The Montrose Shopping Park board doors should stay wide open

For an organization that just emerged from an alleged fraud and embezzlement fiasco, it’s baffling that the Montrose Shopping Park Assn. would consider dimming the current level of transparency.

This week, the association’s board of directors brought up the possibility of starting closed session meetings to discuss issues that, well, might make some a little uncomfortable. Like, say, a wildly popular farmers market inexplicably hemorrhaging money for years?

In the time since former city councilman and Montrose figurehead John Drayman was indicted by a grand jury for allegedly embezzling at least $304,000 over the course of about seven years from the weekly farmers market in Montrose — the proceeds of which benefit the shopping park association — revenues has soared, and there’s been significant turnover on the board.

Couple that with the fact that the shopping park association has submitted a $525,917 budget — passing the half-million-dollar mark for the first time.

As an organization grows and expands, clamping down on public access because leaders might feel uncomfortable carrying out those duties is the wrong way to go. We’ve all seen what allegedly happens when we’re all asked to just take someone’s word for it.

If the Montrose Shopping Park Assn. strives to be the voice of businesses in the district, it is also, in a very real way, striving to represent the interests of the neighborhood and its residents, who deserve to know what decisions are being made and why. Introducing closed door sessions is unnecessary and appears a bit insolent given the fraud allegations that surfaced only two years ago.