resigned" but then got a promotion, there is a large faction of senior staff and a large faction of US ACORN leaders who want him gone from that position as well. That and the fact that they want him disassociated with anything called ACORN or a part of the ACORN family of organizations because of the scandal and his attempts to purge the organization of anyone who disagreed with him.
I believe that a set of negotiations around his AI situation are on-going, but I don't know the timetable for them or what demands are really on the table.
I'm hoping that at some point you might cover some of the positive changes that are coming about as a result of the current transition, rather than posting news stories from two years ago, but I'm not really expecting it.
But it would be useful to understand what a positive vision for the transformation of the organization would be from a radical perspective rather than a rehashing of past failings.
Well, a boy can always dream, right? 8-)

July 24, 2008 5:11 PM
My responseJohn Brownz Said :
To start off and for the record I busted my ass for ACORN, Hit every goal I was told to hit, my former employees hang out with me all the time and we still have a community of justice between us. I see the members I worked with on a regular basis. They are no longer members.
ACORN BASICALLY RUINED MY LIFE, Ruined the Lives of Seceral of my organizers, and MOST IMPORTANTLY FUCKED OVER THE MEMBERS. I DIDN'T DESERVE IT, I AM PISSED OFF ABOUT IT, and THAT ANGER MAKES ME WANT TO OUT ORGANIZE WADE TO MAKE SURE THAT THIS TRANSITION BRINGS ABOUT AS MUCH CHANGE AS POSSIBLE. Our MEMBERS DIDN'T DESERVE IT. MY STAFF DIDN"T DESERVE IT> THERE WAS NEVER ANY RIOT IN MY OFFICE!
I WAS LIED TO ROUTINELY AND IT COST ME SO MUCH YOU CANNOT EVEN IMAGINE. I WILL NOT GO INTO DETAIL.
Well actually i spent a big chunk of my life doing lots of positive things to advance the social justice movement and ACORN. I would love to pass on positive changes. I have nothing but respect for Bertha Lewis and I have nothing but respect and love for the field of community organizing. I've devoted my life to it. ACORN just about burned me out forever. Trust me if I wanted to post some negative things about ACORN I could. This an effort to avoid that.So, in response to your statement:

International ACORN is not part of ACORN?
You know and I know it is. Just as the AISJ is seperate from ACORN but it is an intrinsic part of ACORN's funding and structure.

Where did the start up capital come from?I know where it came from.

They do not report at Head Organzer and Management meetings?

Don't they come the end year meetings?

Why is that if they are a seperate Organization?

Now this is a website I just went and what do you call this?
http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2683

Now on this Acorn.org website I found this?International OfficesACORN International is building community organizations of low-income families, and partnering with grassroots organizations outside of the United States. ACORN International aims to strengthen democratic movements for social change, as well as build connections between community-based organizations across borders and cultures.

ACORN International has offices in Argentina, Canada, Peru, and Mexico, and facilitates the India FDI Watch Campaign. We are establishing direct membership chapters in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Kenya, and Nigeria and are exploring partnerships with established membership-based organizations in Indonesia, the Philippines, and South Korea.
> ACORN Argentina > ACORN Peru > ACORN Dominican Republic > ACORN Canada > ACORN Mexico
Now what is that. I searched the site and found that.
Now when I go to this site, the offices link? I find thishttp://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2593Now on this site the US offices, the national, and the international! I don't know if you know it or not but that is pissing alot of people off. Especially since this is linked as well:
So Sorry, we aint buyin it. Also why am I able to reach Wade's Chief Organizer page form the ACORN page?
Either he is gone or not. If ACORN is a out control freight train that has already left the station. Then USA ACORN will sue them for all resources drained from our members and will demand they change their name!
What I hear you saying is that Wade's dream of a Walmart of Organizing is coming true on our sweat and dimes. Whether the members like it or not.
Meanwhile people out here who continue to organize with no help from ACORN because we BELIEVE IN COMMUNITY ORGNANIZING are really getting tired of the daggers and razors in our backs.
I am doing this because members who were busting their asses and meeting all goals had their office yanked out from under them because there weren't any hot elections coming up. That isn't organizing, Wade thinks it is, IT IS NOT!
Wade and ACORN organize where they are preaching to the choir. They aren't in the places where the real fight is. We can build a new organization in this country that respects the individual culture of organizing of each region. ACORN has stomped all over everyone in this country's toes and they shouldn't have stepped on mine. Because I delivered way more than my paycheck and because I am in till the end and I don't give a F&&CK!I will devote the rest of my life to building true organizing, while ACORN farms you guys out as the outsourced migrant workers of whatever flavor of the day they are contracting. I have seen some awfully questionable farming out of ACORN workers and I have the paperwork from it. I haven't broke with everything I have because I would really like to see ACORN take up the cause of:

