Nonprofit will no longer give to Costa Mesa Senior Center

This post has been corrected, as noted below.

A private Costa Mesa nonprofit that had given money to the city’s senior center said it is no longer willing to do so. Instead, its administrators plan to fund outside organizations that aid center participants, according to the foundation’s president.

Mike Scheafer wrote in a letter to the Senior Commission, the City Hall entity that oversees the West 19th Street facility, that the majority of the Albert Dixon Memorial Foundation’s five-member board “has made it clear they will not approve any funding requests for capital projects at the center” or new equipment, such as a bingo board or replacement restroom doors.

The move suggests lingering tensions between the board and the senior center since the city took over the facility in June 2014. The foundation has been gearing up for its dissolution and figuring out what to do with its remaining money.

The foundation’s board wishes to donate its funds to nonprofits “that work to benefit or provide service to seniors who participate at the Costa Mesa Senior Center,” Scheafer wrote in his June 12 letter, which the Senior Commission examined during its meeting Tuesday.

The donations would be among the board’s last acts.

The Albert Dixon foundation was formed in 2006 “to provide funds for the disadvantaged and aged and to support the programs and activities of the Costa Mesa Senior Center,” according to its tax forms. It is named after a man who was a daily fixture at the center until his death in 2002.

The amount left in the fund is in the high $600,000s, according to Scheafer.

The foundation board’s attorney says the remaining money must go to a nonprofit. With the center now being run by the city, that nonprofit connection is lost.

Commission Chairwoman Ernie Feeney asked why the Albert Dixon fund couldn’t donate to the city’s community foundation, which is a nonprofit.

In an interview after the commission’s meeting, Scheafer told the Daily Pilot that his board did consider that option but ultimately rejected it. The board majority favors donating to organizations like the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen and SeniorServ, which both feed Costa Mesa seniors.

“I think some of the people on that commission don’t realize that we really do want to help people who go to the senior center,” he said. “But we want to help them in a way that benefits the huge majority.”

Since the city’s takeover of the senior center in June 2014, some of the seniors who use the facility have expressed concern that the money left in the Albert Dixon fund would not be used for the Costa Mesa center.

A group of seniors circulated a petition in August 2014 to ensure that funds from the foundation would still benefit the senior center even after the city assumed control. That decision was up to the foundation’s board.

Three of Albert Dixon’s five board members — Aviva Goelman, Arlene Flanagan and Judy Lindsay — were part of the senior center’s leadership, the Costa Mesa Senior Center Corp., before the City Hall takeover. The other two members, Scheafer and Patricia Linsky, were former senior center board members. There has always been overlap between the senior center board and the Albert Dixon foundation, according to Scheafer, until now.

The city took over operations at the senior center in 2014 after an independent audit predicted a “fiscal crisis” for the corporation and indicated its general fund would be completely depleted by summer. It also noted declining numbers of center participants and volunteers in recent years.

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For the record: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that former Costa Mesa Senior Center Executive Director Aviva Goelman was accused of mismanagement. The center was criticized publicly for financial problems but Goelman was not personally accused of mismanagement in published reports.

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Critics have pointed to mismanagement. And in fact on Tuesday the letter was met with some skepticism, with one attendee saying the foundation’s intentions are “always in question from seniors.”

Goelman and other board members had sought to use the Albert Dixon funds to shore up the center’s deficit, an idea criticized by some who felt the money should go toward programs, not the quickly depleting general fund or employee salaries.

The City Council approved a complete takeover by summer 2014, a process that brought the center into solvency and, with the help of some free membership giveaways, revived its member base from about 400 to around 1,500 now. The change also shook up senior center management; none of the corporation’s employees, including Goelman, work there now.

City officials also pumped about $200,000 worth of renovation work into 20,000-square-foot facility last year. It was finished in time for the annual Christmas party, considered the center’s pinnacle event.

Still, Scheafer said, the majority of the Albert Dixon board, based on conversations with some center members, doesn’t believe the City Hall takeover has been so rosy. He didn’t specify who, but said he didn’t necessarily share that opinion.