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Eastside Boys Club Director, Board Step Down So Facility Can Reopen

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Times Staff Writer

The embattled director and the 15-member governing board of the Eastside Boys Club--a community service agency in East Los Angeles that abruptly closed July 17 amid charges of fiscal mismanagement--have agreed to resign from their posts, The Times has learned.

A field service representative for Boys’ Clubs of America, Michael Cohen, said the resignations of the director, Leo Hernandez, and the board, headed by Fred Hermosillo, were part of an agreement to reopen the club, which provided after-school activities for Latino youngsters.

The settlement calls for the payment of an estimated $70,000 in debts that the Eastside club has incurred and $30,000 to Hernandez in exchange for his resignation, Cohen said.

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United Way Support

Also, United Way officials have agreed to resume monthly support in the amount of $7,000, Cohen said.

United Way, which gave the Eastside club $85,000 a year, suspended its support in June after parents and volunteers complained about Hernandez’s management and the inadequacies of the program.

On July 17, Hernandez fired his staff and locked the doors of the club at 324 N. McDonnell Ave., leaving about 60 youngsters--some as young as 2 years old--on the doorstep.

Sheriff’s deputies broke into the building, seized about 800 membership records, took the children to the East Los Angeles sheriff’s substation and notified parents.

After interviewing Hernandez and others, detectives said they were satisfied that no criminal violations had occurred and that parents dropping their children off in the morning had failed to notice that the center was closed.

Since that time, Boys’ Club officials, who were critical of the Eastside club’s failure to raise additional funds, worked behind the scenes to reopen the facility. The building has been vandalized since it closed, officials said.

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Records Not Audited

Officials learned that the Eastside club’s financial records had not been audited in several years and that some members of the center’s board of directors were unaware of how its money was being spent.

Hermosillo said in a telephone interview that several board members learned of the center’s financial difficulties only after they joined the governing body last year.

“If we had known how dire things were,” he said, “we wouldn’t have jumped aboard.”

Hernandez was unavailable for comment.

Cohen said national Boys’ Club officials did not press for the resignations.

“It was their decision to step down,” he said. “We think their course of action is a wise one. Our only interest was seeing the center open again to serve the community.”

Several people familiar with the situation credited Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley with helping to come up with the funds to reopen the center.

One supporter of the mayor’s, who declined to publicly discuss the matter, has agreed to donate about $80,000 to help get the Eastside club back on its feet. That contribution and the resignations persuaded United Way officials to resume their support, people familiar with the situation said.

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