Santa Clara Vanguard 2024

[2muchcoffeeman]

6 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

bingo funding the corps funding the bingo is how it works. We are assured by  VMAPA lawyers that this wasn't happening

This is not computing. If that's how it works -- if that's how it has to work, under the law -- why would the lawyers say it wasn't happening?

Edited September 16, 2023 by 2muchcoffeeman

[2muchcoffeeman]

3 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

5.48.220 Receipt of profit by a person a misdemeanor under State law. It is a misdemeanor under Section 326.5(b) of the Penal Code of the State for any person to receive a profit, wage, or salary from any bingo game authorized under this chapter, a violation of which is punishable by a fine not to exceed $10,000, which fine shall be deposited in the general fund of the City. [Ord. 1001 § 12, 1995. Code 1987 § 5. 29.220].

Thank you. You've done more work than the article did.

But this is weird. This section of law essentially stipulates that all bingo work must be volunteer work. Nobody is allowed to get paid.

Okay, I can understand the rationale. The bingo exists to support a charity. All the money should go to the charity.

All well and good. Except the world doesn't work that way. There are millions of people who work for nonprofits and get their paychecks from the nonprofits for which they work. It is utterly ordinary for a charity to spend X% of its donation revenue on administrative overhead (which includes the act of soliciting donations) and to spend the rest on the charity's beneficiaries. What this attempt at a news account fails to do is explain why California has, apparently, exempted bingo from this.

I mean, imagine a charity for puppies. Imagine a bingo operation that raises the money for the puppies. The puppies can't pay "membership dues;" they can't "pay" anything at all, including the salaries of the bingo workers. The only way the bingo generates money for the puppies, then, is if all the bingo workers are doing it voluntarily. 

And maybe that's California's point; maybe the point is to prevent the Bingofication of California by requiring the games be volunteer-run enterprises.

Edited September 15, 2023 by 2muchcoffeeman

[scheherazadesghost]

15 minutes ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

This is not computing. It that's how it works -- if that's how it has to work, under the law -- why would the lawyers say it wasn't happening?

Perhaps I seem like more of an authority than I am. I'm not a lawyer, let alone a VMAPA lawyer, and I'm only relaying the law as I've read it.

AFAIK, that's the only way bingo works to fund a nonprofit in CA, and it's how BD does it as well. But I would defer to those more in the know than me.

[greg_orangecounty]

This article is a cut & paste of what Mr. Lesher has been saying here the past few months.  When and IF SCV catches up on their delinquent filings, it would be nice to see a follow-up article about it. 

But that would never happen.  

[2muchcoffeeman]

So I guess the logic works this way:

Corps members pay annual tuition.

But bingo generates much more money than tuition.

If you're SCV, would you rather operate on the tuition money, or the larger pool of money that bingo creates?

The answer to that question is: The bingo money.

So you pay your bingo workers with the tuition money, thereby making the bingo operation legal, and making it possible for the corps to collect the bingo revenue.

I'm not a lawyer, either, but it sure seems to me that an argument can be made that bingo workers paid by the people for whom they are raising money are, in effect, being paid by the bingo operation. It's an end-run around the regulations.

Call me naive, but I'm skeptical that VMAPA (to say nothing of BD) would game the system so brazenly. Some wise person once said that more bad things in this world are explained by incompetence than by intention. You'll need to convince me that VMAPA has intentionally flouted the law for 50 years and only now has been discovered. And if this is explained by incompetence, someone still needs to explain to me how this supposed incompetence has gone undetected for 50 years, and how identical incompetence apparently is routine at other nonprofits that work their bingo operations the same way.

No, I'm still looking at the news report and finding it lacking needed context and explanation. My critique here is not with SCV; it's with the report published by The Silicon Valley Voice.

Edited September 16, 2023 by 2muchcoffeeman

[Sutasaurus]

8 minutes ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

So I guess the logic works this way:

Corps members pay annual tuition.

But bingo generates much more money than tuition.

If you're SCV, would you rather operate on the tuition money, or the larger pool of money that bingo creates?

The answer to that question is: The bingo money.

So you pay your bingo workers with the tuition money, thereby making the bingo operation legal, and making it possible for the corps to collect the bingo revenue.

I'm not a lawyer, either, but it sure seems to me that an argument can be made that bingo workers paid by the people for whom they are raising money are, in effect, being paid by the bingo operation.

This still leaves me looking at the news report and finding it lacking needed context and explanation. My critique here is not with SCV; it's with the report published by The Silicon Valley Voice.

Sounds like the bingo operation turned into a shell game……

[2muchcoffeeman]

2 hours ago, Sutasaurus said:

Sounds like the bingo operation turned into a shell game……

Well, we don't know that. We're all a bunch of drum corps nuts trying to understand exactly what an arcane bit of California statute actually says.

I should never rule anything out, I suppose, but given the information we have, it seems one of 3 scenarios is possible:

1. SCV, alone among California nonprofits, has been running a shell game with a tuition-to-bingo-to-SCV scheme for decades;

2. BD and other drum corps and other charities all do likewise, collectively evading detection by state regulators for many years;

3. The law actually allows for the way SCV (and others) do it, and that The Silicon Valley Voice does not have all the facts straight, hasn't explored the state law to the extent of its provisions and exceptions, and isn't asking enough questions to explain why the circular relationship between charities and their bingo operations is both legal and, in SCV's case, necessary.

Based on what I know now, my money is on No. 3

Edited September 15, 2023 by 2muchcoffeeman

[cixelsyd]

But if you insert the word "maybe" in the defamatory sentence, that makes it okay.  "If true" is a similar tool for the modern journalist.

[HockeyDad]

Tons of speculation, shooting messengers, irritation, showing up here. Most likely because there’s so little information. But these are some facts -

SCVC corps was shutdown   
SCV corps was shutdown after 50+ years, which included multiple DCI and VFW championships, including being the only corps to make the top 12 in every DCI championship up to the point. 
The non-profit is delinquent per the state of California and cannot legally solicit donations. 

All are bad signs for the future of the organization. All are shameful for the current leadership. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by HockeyDad

[BlueStainGlass]

1 hour ago, HockeyDad said:

Tons of speculation, shooting messengers, irritation, showing up here. Most likely because there’s so little information. But these are some facts -

SCVC corps was shutdown   
SCV corps was shutdown after 50+ years, which included multiple DCI and VFW championships, including being the only corps to make the top 12 in every DCI championship up to the point. 
The non-profit is delinquent per the state of California and cannot legally solicit donations. 

All are bad signs for the future of the organization. All are shameful for the current leadership. 

Past leadership. Current people didn't do this but they are the ones cleaning up.