Richard Lesher

That's what I've been leaning on as well. If folks push success back in my face I can say "finally" but in my defense up until now here is no verifiable actions of success. *************** At this rate, I can see them getting through a season and limping back home from Indiana but it might break their back. The certainty would be filing the FY2023 when it is due in the Spring of 2024 (not 2026).

I'm trying to embarrass them into compliance, and I think it's actually worked to a degree. Otherwise, does anyone here think if nothing was blown up on the internet that SCV would have magically corrected themselves through the letters the DOJ mails to SCV HQ? Do they think the letters would have gotten to the correct decision makers in SCV to light a fire and get things fixed? **************** Here is what I learned in regard to tax filings, and it now makes sense what happened to Troopers. For you see............ absent of all other actions from the local and state authorities, if a non profit does not file their Tax 990's three years in a row the Internal Revenue Service just terminates the organizations non profit status. There are no warnings, poof, it's just off. THAT'S what probably happened to troopers, and when an organization falls off the Nonprofit data file the IRS uses to allow little people like us to use the EIN as a write of that's when things get noticed. Vanguard was ONE TAX RETURN AWAY from an automatic termination from the IRS. If I didn't blow up the internet when I did and if SCV didn't respond in desperation when they did this would have been the year the IRS shut off SCV's nonprofit status. They got FY19, and FY20 registered, FY21 is "pending" but at least the 990 has been filed. So now from the IRS's perspective they are behind with 2022, and 2023 is due next. But at least it's not three years. 2021 and 2022 were not submitted until September of 2023, and if they let it go as far to be late with 2023 then that would have been it.

I would hope............... but recently the standard response from SCV is to flaunt and inflate any level of success they can. Otherwise they tend to be silent.

I mentioned this before, but it appears Charles Frost pitched SCV in the initial downward trajectory. When he left FY 2019 was entirely his baby. His actions of changing who was doing the bookkeeping, and at the time he left the entirety of FY 2019 was under his management. We now know that FY 2019 was a financial operating loss of -$545K when in that same fiscal year SCV had the highest revenue it it's history of $5.9M. SCV never lost more and never made more in the exact same year. It is FY 2019 that needed to be closed out in the books, and be audited, ect..... and submitted with the annual registration. That duty would have fallen on the new CEO, but the EXACT TIME those regulatory responsibilities were to be executed they were reeling from hiring a guy that was trying to terminate the Corps and COVID hadn't even started yet. SO when SCV finally got rid of the insane CEO hire we were into COVID shut down, and everyone on the Board and the new CEO/CFO team just figured they could let it ride and actually do nothing. Oh Thank God For COVID, right?????????? That gave SCV two year breathing room to just fumble around and figure out the operations that was pitched into the ground and they totally blew that opportunity.

It wasn't until the middle of December that SCV decided to pull the plug last time. I'd at least give it a week or two. They are operationally month to month at best.

I can't tell you how many times I have bent over backwards to get a real bugler. I am embarrassed to say as an SCV Soprano alumni my chops are no longer able to play it respectably, my only excuse is that's not my role anymore. That said, both times I've had a Bugle Across America volunteer they have played very poorly. One sounded like they had been only playing a week. Now I force them to play for me before the services start, or I will send them home. As a Drum Corps alumni I presume Ironlips would rock Taps the way it is intended to be rocked, but Bugles Across America do not appear to have any sort of skill threshold to volunteer. When I end up getting a bugler assigned to the detail and he shows up, and he is in the military and his Military Occupational Skill (MOS) identifier is actually "Musician" a feeling of joy overcomes me, and I think quietly: OH THANK GOD As for Buglers Across America, we don't know if we are getting the principle trumpet player of the San Francisco Symphony, or some wannabie that decided he wants the accolades of volunteering and picked up a trumpet yesterday. It's frustrating to say the least. I already have enough to worry about without the trumpet player blatting out notes and missing articulations.

But that said, once I got home I logged on onto the DOJ site to check if any statuses changed with Vanguard's data. And you know what something did change. The November 2020 notification pertaining to the missing FY 2019 audit disappeared and looked to have been removed by the DOJ. Then upon further poking around the data again from scratch it turned out the file was simply RENAMED and sorted more logically with the FY2019 associated filed. ********* Putting on my tinfoil aussie to me this indicates that someone over at the DOJ is cleaning up the data for whatever reason.

As a reservist for me it's not like that. I am doing funerals for Korea and Vietnam era veterans (sometimes WW2). If someone passes while on active duty they get the whole 9 yards. If someone some decades later after they were in passes, and next of kin wants gramps to have military honors then I'm that guy. So yea, I'm lucky, I'm not passing a flag to a bereaving parent of a 20 something. I'm passing it to a 50 year old child of the deceased. ***** What happens is the funeral director will ask the family if the deceased was a veteran and then the funeral director takes care of the rest, and my team and I show up. That said............ I was furious once, as the funeral home CHARGED for the flag, when in reality they are supplied for free from the Post Office (with proof of service and death certificate).

