PUEBLO's $500,000 personal piggybank

from S.F. CHRONICLE

Watching the police's watchdogs

by Chip Johnson, Friday, August 13, 2004

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Oakland's longtime police watchdog group needs a watchdog itself.

The group, People United for a Better Oakland, can't account for nearly half a million dollars, and its ousted director says the group's operations budget was a piggy bank for staff and even members of its board of directors.

An independent auditor reported last week that nearly $465,000 in receipts can't be accounted for between March 2002 and March 2004, when executive director Dawn Phillips ran the group, which is known as PUEBLO.

Phillips, who is at the center of a police investigation of the group, has denied any wrongdoing. Responding this week to the auditor's report, Phillips described an atmosphere at PUEBLO in which personal loans were routinely handed out -- without board approval.

Whether the group's problems are a result of poor bookkeeping, administrative failure or theft, it's pretty clear that this is no way to run a business. Not even a nonprofit business.

(read full article at SFGate)