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Why Build Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial Without Current Board

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  • Why Build Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial Without Current Board

    WHY BUILD PASADENA ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL WITHOUT CURRENT BOARD AND HOW

    Staff Reporter
    â~@¢ Wed, Nov 12, 2014

    The Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial Committee (PAGMC) led by
    interim chairman Bernard Melekian, former Chief of Police of Pasadena,
    recently published two press releases: "Statement on Internal Affairs"
    (October 23, 2014) and "Judge Rejoins Board of Pasadena Armenian
    Genocide Memorial Project" (November 4, 2014). They were in response
    to former chairman of PAGMC William Paparian's press releaseand my
    reports on the irregularities at the PAGMC's board. While its most
    recent press release is just an announcement about Retired Federal
    Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian rejoining the board, the earlier one,
    "Statement on Internal Affairs," is the board's official response to
    the accusations made in Paparian and my press releases.

    The board's "Statement on Internal Affairs" is far from reflecting
    what Melekian had described to me in an email as a 'thorough internal
    review.' As such, it is more of a primitive display of defense
    mechanism in the face of factual accusations, rather than a judicious
    point-by-point response to each of them. The first sentence of the
    statement is quite eloquent in that respect:

    The PAGMC is pleased to announce that the law firm of Geragos and
    Geragos has agreed to serve as legal counsel to the committee as
    we navigate our way to the construction and completion phase of the
    Memorial Project.

    The rest of the statement is an act of sweeping the issues raised in
    both Paparian and my press releases under the rug. It reads like a
    clever legal practitioner's attempt to cloud the issues and distract
    the focus from the real problems. The closest the board members have
    come to refuting Paparian's allegations in their statement is contained
    in the following profound postulate: "While the Board cannot control
    what the prior chairman says, his saying them does not make them true."

    With regard to the PAGMC's financial problems indicated in Paparian's
    press release and discussed in greater detail in "Crisis at Pasadena
    Armenian Genocide Memorial Committee Continues," the board members
    have contented themselves with writing a couple of sentences that
    contain neither facts nor figures. They claim the Community Foundation
    of the Verdugos (CFV) and the CPA have assured them that 'there are
    no financial irregularities with respect to funds that have been
    collected.' If, in fact, the board's claims are true, then it needs
    to be borne in mind that neither the Community Foundation of the
    Verdugos nor the CPA are independent disinterested parties. These
    assertions may have assured a handful of board members but definitely
    not the rest of the Armenian community that has been presented with
    no compelling documentation that backs their statements.

    Particularly, the CPA's assurances should be taken with a grain of
    salt, as they are not entirely devoid of favoritism. John Sadd, the
    CPA, was retained by the PAGMC on the recommendation of none other than
    the central figure in the financial scandal of the PAGMC, its Treasurer
    and Chief Financial Officer, David George Gevorkyan. The latter is a
    good friend of John Sadd's son, Louie Sadd. As the chair of the Audit
    Committee of the City of Glendale, Louie Sadd was instrumental in
    Gevorkyan's appointment to the Audit Committee of the City of Glendale.

    As a matter of fact, Scott Ochoa, City Manager of Glendale, announced,
    on November 4, 2014, that David Gevorkyan had resigned from his
    position in the city's Audit Committee for 'personal reasons' in
    late September. This was said in response to my inquiry about David
    Gevorkyan's current affiliation with the City of Glendale, in light
    of reports about inaccuracies in his application for said position. A
    mere coincidence or not, Gevorkyan's resignation occurred following
    a background investigation conducted by the City of Glendale, which
    revealed material misrepresentations in documents he had signed and
    submitted to the municipality in question.

    The PAGMC's board concludes its "Statement on Internal Affairs" with
    exactly what it started with - wielding the Law Offices of Geragos &
    Geragos, as if it were a sabre of some sort. Instead of doing its
    job of spreading fear, however, the current board's defense mechanism
    has only manifested its members' insecurity:

    We welcome the Law Offices of Geragos of Geragos & Geragos with open
    arms to the committee and are confident with the assistance of this
    nationally renowned law firm we can continue to promote issues near
    and dear to the Armenian community.

    The extra 'Geragos' may be a typo, but it is, certainly, a vivid
    example of Freudian slip. The board may add as many 'Geragoses' as
    they want, but the quantity, in this instance, is highly unlikely to
    translate to quality.

    In fact, bringing Mark Geragos, a high profile criminal defense
    attorney, to the PAGMC as legal counsel wasn't a very wise choice
    by Melekian and the board he chairs. Ironically, Geragos is in the
    middle of a developing scandal regarding unfair distribution of funds
    among insured Genocide victims' heirs. In astatement issued on May 26,
    2014, the AXA Settlement Fund Board, established in France, in August
    2007, to oversee the distribution of funds among the beneficiaries
    in question, accused Mark Geragos and his colleagues of a number of
    irregularities, based on abundant evidence. Below are two fragments
    from their detailed statement:

    Further to the insistence of the Board, Attorney Geragos sent to France
    a big account book, concerning the AXA case. The examination of this
    only file revealed several irregularities with regard to clauses
    mentioned in the agreement of November 2005 ("Settlement Agreement").