After posting a few rants I scurried off to one of my additional duties as an Army Reservist, and lead a Military Honor Funeral Detail for a passed veteran. I do about one of these a week. I have another one tomorrow. I suspect there is a crunch to have these services before the holidays, followed by a lull half way through December, and then slammed again in January. I'm that guy that hands the flag to next of kin, and says: "Oh behalf of the President of the United States...." My drum corps military bearing really comes in helpful here, and I have Vanguard to thank for that.

Oh, I've given DCI notices since January of 2023. I've just recently stopped bothering after the response about Cadets.

No, I didn't notify DCI regarding the latest November DOJ notice. Remember............. I submitted an ethics complaint to DCI regarding Cadets not being a registered charity with the state of Penn. To be sure of myself I reached out to the state of Penn. and got confirmation from the Department of State of PA confirming as such. It was at this time I submitted the complaint with the Dept of State notice from PA to DCI ethics channels and Dan Acheson himself e-mailed me saying based on what the Cadets say they are good to go. Then the media manager of Cadets e-mailed my personal e-mail accusing me of makings false claims against Cadets. The the FOLLOWING WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Boom.......... lawsuit is public regarding Cadets, and then the BS crapping all over me stops, well, well, well. DCI is complicit in continuing the ruse of improper conduct of Cadets. I'm done notifying DCI, it is merely composed of the organizations that are the violators it should be governing.

I'll just speculate.................. It's probably nothing more than a single instructor helping the kids bang on drums for a few hours a week. Maybe they end up doing a parade or two. It will be entirely dependent on the drive of the instructor to make it happen, and it will need SCV to fund it. *************** There is speculation I will throw a monkey wrench into the Oakland thing, and it would be astronomically easy enough to send the DOJ notices to the school board, the school admin, and the school PTA and just let the whole thing play out as is. But in the magical event SCV pulls itself out of the depths this Oakland program is something they need to help them get traction with. Running a tour is going to kill them. If SCV does end up getting a Cease and Desist from the DOJ I will be all over it, and go gangbusters. But, as I speculate the Oakland thing is probably a single instructor giving some time, and with or without SCV that could still go on given the motivations of the instructor and willingness of the School.

The DOJ notices are real. All things being crazy and emotional, the DOJ stuff is dead serious. When considering what the DOJ notices say, and considering what SCV is saying realize, the DOJ is like the department of motor vehicles. They truly do not care. Forms come in, and if they are not right they are kicked back. If the fees are wrong they are kicked back. If audits are not completed the registration is never made current. Ever try and register your car without a smog check, and hope the DMV just takes your payment and ignore you didn't smog you car? Yea, it's not going to happen. ********* This is what is freaking me out so much. SCV could submit total trash in terms of financials and auditor comments it would still meet the state's standards so long as something was submitted, boxes where checked, fees were paid, and the correct form was used. The IRS 990 could indicate SCV is losing $10,000,000 a year and as long as it's audited and all the forms are done correctly I would have absolutely nothing to stand on. The problem is now, they started 2023 in default which indicates they have no reserves of non bingo revenue saved, and without the member fees from the corps they are clearly paying Bingo employees with bingo revenue in FY 2023. What about donations to pay Bingo salaries? Well, because they are delinquent they are prohibited by state law from soliciting donations. Even in a good year that still wouldn't have been enough by itself. So there's that. Additionally........... if one takes into account when SCV's expired registration started and looks purely at their 990's they submitted there is over $1,000,000 of donations that shouldn't have been there. We also don't have FY2022 or FY2023 numbers. To add to that, SCV to this very moment continues to have up their Donation Pages of there website. I would say that's an argument for solicitation. SCV might argue otherwise, but an entity expired and delinquent since 2020 shouldn't be splitting hairs so close to the edge of compliance. If one reads the whole DOJ letter SCV is given another 60 days (from 16-NOV). From what I can tell, another letter will follow after 60 days, and with no action the DOJ will give a notice to revoke or suspect the non profit status, and give another 60 days from there. So............. SCV is 120 days from 16-NOV-2023 to getting a cease and desist notification with a corresponding tax bill. That is literally what SCV is facing right here, right now.

Yes, requested by the DOJ Vanguard's charity ID number is 009838 https://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Search.aspx?facility=Y Sometimes you have to run the data search twice, most the time it returns no record the first try.