Well we will fill in these blanks soon

Ever see Brave Heart? (Stupid ass movie)

This is the scene where idiot Mel says': I've to peck a fight" rides out tells the English to "ride back to England apologizing to every home along the way for hundreds of years of oppression BUTT before they leave they must bend over and kiss their own A$$e$.

Ok that was dumb.Just tried to find an example someone from your culture would understand.

Ok the bottom line is ACORN is sucking up all the air in the bell and starving alot of great efforts for social change along the way. It is got to stop.


If I wanted to get nasty I could merge about 20 (actually 3 times more if I call a few people for their ACORN EMAIL lists and well? Then I could start merging about three thousand interorganizational contacts from Belgrade to Baton Rouge and then we can have some real fun! Bubba. WHy haven't I?/We/You? Because we actually care about seeing something salvaged here. You screwed with the wrong bunch of hombres.
You don't think some people are smart enough to have a butt load of phone numbers they could start robocalling?Right now!Lose the Whimp,Fire the management team that rubber stamped Wade saving his litlle brother's butt This means EVERY BODY!!!Maude has got to go! Implement new policies to insure low income leadership of color rise to the top in ACORN
Work your butts off to bring back some of the people who left in the past few years out of disgust who are committed to community organizing and I will take down every site and put up a very positive one about ACORN's new commitment to empowering the people from the communities we organize to become the captqains of this ship.

The ACORN Headlines, NEWS, Updates

ACORN Staff in Baltimore should have been paid says Head Organizer

RATHKE REMAINS ON ACORN STAFF AFTER PRETENSE OF STEPPING DOWN

4 ACORN MINORITY STAFF FILE EEOC DISCRIMINATION CHARGES AGAINST ACORN

ACORN FOUNDER STEPS DOWN AFTER HE COVERS UP THEFT OF 1,000,000 USD BY HIS BROTHER!

Tijuana MEXICO ACORN WORKERS RIPPED SAY THEY WERE TREATED LIKE SWEAT SHOP ORGANIZERS

ACORN COMMUNITY IN COLORADO SPRINGS SAYS THE ORG STILL TAKES MONEY FROM THEIR ACCOUNTS EVEN THOUGH ACORN IS LONG GONE

Unpaid ACORN Workers in Miami Set Fire To Office

Two More Cases of Unpaid Workers

Found some more stuff for you to explain the first is really good. And Wasn’t Mitch Klein one of the best HO’s. Why is he in the Baltimolre media making excuses for not PAYING HIS ORGANIZERS!!

By Charles Rabin, The Miami Herald Knight Ridder/Tribune Business

NewsNov. 17–Dozens of low-income workers who fought and helped win a battle to raise Florida’s minimum wage — but haven’t yet been paid for their work — turned a Miami campaign office upside down in anger, an agency official said.Elizabeth Andrades, who heads the Hialeah office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), said a boisterous crowd took over the Miami office at 1380 W. Flagler St., on Monday. One woman carried a bat. The kitchenette was set on fire, she said.

