Old board members are refusing new officers from pertinent information

[Dale Beers]

Hello all. Thank you for the opportunity to post.

I am a member of a non profit corporation( a campground). I was a past member, and resigned after I found out that the board had been collecting @$30K yearly in dues while they had let they're business license/charter expire by not filing. 4 of the last 5 years, they collected dues after they had received notification from  the Secretary of State(Missouri). After I resigned, and threatened to go to the county prosecutor about fraud charges, the old board got the license/charter back in order for the fiscal year 2018.

Many of the members asked me to run again, and I have a couple of like minded friends that have the best interest of the other owners in mind , that ran with me and all 3 of us were elected by the majority of members and asked to get the board back into good standing and satisfy the members need and desires.

After the members meeting where I and two other friends/members were elected, we had a board meeting and I was voted in as president,and one of my friends voted in as secretary.

It has been 7+ weeks and we have yet to receive the pertinent information needed to perform our tasks. Also, the checking account, has not been updated with the bank because old members are trying to prevent us new members from gaining access to the financial records/transactions which I suspect are less than above board. At this point we are unable to conduct business with regards to paying bills. I and another board member are paying the recurring bills out of our own pockets until this can be resolved.There have been arguments and excuses from the old members in a concerted effort to prevent the new members from getting any pertinent information and keeping a shadow over the bank account.

The board is a 9 member board.I have 4 of the 5 votes needed. My thoughts are to try to remove the bad members with a clause in our bylaws that permits other board members vote them out for unethical/illegal actions/wrong doing. If I can obtain the other board member vote, I would like to move forward removing them. If not, I would like to write up a motion and get the needed amount of proxy votes from all owner/members to get them removed and then appoint members with the corporations best interest in mind. I believe that I have the majority of them needed.
I am sure that if I can get the old board members removed, all of the records/owners information/past minutes,etc will not be relinquished to the rest of the board.

Is there any way to force the old board members to turn over this info? Any ideas as to how to make the old members either work with us or any suggestions on other  ways to remove them?

 

[Chris Harrison]

I would suggest contacting the governmental agency which grants the organization their non-profit status.  They may be able to give you some guidance for getting access to the information you need to perform your duties whether it is them putting pressure on these Board members to cough up the records or supplying some sort of documentation you can give to the Bank to get these malcontents off the accounts and someone else on them.

Stay tuned for other ideas.

[Dale Beers]

27 minutes ago, Chris Harrison said:

I would suggest contacting the governmental agency which grants the organization their non-profit status.  They may be able to give you some guidance for getting access to the information you need to perform your duties whether it is them putting pressure on these Board members to cough up the records or supplying some sort of documentation you can give to the Bank to get these malcontents off the accounts and someone else on them.

Stay tuned for other ideas.

Thank you for your input. I will contact the Missouri Secretary of State and see if they can be of assistance.