This an analysis of the body of the Sutter-Yuba Republican Assembly minutes for June 8, 2015.
Priory to looking at these minutes a brief summary of the timeline for the period will be helpful for readers.
January 24, 2015
• CRA Board meeting where Aaron Park remarks than Placer has more money that Statewide CRA.
March 13—15, 2015
• CRA Annual Convention—run by George and Aaron Park in the name of Placer RA
March 25, 2015
• George Park closes CRA Business Roundtable account and gives balance to himself.
April 15, 2015
• CRA Board members call for May 30, 2015 business meeting.
April 17, 2015
• Aaron Park goes nuclear with campaign to block lawfully called meeting.
April 18, 2015
• Impact Republicans dot com is registered.
April 30, 2015
• George Park kills CRA’s Hightail and Mailchimp accounts. This results in deliberate purge of all statewide CRA files “in the cloud.”
May 13, 2015
George and Aaron get a front row seat to see Jeb Bush in Reno. This event and their photo are seen nationwide.
May 18, 2015
• March Convention Financial Summary given to CRA with zero receipts.
May 20, 2015
• Placer County Republican Assembly general fund was liquidated.
A portion of money allegedly went to refunding dues members. No record of disbursal of this money has ever been given to Placer RA or statewide CRA. It was purposely done as an untraceable transaction. Per membership records subsequently turned over by George Park (after May 30), Placer RA had four members in the club. Previously Aaron Park has repeatedly stated Placer RA membership was 105 souls. No proof exists that this was ever the case.
The balance of money was then allegedly divided amongst three charities.
Per current leadership of Placer RA, the account did have as much as $24,000 in it during calendar 2015. No receipts exist as to what happened to this money. On a side note, Aaron Park—at the January CRA Board meeting—was claiming that the Placer balance was greater than what statewide CRA had in their bank account. The statewide number at the time was over $25K. Aaron was indicating they had about $27K.
• CRA Convention checking account was closed. Again, no receipts were even submitted to account for the money. The convention hotel was able to provide receipts for items that they billed; however, about $5K claimed as expenses is still undocumented. In addition, large amounts of cash are unaccounted for. I know of at least $1,000 in cash from just two sources.
• Placer County RA Political Action Committee was unilaterally closed by George Park. $5,000 was disbursed to liquidate the funds.
May 21, 2015
• CIR Bylaws near final draft.
May 30, 2015
• Sham vote held to close Placer RA checking account and give money to charity. This was already done ten days prior to this vote.
• Later this same day, Parks booted from CRA
June 8, 2015
• George and Aaron Park are keynote speakers at Sutter-Yuba Republican Assembly meeting.
And now for the SYRA minutes.
Here is the first paragraph.
Guest speakers George Park, former CRA Membership Secretary, and Aaron Park, former CRA Vice President, reported the CRA board voted life-time expulsions for them at the May 30, 2015, CRA Board meeting in Santa Barbara. George discovered and reported multiple fraudulent memberships and delegates to the CRA Board. Aaron reported the discoveries, cover-ups, and fallout on his blog, which he keeps updated … Through fraud and violations of CRA and chapters’ Bylaws, CRA elections have been manipulated. At the behest of fraudsters on the Board, rather than address and fix the well-documented corruption, the CRA Board chose to expel for life George and Aaron, the whistleblowers. As a result, several CRA members have resigned, including SYRA’s two Senate District Representatives. CRA has failed to notify SYRA of anything.
Just to review for the Sutter folks:
If George found fraud then he had the Credentials and Charter Review Committees to investigate it. It is my recollection that he sat on both committees. If he didn’t get satisfaction, he could have gone to full convention. George reported nothing to anyone. Not until CIR was beginning to take shape did George and Aaron start the campaign about fraud in CRA. Please see timeline above. Aaron cried fraud on his blog April 17th and the next day CIR had a registered website. So how hard did they fight for integrity in CRA?
George is the author of the chaos that he used to claim was fraud. (FYI the new mantra shifted in July claiming that this was all Tom Hudson’s fault because he was trying to kiss-up to Tom McClintock.) Anyway, back when they were claiming this was about fraud, the only documented person with a record of membership fraud was George.
George was directly accepting membership dues without membership forms for the Sacramento Republican Assembly. Of the twenty plus members added to the club by paying directly to George, only two ever went to an SRA meeting. One attended his first meeting several months after his dues were paid. Also, none of these mysterious members ever renewed their dues.
If 20 people joined your unit without ever attending a single meeting and the dues never went to your treasurer and you received no membership application would you think this was proper?
In addition, to playing fast and loose with memberships, George kept sloppy records. Georges talks a good game and makes people think he works with attention to detail but the reality is much different. Based on the work product that he had at the first of the year (prior to the current controversy), his record keeping was like the general contractor that has his office under the seat of his pickup truck. His lists weren’t just wrong, they were really wrong. He had an error rate between about 30 to 40 percent on several lists that I am aware of. He ignored input from chapters about their lists and literally kept his own.
Lastly, he lost whole units. If he didn’t like you, he would just quit communicating and say the chapter was no longer meeting. If he thought you were ripe for induction into CIR then he dropped you from all records so he was the only conduit to CRA. Think Stockholm Syndrome and you will be close to the mark. Sutter-Yuba RA has always been viewed as a take-over target by the Park boys. They chartered it so it’s their club not CRA’s.
Paragraph two has partially been discussed in a previous post.
George provided information about the California Impact Republicans, an alternative to the CRA that he and Aaron founded. CIR has support of several legislators and Jim Brulte, the Chairman of the CA GOP, who has offered to donate $10,000 to ClR. Ten members minimum. Membership dues – $10 for two years. SYRA members agreeing to join CIR will be transferred at no cost until membership dues are payable October 1, 2017. Each chapter can select its own name. (Larry and Carla prefer Sutter-Yuba Conservative Republicans.) Each member attending a CIR convention will have one vote—no appointed delegates or proxy voting.
It’s what George leaves out of his full-throttled push for CIR that should give the folks at Sutter-Yuba pause. Perhaps they should at least read the CIR Bylaws and see if they resemble the draft language that I previously posted.
Per their May 21st draft, you must be a CIR member for one year before you can serve as County Commissioner or Senate District Director. The requirement jumps to two years to run for VP and three to be “el presidente.” I don’t know of any other group with such a requirement. If they do go for chartering at the CRP Convention, I don’t know if this provision will survive.
The third and final paragraph was also interesting.
After a question and answer period, a discussion was held regarding whether to quit CRA or stay and whether to join CIR. Results of a secret ballot advisory vote:
0- No change – remain with CRA
0- Remain with CRA and join new organization
7 – Join new organization and phase out of CRA
2 – Other – Troubled by fragmentation of organization – same as Republicans
Per the minutes, 12 members were present for the Just Us Brothers presentation. However, only nine voted. Curious.
Two and a half months have transpired since this “advisory ballot” but Sutter-Yuba is still meeting as a CRA chapter. If they go to “the dark side” I won’t be surprised.
The fact that George and Aaron had to work so long to convince them to jump ship has to be a hindrance to their announced timetable. Won’t they be surprised when they learn that there will still be a Sutter-Yuba CRA chapter no matter what ends-up happening?