Do-Gooder BluesEx-Employees Expose Financial Problems at ACORN
SANDRA STEWART WANTED TO BE PAID for the work she’d done. After graduating from Goucher College in May, Stewart followed a professor’s advice in obtaining a position, starting on May 22 as a $250-per-week intern at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a national social-justice group with a Maryland chapter based in Baltimore. On July 15 she wrote to City Paper, stating that she had left the job because “up until this morning it had been eight weeks exactly that I had not received any payment for my work.” That day she had received a $500 check from ACORN, she explained, but was still awaiting payment for the remaining six weeks of service.It turns out that Stewart wasn’t the only one looking for overdue payments from ACORN. At the time a City Paper inquiry began, the organization faced a Baltimore City tax-sale lien on its Charles Village property, a court judgment in Prince George’s County for failure to pay a landlord for rented office space, and complaints from several other ex-employees about paycheck problems. By ACORN’s own admission that it has been having trouble administering payments to many part-time voter-registration workers it recently hired.“I find it completely ironic that an organization that fights for social justice” has trouble paying its workers, Stewart wrote.Since arriving here in 1999, ACORN has organized efforts in Baltimore on several fronts, including downsizing the Baltimore City Council, supporting fair and safe housing for the poor, and pushing for a “living wage” for workers. Stewart’s complaint that ACORN wasn’t dealing fairly with its own employees, however, had not previously been brought to public attention. By July 21, several days after City Paper had first contacted ACORN about Stewart’s complaint, the ex-intern had been paid in full.At first, Stewart’s former bosses-ACORN director Mitchell Klein and Baltimore County coordinator Michelle Moore-blamed the situation on Stewart, saying she failed to submit necessary paperwork. But by July 21, they were accepting fault for not paying Stewart in a timely fashion: “What happened to Sandi was bad,” Klein says apologetically.After hearing of Stewart’s complaint, City Paper searched the courts to see if ACORN was having problems making other payments. It was.On June 22, a nearly $7,000 court judgment was entered against the group in favor of Bradco Realty, the owner of office space ACORN had been renting in Hyattsville.“They were not paying us,” explains Bradco principal Michael Weinberger. “And we got tired of writing letters and making phone calls. Nobody even answered the phone. So we turned it over to a local attorney.”On July 18, just as City PaperUapproached ACORN about the problem, the group paid the $7,000. Klein disputes Weinberger’s version of events, asserting that ACORN believed Bradco was overcharging them. “We lost,” Klein says. “And now we’re paying.”On June 30, another court action was filed against an ACORN affiliate, Baltimore Organizing and Support Center Inc. Short Line 2005 LLC filed a foreclosure lawsuit in Baltimore Circuit Court against the group, setting in motion a process that could have ended with Short Line 2005 owning ACORN’s building at 16 W. 25th St. Information obtained from the city’s Finance Department revealed that the support center had not paid real estate taxes, water bills, and other city-administered fees since it purchased the property in 2004. As a result, the city’s lien against the support center was sold at tax sale to Short Line 2005 in May 2005, and Short Line filed the suit in order to exercise its right to collect the money the center owed.“This is the first time I’m hearing about this,” Klein stated when asked about the lawsuit on July 19. Later, Maryland ACORN’s board chair, the Rev. Gloria Swieringa, thanked City Paper “for pointing out a tremendously erroneous situation that had not been brought to our attention.” The same day, ACORN cut a check for more than $18,000 to settle the matter.At first, Klein stated that the group’s failure to keep current on its taxes and other city bills was due to Hurricane Katrina’s disastrous impact last fall on ACORN’s national offices in New Orleans, where many of the state chapters’ finances are administered. However, after researching the matter, Klein learned that in fact the payments had not been made because the bills had been sent to the group’s old office at 825 Park Ave., Baltimore Organizing and Support Center’s address of record.After Stewart leveled her complaint about having a hard time getting paid by ACORN, three other ex-employees who recently left their jobs came forward, recalling similar problems. One, a former community organizer who claims ACORN still owes reimbursement money to him, asked to remain anonymous because the group requires workers to sign a statement that they won’t talk to the press. (Klein confirms that ACORN’s employees are to have “no contact with the media without specific prior approval from a supervisor.”) The ex-employee did not want to risk his anticipated repayment by being quoted by name in an article.“I did have to wait a number of weeks for my paycheck,” the ex-organizer says. “And I left because I decided I would no longer put up with their stuff. It seems to be a pretty routine thing.” He adds that “people have been getting angry with them for not getting paid.”“I had problems getting paid,” Zuri Barnes, 28, also claims. The former community organizer worked for ACORN for seven months, he says, and was owed money after he quit recently. (Klein asserts that Barnes did not properly submit paperwork to get paid.) “I eventually got paid after numerous phone calls and going in and confronting my former boss,” he recalls. “I’ve heard cases of people who are still waiting to get paid. It’s a major issue, and it all comes down to administration. And this is a group that does community organizing, and yet it is so disorganized.”Khary Williams, a 24-year-old former ACORN community organizer, echoes the complaints. “I got my money,” he says. “It was just very late. I left because I felt like I needed a job where, when it’s payday, I get paid.”Klein admits that ACORN “is not perfect,” adding that its payroll problems were exacerbated recently when the group ratcheted up its staff with a lot of part-time workers who are registering voters around the state.“People get paid regularly here, but there are paperwork problems, and it is not the best system in the world,” he says. “Obviously, we’re not trying to screw people over-we want people to get paid on time. But there are some problems. We try to do the best we can.”Klein, however, expresses surprise about complaints from former community organizers, because they filled salaried positions in a different pay class from the part-time voter-registration workers.“The voter-reg stuff, sure, we’ve had some problems there,” he says. “But I know that our community organizers get paid. Generally, our payroll does run on a regular basis. Maybe one or two days late, but that’s rare.”Asked if he believes the publicity about these problems will lead to more complaints to City Paper about payroll problems, Klein says it will.“I guarantee it,” he predicts. “Everyone’s going to complain. But there are a lot of people who like working for us.”

