Petrelis Files

LA Weekly:
EQCA Still Looking for an ED

Down at the Los Angeles Weekly, reporter Patrick Range McDonald continues to keep a watchful eye on Equality California and its troubles. You may recall he wrote an excellent critical look at the group back in 2011, "Mission Drift at Gay Inc", about the myriad problems at EQCA and how some critics believe the group is too interested in empire building.

Today in a blog post, McDonald used my Wednesday post about EQCA being without an executive director for eight-months, and that very few LGBT Californians have noticed this lack of an official statewide leader, as a reason to get an update from the group. The spokeswoman for the organization does her usual lame job of spinning a rosy "everything's fine, move along" picture.

If you know of a single setback or problem for our statewide community without an ED at this group, please let me know. From the LA Weekly:

San Francisco blogger Michael Petrelis recently reminded us that Equality California, one of the state's largest gay rights groups, is still looking for a full-time executive director.

"In the eight-months since [former executive director Roland] Palencia left EQCA," Petrelis opines, "no harm has come to the California LGBT community, and the group has basically been in simple survival mode, not doing much more than keeping the lights on."

Ouch! His criticism may not be totally fair, but eight months is certainly a long time for such a major organization to go without a leader. So we called up EQCA to find out what was happening.

Equality California communications director Rebekah Orr says the board actually hired an interim executive director, Laurie Hasencamp, in late February, and a search for a full-time executive director has been underway for the past six or eight weeks. [...]

Orr says the eight months has been used by the board as a time to "reevaluate" the organization. [...]