Today’s Hour reveals that a group of people are upset that NEON wants to modernize. Strangely the article doesn’t mention the politics behind all this concern. As usual, as in the usual suspects of Bobby Burgess and Bruce Morris are behind the scenes attempting to preserve their waning influence over the goings on at NEON. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Joe Mann the, executive director, wants to clean up, codify and streamline the organization. NEON needs to maximize every dollar spent to support its mission of reducing poverty and helping low-income families and residents become self-sufficient.
So what to they say?
“That’s too much power for somebody,” Brown said. “This is an anti-poverty agency, not a corporation where you have a president and CEO. This is not supposed to run like that.”
What do they mean?
We are not getting any.
NEON, prior to Mann’s leadership almost lost its HeadStart funding because of the long term corruptive mismanagement executed by these former leaders of NEON. There are 31 Board members according to the NEON web site. Most billion dollar corporations have 8-12 Board members. Everyone understands why class sizes matter, so does small leadership groups.
“Everything at NEON is done by the book,” said Carvin J. Hilliard, NEON Board of Directors chairman. “We have our financial house in order. The agency has improved. The moral is much better. There’s a lot of progress going on. I think some people have personal agendas.”
Doing things by the book, documenting what is done and who by, operating like a real non profit are all things that are good governance. Joe Mann should be applauded for encouraging such operations. The malcontents fear change and transparency. They are not a good influence on the organization.
source:, S. Norwalk leaders seek state probe of NEON, By ROBERT KOCH, August 31, 2007