EEOC Complaints and 80 hour work weeks The Grapes of Rathke

To back up My claims turns out I didn't even know that 4 ACORN employees have filed EEOC complaints against ACORN for unfair promotion of minority staff who are routinely passed over for white staff.

From the Wall Street Journal article "The Grapes of Rathke":


Still, Acorn is vulnerable to charges it doesn’t practice what it preaches. Its manual for minimum-wage campaigns says it intends “to push for as high a wage as possible.” But it doesn’t pay those wages. In 2004 Acorn won a $9.50 an hour minimum wage in Santa Fe, N.M., for example, but pays its organizers $25,000 a year for a required 54-hour week–$8.90 an hour. This year Acorn had workers in Missouri sign contracts saying they would be “working up to 80 hours over seven days of work.” Mr. Rathke says “We pay as much as we can. If people can get more elsewhere, we wish them well.”
Now you say nothing about the issue of how we staff of color have been discriminated against by ACORN in promotions yet:
Current and former Acorn employees say the problems in Kansas City and St. Louis are no accident. “There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,” says Nate Toler, currently head organizer of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in Merced, Calif. In 2004 he worked on an Acorn voter drive in Missouri, and says Acorn statements aren’t to be taken at face value: “The internal motto is ‘We don’t care if it’s a lie, just so long as it stirs up the conversation.’”
Mr. Toler expects to be attacked as a disgruntled employee, and that “I may have my head chopped off for telling the truth.” Indeed, he has this year filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint alleging that Acorn has consistently promoted whites to management positions over equally qualified blacks. But his allegations are backed by three former Acorn employees who have filed similar EEOC complaints.
One of them, Sashanti Bryant of Detroit, Mich., was a community organizer for Acorn. She told me it has a problem paying employees on time and has almost no minorities in its upper echelons. Loretta Barton, until June of this year a lead Acorn organizer from Dayton, Ohio, and another EEOC complainant, told me that “all Acorn wanted from registration drives was results.”
Ms. Barton alleges that when she and her co-workers asked about forming a union they were slapped down: “We were told if you get a union, you won’t have a job.” There is some history here: In 2003, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Acorn to rehire and pay restitution to three employees it had illegally fired for trying to organize a union.
In response, Mr. Rathke says he is neutral on internal union-organizing efforts and that “when you’re dealing with thousands of employees a year you’ll have some who complain.” He also said the four complaints lodged with the EEOC had all been dismissed. When told that wasn’t the case, he said “there may be some loose ends to be tied up . . . I’m not going to impugn any of the people involved.”