I personally put those controls in place, but they have to be maintained. The biggest aspect of theft we could confirm were something called "pull tabs". Think of them as lottery tickets or more common scratch offs. We would buy say a box of 1,000 tickets, and sell that box for say $3000 ($3 a ticket) and return winning tickets of say $2000 for a net of $1000 to SCV. Now, what Luciani was doing was opening the tickets herself, giving the winning tickets to friends (looking for the BIG winner tickets). So what she did was prevent SCV from selling any ticket she ruined trying to find the winners. What NO ONE WAS DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Was LOOKING AT THE NET PROFIT OF pull tab sales. The PROFIT IS LOCKED IN at 20-30%, and NO ONE SAID!!!!!!!!!! Hey WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why are we barely breaking even on pull tabs or even losing money in some of these. For SCV to lose money on the pull tabs and there be no fraud or theft or operating errors that means the VENDOR would be defrauding us on a box of cardboard tickets they don't collect any money on. That was relatively easy to start a control process. Now, the bigger problem is the Bingo paper. They were printed on news paper quality paper, and there are millions of them, and there is really no easy way to inventory them in a reasonable manner. So when someone buys said Bingo paper with cash, welp, it's nearly impossible to keep an audit trail of that. Other ways around that is to simply TRACK DATA. What are normal trends, which registers are better performing, who is manning the registers at what times and what is the performance. Mix up the staff duties and see of trends follow the staff verses the duties and time and day of expected business performance, etc..... I just do not see a culture of Bingo operating in a highly inventory controlled operations when SCV isn't doing audits and filing registrations correctly. *************** I have a lot of experience in my life and profession that I have come to the conclusion that the following is always true: Wherever opportunity exists it will be taken advantage of. One can let a system of checks and balances slack of here and there, but it has to eventually fall back in check. If the lack of oversight is persistent and part of the culture it will absolutely be taken advantaged of. It has explicitly happened before with SCV, and now the CA DOJ has sent verbiage that the Tax Board will be requested to revoke SCV's nonprofit status, and SCV leadership is saying take their word everything is OK.

I think that holds true here in CA. Gamblers will go out of their way, but I suspect there are other places all along that way. The point I think we should take away is that perhaps the Bingo Market isn't as weak as SCV would like us to believe.

There is no Bingo Committee, the Bingo Manager works from Hawaii, no one that represents the board is keeping close tabs on Bingo Operations. Bingo is a very large cash driven business, and I suspect they are no longer inventorying the bingo cards and other gaming supplies inventory. It's not impossible the entire SCV leadership, management and Board have no idea the nuances of bingo operations. Everyone is working virtually except a few lower level folks. It's highly likely every single Bingo Employee could just pocket cash covertly and walk out the door with it. YES, YES!!!!!!!!!!! Folks will claim some bingo employees were arrested for stealing a few hundred dollars in the last year or so. So a claim can be made to some sort of oversight. What I'm getting at is who is checking the folks that tally up the deposits at the end of the day, and report the final numbers that get put into the finances? There certainly aren't any audits of such. Now that I think about it, I can only imagine the difficulty of trying retroactively clean that up for several years to the degree auditors given an unqualified opinion. ************** So if a bingo player buys $100 worth of bingo cards, and there is no inventory check of the cards at the end of the day relative to the revenue taken in for that day then how does one check that $100 just didn't go into someone's pocket. OK, so someone got caught on camera last year. So at the end of the day when there is say $10,000 in revenue to deposit across all registers who is checking that revenue against the inventory and ensuring that revenue is matching the deposited funds that actually make it into the bank account? Whatever the counter argument is, there are no audited financial statements to say everything is on the up and up. The Bingo Manager in no way can attest to the bingo reports that are filed to the City. At best he can only blindly trust they are correct.

In the fall of 2005 I had said in a Board Meeting in no uncertain terms: "SCV does not have the financial controls in place to measure their financial reporting, is exposed to fraud, theft and operating loss, and does not have the means to measure what that exposure is." I was pushed back very strongly by another board member who is a big personality in City politics, and a retired financial crimes detective. He said to me: "Be very careful what you are saying Mr. Lesher" I replied: "That is exactly what I am saying" It wasn't even weeks and the Bingo Manager was arrested for the thefts, which turned out to be astronomical sums of money, and no less than $800K in just what we were able to document. Soon after SCV revenues DOUBLED in my tenure. After that fraud was finally broken I barely made it onto the Board of Directors by one vote. The corruption was never fully routed. ********************* I cannot say that fraud or theft exists. I can say the opportunity does exist in spades, and SCV does not have the Audit Financial Statements to show where the funds are going. I can say to date Vanguard is in violation of: CA Gov Code. 12586 - failure to provide required audits Cal. Code Regs., Title. 11, § 999.9.4. - solicitation of donations as a delinquent charity CA Gambling Laws § 326.5 - illegally paying Bingo operations employees with bingo revenue I can support my accusations with the unaudited IRS From 990's that SCV has submitted and the DOJ notifications alone. Those three violations exist. Fraud and theft and operating loss (mistakes of bingo employees giving away too much money or change, wink wink) could technically not exist, but it would not be a logical business assessment to presume it doesn't.

