A public meeting was held at Tri Town pavilion in Alexander on Tuesday night to discuss all that has happened since the end of summer. The meeting was very well attended.
Tri Town Youth Athletics Association in Alexander is picking up the pieces and moving ahead after a misappropriation of funds threatened to close down the long running youth athletics group. Two members of the most recent board, the secretary and a trustee were the last members remaining after other members walked away from their positions.
“The authorities and the attorney told us you can go about it one of two ways. You can go about it this way and this is what outcomes could be, no guarantee, charges could be dropped, no guarantee any amount of money comes back and if it does it could be 20-30 years that it gets paid back in full, who knows, it’s all left up to chance. Or you can go with legal counsel, and they helped to where we are now. We wanted to make sure we were doing everything that we needed to do appropriately, says Mindy Bittner/ Acting Treasurer/Secretary.
Bittner says had they went the other route; it could have taken years to get the funds back.
“We wanted the best outcome for the kids and this program to be thriving and staying alive, I played in this when I was a kid, I want my kids to play in this when they’re kids,” says a parent named Tim. “If we didn’t get the money back this wouldn’t be here right now.”
“I trust our board members quite a bit in spite of what happened, the people who stood up there today took a big risk in doing so. I feel strongly that they would have made the best choice for our program and our kids. I’ve watched the same people that spoke today show up for their kids again, again and again. They also show up for other people’s kids. If that was the best legal decision to make with legal counsel, I would support that,” says concerned parent 1.
After a rough start to the meeting where some parents let their anger out, the meeting seemed to get more productive with past board members sharing ideas while others offered to help out by volunteering, which recently has been a problem at Tri Town.
“I feel like we have a strong group of committed parents, and I hope that they continue to show that strength and that commitment to the community and then we’ll continue to have a successful program for our kids. Thats what Tri Town is really here for, is to make a successful program for our children and be able to grow and endure some challenges, but to also develop teamwork,” says concerned parent 1″
Tri Town offers kids ages 4-12 the opportunity to participate in many different sports year around. The group offers T-Ball, baseball, softball, football, cheerleading, wrestling and basketball, and are hoping to reinstate soccer.
“Just getting the word out, allowing the community to talk about the events and just getting everybody’s feedback on it, allowing everybody to express their feelings and I think we accomplished that. Hopefully, we have a good path moving forward,” Kyle King, Acting President.
After the public meeting on Tuesday night, King, previously a trustee for over a year, is now the acting President. Mindy Bittner, previously a trustee, is now the acting treasurer/secretary. It was announced during the meeting, that Tri Town, through their legal counsel, was able to get the missing funds returned to the nonprofit group which will enable Tri Town to continue supporting kids who want to play sports.
“We’re grateful, that honestly, without the money being paid back in full, Tri Town could not afford to continue. We’re grateful, obviously it should have never happened but, we’re grateful it got handled the way it was handled.” says King. Without it, we were in the hole, we had bills that were already due, and we did not have money in the account.”
King says the group is planning to rewrite the Association’s bylaws so misappropriations cannot occur again in the future. The group says the 2021 taxes were not filed and are working to remedy that situation with counsel, filing their tax return.
In January, the group will hold elections for the positions.
“We will be changing the bylaws to install guidelines so stuff like this doesn’t occur again. We’re putting up some roadblocks, trying to make it almost impossible for such events to happen again,” says King.
The two acting board members along with three trustees say they have never witnessed a large group of parents come together as they did on Tuesday evening.
“It’s sad that it took something like this to happen for this many people to now come to us and say we are willing to help, it was very refreshing to see them want to step up,” says Mindy Bittner, Acting Treasurer/Secretary.