Also backing up my claims of 80 hour weeks:

Still, Acorn is vulnerable to charges it doesn’t practice what it preaches. Its manual for minimum-wage campaigns says it intends “to push for as high a wage as possible.” But it doesn’t pay those wages. In 2004 Acorn won a $9.50 an hour minimum wage in Santa Fe, N.M., for example, but pays its organizers $25,000 a year for a required 54-hour week–$8.90 an hour. This year Acorn had workers in Missouri sign contracts saying they would be “working up to 80 hours over seven days of work.” Mr. Rathke says “We pay as much as we can. If people can get more elsewhere, we wish them well.”

You know Wade? Your doo doo is doo doo!

ACORN Fraud Rathike ACORN EbezzlementACORN ACORN ACORN ACORN Fraud Rathike ACORN EbezzlementACORN ACORN ACORN ACORN Fraud Rathike ACORN EbezzlementACORN ACORN ACORN ACORN Fraud Rathike ACORN EbezzlementACORN ACORN ACORN ACORN Fraud Rathike ACORN EbezzlementACORN ACORN ACORN

Colorado Springs Community Abandoned by ACORN

From Colorado Springs Gazette,

Last year, ACORN, a national organization dedicated to social justice for low-income neighborhoods, sprouted a new branch in Colorado Springs.
Its first project was a voter registration drive, followed by efforts to organize residents in unincorporated Stratmoor Valley and in the city's Wildflower neighborhood near the airport.
The voter registration effort was tainted when a temporary worker hired by ACORN was indicted by a grand jury and accused of forging 19 registration cards.
Now, there is more trouble for ACORN's Springs chapter.
Representatives in Stratmoor Valley and Wildflower have quit ACORN despite some success raising money to build parks and get streetlights for the neighborhoods.

"It all started off good," said Albert Aldaz, a leader of the Stratmoor Valley group. "But it turned out so bad."

ACORN has a long history of abandoning communities. I personally witnessed offices that had accomplished great work where ACORN just mysteriously closed the office with no warning. After residents had rasied money and paid their dues. After leaving ACORN kept taking money out of people's accounts even though they no longer had any investment in the community

"Julie Wilson of the Wildflower neighborhood is grateful for the help Wildflower re- ceived from ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which claims 850 chapters with 175,000 members in 75 cities.
"We give them credit for bringing us together and helping us," Wilson said. "But we severed ties in August. We felt it would be in our best interests to go our separate ways. We wanted more control and say-so."
Both Aldaz and Wilson said they questioned why ACORN wanted individual members to pay monthly $10 dues to the national organization.
"The dues were supposed to come back to the neighborhood," Wilson said. "So we figured, why not just keep them here to begin with? Why go through a third party?"
Aldaz said the issue of dues and how they are spent hit him in July when he was invited to spend a weekend in Washington, D.C., attending ACORN-sponsored events.
"The light bulb went on," he said. "I was at this legislative meeting. They flew me out. Put me up in a hotel. Fed me great meals. And I thought something wasn't right. We're paying for that with our dues."

It is often true that communities cannot get money invested back into their community after they have raised it. They are told the money they raise is going to help the community, but then members finding themselves on some trip to Washington on some national agenda they know nothing about.