I don't know about that, possibly, I suspect they mostly likely lost market share is from those folks that are between Concord and Santa Clara. It's an hour between the two, but say if you lived in the middle then it's only 30 minutes either direction. So the better product is going to win. But I don't think folks SOUTH of Santa Clara are going up to Concord to play Bingo. They could go to Salinas though, or elsewhere, etc...

AND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BD is burden with having to pay for occupancy rental expense. I'll let other folks poke around BD's balance sheet, but they are sitting an F-ton of money. FY year end 2021 BD's CASH HOLDINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is $5,901,113 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942216542/202213049349301901/full I have an idea what they did, and good for them. I think a lot has to do with using Gov Covid support smartly. Revenue jumped TWO MILLION DOLLARS FROM PRE-COVID numbers.

It would seem the BETTER tactic is to take a CURRENTLY OPERATING non profit and Bingo Business and feign economic difficulties

As of now if one looks at the CA DOJ registry database SCV has two pending registration submissions that would take them through FY 2022. We know me of course so I think it's all a stall tactic, and based on previous history going back to 2020 there is nothing to indicate these submissions will be complete and correct. The 2021 submission was rejected for wrong form and wrong fee. The 2022 submission is pending. BOTH will need accompanying audits to actually remove the delinquency. Since when the 2021 submission incorrectly posted audited statements in error (they were duplicate of FY19) and pulled the next day, and subsequently didn't quickly follow up with a correction I am suspect that an FY21 audit is not available (let alone 2022). ************** I suspect they simply submitted the registration form without accompanying financials. Yes, the FY21 990's are now posted even while FY21 is still pending, but I do not see the FY2022 990s. These actions allow the continued narrative from SCV leadership that "we are working with State Regulators.................." but I think they are merely stalling. Right???????????? Their registration expired in March 2020, the CA DOJ notified them as of NOV-2020, and not once was it acknowledged until April-2023 when I plastered it all over the internet. The Lawyer that SCV sent after me implying legal action turned out to be a board member at the time SCV started their Delinquency. Then November-2023 the State Tax Board is brought into the equation through the DOJ, which is after when the CEO has said things are in motion with regulatory filings. ****************** Presuming the recent filings appease the delinquencies and make SCV current they do not fix the Bingo violations, nor the $1,000,000 of donations that were solicited while delinquent.

Funny you say that. SCV sort of did the same thing with drumming up support for members going to other corps in 2023. If one wanted to support a kid at a different corps it was easy to get that information via the alumni association via SCV history of members. It was creepy as hell, all these SCV senior citizens going around supporting "SCV alumni" that went to other corps (my take is, welp, that's their home now, not SCV) trying to keep the "SCV family" going. Good Lord....

If we ever get to see a FY2023 IRS 990 it will be a beautiful thing. 100% of the expenses are operating overhead. We get to see without any comingled expenses in individual line items that are potentially from the corps. 100% of it is just people working on staff and facility operations. Oh, and guess it will be MUCH easier to estimate how much goes into Bingo Payroll as well. Additionally............. the Bingo Manager salary by itself is disclosed on the 990 as a regulatory requirement. So that means if on the 990 that all other income sources outside of bingo are not greater than his salary then 100% they are paying bingo salaries with Bingo revenue. I highly doubt they are making $100K+ of revenue without the corps and no tours from "other revenue" because remember, they can't solicit for donations. They didn't even net $100K from souvenirs (NET) when they were touring. FY2023 990 will be a beautiful thing.

They are around because of Bingo. Sooooooo much Bingo they can squander millions of dollars a year and still put on corps (well, they use to be able to do that). In 1992 I marched in Vanguard with the son of the "volunteer" that ended up going to jail over stealing from bingo that I uncovered in 2005/6. That's how long this stuff has been going on. They were members when Vanguard started. The husband of the thief that went to jail was on the payroll as well as the facilities manager. The General Manager of the time that was their friend did not disclose the multi million dollar fraud in the annual registration to the state via form RFF-1 that explicitly asks if there had been any illegal conduct or misappropriation of funds. He too was a member of Vanguard when it was started. When the General Manager of SCV during the bingo fraud was eventually let go he found himself at the Sacramento Freelancers until they invariably were finished off. Vanguard continues to exist despite it's operational transgressions because Bingo brings is soooooooooo much money................... I think their biggest challenge now is that with an entire year of actually not spending any Bingo money on any corps it's a hard discipline to actually now spend all that money on something other than their personal enrichment. This is why Vanguard Cadets is NEVER COMING BACK. That's just too much money to stop spending on themselves and put on the field.