By Jane Smith
The Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency is demanding the return of $187,500 it gave to the former operators of the Old School Square campus that is the cultural heart of the city’s downtown.
The CRA board, composed of the five city commissioners and two independent residents in the redevelopment district, also voted March 22 to cancel the rest of the agreement that would have given the fired arts organization another $562,500.
The board voted 6-0 to accept the staff recommendations. Board member Adam Frankel did not vote, having left the meeting about 30 minutes earlier.
The CRA said the nonprofit, formally known as the Old School Square Center for the Arts, failed to meet a March 10 deadline to provide financial documents, such as canceled checks, for the money it received for the first quarter of the 2020-21 budget year.
“In response to the CRA’s recent decision to retroactively void its grant agreement … and ask OSSCA to return money that has already been spent on CRA-approved programming, the CRA is forcing OSSCA to enter into litigation with the CRA,” wrote Carli Brinkman, the group’s spokeswoman, in a March 24 email to The Coastal Star.
The nonprofit already filed suit against the city in November and the two have been at odds for more than eight years.
Former Mayor Cary Glickstein tried to constrain the group in December 2016 with a tighter lease that included financial reporting obligations. After the group could not fulfill those obligations the past two years, the City Commission voted 3-2 in August to terminate its lease as of Feb. 9. The organization had been paying the city $1 annually for the 4-acre campus at Atlantic and Swinton avenues.
The former Old School Square operators had received more than $9 million from the CRA in the past 18 years, ranking them first among nonprofits receiving CRA assistance. For that money, the CRA requires nonprofits to undergo annual independent audits.
The Old School Square group did not submit audits for the past two budget years, using the pandemic as an excuse, while other nonprofits were able to meet the requirement.
Marko Cerenko, an attorney representing the former operators, wrote in a March 14 response to the CRA that the nonprofit “has timely and continuously responded to the requests made of it.” He estimated the CRA’s public records request would cost between $750 and $1,500 for the time needed to retrieve the documents, redact personal information and copy the records. The CRA staff deemed the cost too high.
No OSSCA representative spoke at the March 22 CRA meeting, despite an invitation from CRA outside counsel Sanaz Alempour.
Patty Jones, the OSSCA board chairwoman, did write a March 21 email to CRA Executive Director Renee Jadusingh, calling the city’s decision to terminate the lease “improper.” She said the CRA’s failure to talk with the board led to the diminishing size of the organization.
“We have no office, no program of work and no employees,” Jones wrote. “We have provided reams of documents, but the agency has consistently and predictably moved the bar.”
Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia at the March 22 meeting called Jones’ comments “incendiary,” denying any impropriety.
As to the failure to talk with the former operators, Petrolia said, “That’s what happens when you file a lawsuit. Our attorney said not to talk with them after their lawsuit was filed in November.”
She also bristled about Jones’ describing the Old School Square campus as sitting dark. “The city stepped up and made sure things were happening” after OSSCA “started canceling the events in October,” she said.
While Jones lamented that the city was negotiating “to hand the keys to the heartbeat of our community to a Boca Raton-based nonprofit,” Petrolia said she has visited the Boca Raton Museum of Art and was impressed. That museum is negotiating with Delray City Manager Terrence Moore to run Old School Square’s Cornell Art Museum.
In other OSSCA news, the organization filed its amended lawsuit against the city and three officials on March 1.
Joy Howell, an ex-board OSSCA chairwoman, and Shannon Eadon, former OSSCA executive director, were dropped as defendants. City Commissioner Juli Casale was dropped in January after her attorney filed a motion for attorney’s fees if she wins.
The current lawsuit has 10 counts against the city, including breach of the lease with the former Old School Square operators and two counts each against Petrolia, Vice Mayor Shirley Johnson and City Attorney Lynn Gelin for violations of the Sunshine Law and civil conspiracy to end the lease. The organization is seeking a jury trial to assess damages. According to its lease with the city, disputes are supposed to be settled by arbitration.
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