letter to editor from Ken Odom and Richard Burton

This is a letter to the Union submitted shortly after the Bd meeting which has not been published.

The Board of Directors of Briar Patch held a standing room only, overflow crowd meeting on Monday, January 28th. They went through a dozen or so committee reports, and spent over 4 hours in bickering between the majority on the Board and its two minority members. Their general and finance managers attended and spoke at length. Not one of them mentioned the elephant in the living room. The Briar Patch is hemorrhaging at the rate of $25,000 to $70,000 per month, having lost over $760,000 in the ten months since their move. Neither the Board, nor its managers, has a plan that they discussed publicly.

Clearly the Board is wracked by dissension and an inability to grapple with this crisis, at least at this meeting. The majority is refusing to release to the members (who ultimately pay for everything) a report prepared by an outside consultant, Paul Jaffe, as to the dynamics on the Board, and making suggestions and comments as to what needs to be done to start to heal this dysfunction. The majority's excuse to bar release is that the report contains inaccuracies and some misquotes. There is not a report ever submitted to court, or a newspaper article that would ever see the light of day under that claim. Trust us, the report appears fair, thorough and balanced, and does not paint any Board member as a saint. This coupled with the refusal of the majority of the Board to authorize full access to the financial reports, or a current audit, to the minority Board members, has left many in the community untrusting of this Board. The Board must be willing to look at itself and work to look at what is not working and look to the community for help on fixing the problems. This is what a CO-OP is all about.

There must be a clear picture presented to all Board members, employees, shareholders and the public as to the true financial conditions of Briar Patch. There must be a return to the founding principles of openness and honesty in all of its dealings that have allowed Briar Patch to grow into the organization it is today. Briar Patch has to return to the sound financial and ethical standards upon which it was founded. We cannot allow it to continue to hemorrhage like this.

All avenues must be explored to reduce costs and increase sales. We need to come together with a plan to reduce the deficit that the store is currently running. The Briar Patch Board must work with all parties if the store is to be sustainable.

The Board must seek help from employees, the community, and management to help in that effort to foster team work and put the Briar Patch back on the right path.

There must be immediate action in order to save this unique asset to the community, which began with $500.00 total pledged by five people in 1980. The vision was to make available healthy food at low cost to people in the community who were encouraged to devote volunteer labor to the endeavor in exchange for a 15% discount on the food.

One immediate step that the Board of Briar Patch needs to take is to spread the word to the members that the CO-OP is actively encouraging volunteers.

We feel that the Board needs to call on the Briar Patch community to actively engage in re-examining the founders' goals of providing affordable, healthy food to the community, encouraging volunteers, and be a voice in the community promoting locally grown where possible, and sustainable food, and a place which makes itself a focal point for community.

Richard Burton (265-8888) and Ken Odom (743-3605)
(Richard was a long-time volunteer attorney for Briar Patch, and Ken Odom is a Financial Broker by trade)