BeSeTu: Palencia Interview When?
The downward spiral of Equality California continues and the gay press is dutifully reporting on the latest broken promises of the group's diminishing leaders.
First up, the editor of the Spanish-language LGBT news service BeSeTu.com D. Morales over the weekend posted a story about Roland Palencia ending his employment with the group and questioned its relevancy. Morales noted additional irresponsibility from their communications director:
On October 10, Rebekah Orr, EQCA spokeswoman promised an interview with Roland Palencia or the leadership of the organization for the next day and never heard from her again.
I'll say this about EQCA, right now, after reading Google's translated version of the BeSeTu piece. They are seriously further damaging their frayed relations with white and Latino LGBT folks equally.
Seth Hemmelgarn over at the Bay Area Reporter's blog today wrote about EQCA and their vow to the at-large community last week about new ideas to energize us and demonstrate that everything is supposedly okey-dokey:
When the group failed to say Friday what they were going to do, Orr replied [that] “The board is in the process today of connecting with staff members to discuss the transition plan. We will release a public statement on Monday.”
But as of today (Monday, October 17), there’s still no plan.
In a phone interview, Orr wouldn’t say when the organization would reveal its plans. “The board is taking its time to make sure we get it right, and in the meantime, all of our staff is continuing to do all the work Equality California has been known for and, that we have set out to do for the year, and we’re moving forward,” she said.
When asked to explain the delay further, Orr said, “I think that we can all agree that it is better to do due diligence and to take our time to get it right than it is to have certainty without having …” She paused, struggling for words, then added, “with certainty without having gone through a deliberative process.”
Puhleeze, Louise, stop with the unhealthy and deceitful spinning. EQCA is a mess, serious trouble afflicts the board and staff, and only an isolated few naive gays may be buying the spin. Speaking in nonprofitese doesn't help the situation.
Let's have a reality check. We are soon approaching the third anniversary of the Prop 8 loss taking away gay marriage in the state. EQCA's former director Geoff Kors had enough rich friends and a strong support network to keep things solvent for a while, but now the organization may be collapsing.
Going out of business would allow California gays to make a fresh start of creating a truly democratic, small d, statewide network of activists collaborating with transparency and accountability focusing on political change. A group not beholden to gay Democratic electeds and A-gay, particularly Mark Leno, and their fealty to the party.
EQCA recently promised an empowering effort of "breakthrough conversations" to move the gays forward, an idea very much dead on arrival. What would really advance us would be a breakthrough closure - of this organization.
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