Board president alleges mismanagement as tensions with county staff rise

A long-simmering dispute over the management of the Grantsville Senior Citizens Center threatens to polarize the town’s senior community.

The dispute centers on allegations first made in 2004 by Jerry Edwards, president of the five-member Grantsville Senior Board, which raises funds and organizes activities at the center. Edwards contends officials with the Tooele County Division of Aging and Adult Services have done a poor job handling donations given to the center and routinely don’t follow county policies and procedures regarding the role of the center’s board.

The relationship between Edwards, county director of Aging and Adult Services Butch Dymock, and Grantsville senior center director Diane Caldwell has become so strained that Edwards said, “You can cut the tension with a knife.”

County attorney Doug Hogan seconded that opinion: “That relationship has become — probably the best words to describe it are — not productive.”

Edwards’ chief complaint is that donations that come into the center aren’t accounted for properly.

“I have been asking, and our board has been asking, for years for accountability of that money,” he said. “We never have had it accounted for.”

Edwards said county policies state donations are to be counted by at least two people and deposited in a bank afterward.

“I would like to know who has been counting the donations, which two people, in both the center and the county accounts,” he said. “And I would like to see an accounting of that money. I would like to see where it comes from and where it goes to. We go out and solicit money for stuff they need, and all we’re asking is they tell us how much money they got and what they’re spending it on. I don’t see why that’s such a problem for them, why they’re so secretive.”

He said the center board accounts for every donation that goes into its account, and just wishes the center and county would do the same.

Another concern Edwards has is the lack of cooperation between paid center staff and the all-volunteer center board. He said the board should have input on what activities are staged at the center, but too often doesn’t. For example, Edwards says center staff cut seniors’ time working on ceramics, despite protests from seniors themselves.

“There’s a lot of stuff that they flat out don’t give us a say in,” he said. “They just decide what we’re going to do and sometimes it isn’t what the people really want to do. The aging and center directors have told us this is their center and we are only an advisory board, and they don’t need to take any of our suggestions or advice, contrary to what was quoted in their policies and procedures book.”

Both Dymock and Caldwell declined to comment on Edwards’ allegations. Dymock referred questions to the county attorney, and Caldwell said she’d been instructed not to speak on the matter. Hogan explained that not all of the county’s employees are authorized to speak with media.

Commenting generally on the allegations, Hogan said, “A lot of the issues with Mr. Edwards seem to be with maybe some confusion as to what the senior board’s role is via the center.”

However, he added, the senior board does have a valuable role, which is to supplement where the county and state fall short in funding programs and services at the center.

“The purpose of the senior board is to try to do things beyond the ability of what’s been budgeted by the county and by the state,” Hogan said. “ And I think if the senior board is focused on achieving that goal and doing things seniors would like to do, that the county and state can’t do, no problem, the county appreciates all that they do to that end. Where it becomes difficult, and where I think we’re at with Mr. Edwards, is where those lines blur and there’s a perception that he’s running the center. I think clearly there are many in that group [the board] who know what their role is, but I question whether Mr. Edwards knows the role.”

As for the allegations of financial mismanagement, Hogan said, “His [Jerry Edwards] complaints seem to be with donations that were supposed to be directed to the senior board, rather than the Grantsville Senior Center itself, but I’m aware of no such donation that has been misdirected.”

Hogan believes Edwards’ concerns have been investigated and checked out.

Meanwhile, tensions between Edwards and the board continue to mount.

In June, Dymock sent a letter to the Grantsville Senior Center Board asking that someone besides Edwards, who has served as president alternating with another member since 2004 and was elected by the membership of the center — which numbers more than 200 members — represent the board when visiting with himself or Caldwell.

The letter states: “It is my hope that by sending another individual we can get past the problems that have surfaced over the past year and refocus our time and efforts on providing the best possible services to the senior citizens in Grantsville.”

Edwards said it’s not him causing the problems, but Dymock and Caldwell.

“It is not me that is creating the ongoing problem, it is those two — by not following the policies and procedures and the code of conduct,” he said. “I wish we could get some of this stuff settled, but they just flat-out refuse to talk to us.”

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com