He didn't feel good, knowing money from poor neighborhoods like Stratmoor Valley was being spent on lavish events elsewhere.
"Our money goes to the national chapter to support their agenda," Aldaz said. "They convinced us we could do something for our neighborhood when they really wanted to lure us into something larger and political in Washington."
So when he got home and thought about it, Aldaz decided to quit the group.
"We no longer are affiliated with ACORN," he said. "We started a new group. We're not forcing anyone to pay dues. If they want to make donations, we'll take them."
But it's not so easy to quit.
The Stratmoor Valley group says it can't get access to $3,000 or so it generated in fundraisers and donations for its campaign to get streetlights and a park in the neighborhood.
"We don't know where our money is," Aldaz said. "We've tried to get answers, but we can't get any. We feel abandoned."
Even worse, the group said it's being dunned for $200 in bills left by ACORN when its paid organizer, Rachel Stovall, quit in August.
Rent has gone unpaid on ACORN's office leased from the Urban League of the Pikes Peak Area. And teenagers hired to help with Stratmoor Valley cleanup were never reimbursed by ACORN, Aldaz said, adding that he and others paid them from their own pockets.
But the worst problem, Aldaz said, is the issue of dues. Many Stratmoor Valley residents agreed to let ACORN automatically withdraw monthly dues from their bank accounts.
"A bunch of people in our neighborhood are still paying dues," Aldaz said.
Stovall said it's unfair to blame her for any problems because she quit in a dispute over sick time and ACORN has not replaced her.
"I don't work for ACORN anymore," she said, "but I'm willing to help these people. They shouldn't have to pay dues if they don't want to pay dues. And they need to be seeing treasury reports and things."
ACORN's Western regional organizer, Clare Crawford of Albuquerque, blames much of the confusion and problems on Stovall's abrupt departure and on Hurricane Katrina, which forced the group from its New Orleans headquarters and snarled communications, paperwork and financial transactions.
"We've had a lot of difficulty recovering," Crawford said. "A check that is normally issued in a week now takes a month or more. We're trying to get rent checks issued. And I have at least one reimbursement check that I've processed for them."
She asked ACORN members to be patient until she can visit Colorado Springs later this month to meet with them and resolve outstanding issues. "I don't understand why they want to cancel their memberships," she said. "I have been in e-mail contact with several officers there. I have invited them to call me.
"We want to solve this situation as quickly as possible. I would really hope, based on the good work we did early on, that people will have a little bit of patience. We do have a commitment there."

Just another day with ACORN

YOUTUBE of Angry UNPAID ACORN WORKERS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ6SrZODbHg

Where do we go from here? Huh Wade?

Rathke and his Posse Must GO!! or ACORN WILL DESTROY THE FOREST!!

If Wade Rathke is allowed to continue to run game as "Chief Organizer of ACORN International"

The staff that empowered him to protect he and his brother from being revealed as having stolen a million dollars from ACORN are allowed to stay?

Alas nothing will change at ACORN.
some things folks should think of?

ACORN burned their financial disclosures every 5 years. Has it dawned on anyone that over the course of the last 38 years they could have gotten away with this little bit of family theft at least five times before they were busted?

Some of us have been executive directors before Wade? Some of us?

KNOW WHERE TO LOOK!

You think any of the foundations out there you stole from migth have extensive financial records?

Maybe?

Please Bertha, Please, you don't need Wade to take this ball down the field. The good Wade has done HAS BEEN DONE. The Bad is ongoing. ACORN could be reformed into a true engine of Grassroots organizing. You can make it happen.

With Wade and his junta around you will always be boxed in.

Has anyone realized that members and staff that protected him can be charged in criminal proceedings for their role?

Wade do you care for these people at all?

If you do you will take full responsibility and admit that the fact that you covered your brothers a$$ makes you complicit.

Save the Tree, @corn

As I said-Wade is no longer Chief Organizer

Well you saw it here first. Now Wade has stepped down: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/us/09embezzle.html

So here is the deal as I have pinted our for some time:

1) Wade Rathke's brother ran the money (that would be Dale)
2) His wife runs the Louisiana office.
3) He has surrounded himself with his best friends
4) He created a compliant and in many ways ignorant board thatg would do whatever he said (How long has Maude been Chair)?
5) As reported in the New York times Wade's brother Dale used the for profit entity they set up to steal a million dollars.
6)Maude and the girls have given Wade a golden Parachute and allowed him to resign as Chief Organizer and promoted him to Chief Organizer of ACORN International! He is now Chief Organizer of the world?
7) Not on my watch pal!!!!!!!

Let us be clear, I don't hate ACORN, and I am not some right winger. I am former ACORN organizer.

What I care about is the milions of dollars I have personally watched get wasted, mispent, misdirected, and that were supposed to be for the social justice movement.

What I care about is field organizers who aren't paid shit, who rish their lives, so that Wade, his wife, his brtother, John Kest, Helene O'brien, and the rest of the crew can bleed this movement dry. Jetting around the world and selling out communities instead of focusing on community organizing.

Wade Rathke is a wealthy white boy who surrounded himself with wealthy white boys who is trying ot stay wealthy while trying to look like some Mother Theresa.

The only way a person of color could rise to the top was for Wade to step down.

Berth Lewis we wish you luck!!