10/24/11

(Note - this meeting had many people from other workgroups attending.  Total attendance was about 20 people.  I did not get a list of names for my notes - Lisa G.)


1. Discussion of Paul Carnes' actions in opening CU account, EIN and DBA but refusing to give any information on these items or control of them back to the workgroup.

Last week Paul obtained a dba (doing business as) and EIN (a group tax id number) for Occupy Boston and opened a bank account as requested by the group.  However, both he and Sydney have repeatedly refused to give any copies of these forms or information about them to the workgroup.  No other person has been given any access to this bank account - Paul and Sydney are the only signers.  There were also other issues of Paul repeatedly not following procedures for cash disbursement and other financial procedures.  Paul and Sydney left the meeting at 4:00. After further discussion, the following resolution was proposed and passed unanimously:

"Be it resolved that any actions taken by Paul Carnes are not sanctioned by the Finance Accountability Work Group, including any credit union accounts remaining open, monies spent by him, or any fundraising efforts."

Additionally, both Paul Carnes and Sydney Sherrel were voted out of the Financial Accountability Work Group by unanimous vote.   

2. Lawyer Dan Paradis spoke with the group about a number of issues and answered questions people had. Topics included how to establish a DBA now that Paul has already done so but refused to give use of it back to the workgroup. There was also general discussion of some pros and cons of different forms of legal entities.

Without a formal legal structure and organizational liability insurance, people of a responsible character are reluctant to become check signers on a OB bank account.  We spoke with Dan about using a trust account at his law firm to store the main part of our funds and have a credit union account with limited cash in it.  This will be discussed further on our Wednesday meeting from 3-5. 

3. Next steps:

* Rita Sebastian will get a larger PO Box with a new number.
* Greg will add this PO Box address to the formal EIN number registration he obtained on Monday (as requested at the last meeting.)
* This new PO Box will be used as the offical mailing address for any future bank account, dba, or other formal paperwork.  This prevents important paperwork being sent to one person's home.
* FAWG members will attend Tuesday's GA to inform the GA of what has transpired.  Consensus is we will ask the GA to censure Paul if he is not willing to sign a City of Boston form rescinding his DBA for Occupy Boston and close the credit union account he opened.

Next meeting is Wednesday from 3:00 - 5:00.
We will have two lawyers attending to help us work through the pros and cons of different possible forms of legal structure.