    [...] Although it does not come within its remit, the Board observes
    that the allocation of 3 million US DOLLARS to the non-profit
    organizations, as well as the balance amount after the payment of the
    compensations to individuals, was not following the clauses of the
    agreement dated November 2005, signed with AXA; this one stipulated
    that the aforementioned associations had to be the ones of the Armenian
    Community of France. Now, not only the Lawyers did not fully distribute
    the sum of 3 million US DOLLARS added to the balance amount, but they
    allocated an important part of this compensation to other countries
    than France.

    How can a person who has been implicated in mishandling the Genocide
    victims' funds be on a board that is meant to honor the same victims'
    memory?

    In another example of poor judgment, Bernard Melekian has tried to
    solve the board's problems with lights and glitter instead of facts
    and figures. The boardannounced on November 4, 2014 that Retired
    Federal Court Judge Dikran Tevrizian rejoined the board. The calculated
    effect is obvious. The addition of a renowned judge and a high-profile
    criminal defense attorney is expected to add legitimacy and convince
    the average member of the Armenian community that everything is fine
    with the board. "Otherwise a reputable federal judge would never get
    involved with it," Boghos or Bedros will think.

    What they probably don't know is that, unlike Mark Geragos, Judge
    Tevrizian is not only aware of the irregularities that have marred
    the board's past, but has made a personal contribution to them.

    As mentioned in "Crisis at Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial
    Committee Continues," Judge Tevrizian was the Master of Ceremonies for
    the Armenian Genocide Memorial Ground Blessing event that took place on
    April 27, 2014. The solemn ritual was tarnished by a violation of the
    IRS terms for 501(c)(3) organizations, when Judge Tevrizian introduced
    James Hellmold, Assistant Sheriff of Los Angeles County, as a candidate
    for the Los Angeles County Sheriff. Moreover, he invited Hellmold to
    the stage to give a speech. Judge Tevrizian thus violated the IRS
    requirement to provide 'an equal opportunity to participate to all
    political candidates seeking the same office.' Bob Olmstead, another
    candidate for the same position, Los Angeles County Sheriff, was also
    present at the ground blessing event. But neither Judge Tevrizian, nor
    any of the members of the PAGMC's board led by Paparian tried to remedy
    this clear-cut violation by providing Olmstead an equal opportunity.

    Melekian's bad choice of new members to the board is reminiscent of
    an earlier display of poor judgment, when he decided to cooperate
    with a Turkish organization, which, as it was later revealed, was
    lobbying against the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

    In 2008, Bernard Melekian and his wife became the first and so far the
    only Armenians to have benefited from all-expenses-paid trips offered
    by the Pacifica Institute. It is a non-profit organization established
    by a group of Turkish-Americans in California, in 2003. At that time,
    the retired Chief of Police of Pasadena was the incoming Director of
    the Community Oriented Policing Services Office in the Department of
    Justice. After the trip, Melekian was invited to the 6th annual Dialog
    and Friendship Dinner, organized in Los Angeles, CA, on November 12,
    2009, by the Pacifica Institute, where he reportedly said that he was
    'very touched by visiting his grandfather's birthplace in Turkey and
    the Institute is going at the right direction.'

    What is the 'direction' that Melekian readily deemed 'right'? In
    "Armenians Should Counteract Countless Congressional Trips to Turkey,"
    Harut Sassounian, publisher of the California Courier, writes that
    the Pacifica Institute is among 'Turkish-American organizations who
    have spent millions of dollars to take members of Congress and their
    staffs on all-expenses-paid trips to Turkey with the intent of buying
    their allegiance.' Sassounian was referring to investigative journalist
    Shane Goldmacher's findings published in The National Journal.

    According to LegiStorm.com, a website that closely monitors
    congressional travel and finances, 615 congressional visits were made
    to Turkey since 2000 at a cost of $3.5 million, as of January 14, 2014.

    The Pacifica Institute has readily acknowledged being affiliated
    with the Gulen Movement. Dubbed as a 'secretive movement,' the Gulen
    Movement is allegedly behind the 2013 corruption scandal in Turkey,
    which targeted the ruling Justice and Development Party, resulting in
    the arrest of hundreds of civil servants. After Turkish Prime Minister
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed revenge on Fethullah Gulen, the latter
    fled to the U.S. and now lives in a self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

    Despite the hostility between Gulen and Erdogan, however, there is
    at least one thing where their agendas seamlessly match, and that is
    the Armenian Genocide denial campaign.

    Faruk Taban, the president of the Turkic American Alliance, the
    umbrella group that encompasses a number of U.S.-based Gulenist
    organizations, was quoted by BuzzFeed as saying that the Gulen
    movement's involvement in U.S. politics began in 2007, 'when Turkish
    immigrants lobbied to squash an Armenian genocide recognition bill.'
    According to him, the major Gulen organizations 'play a role in
    helping people from local communities get involved in DC.'

    It is unclear how much of this was known to the incoming Director of
    the Community Oriented Policing Services Office in the Department of
    Justice, when he accepted the offer of an all-expenses-paid trip to
    Turkey. Though the lobbying scandal hit the news a few years later,
    there must have been clues for a seasoned high-ranking policeman that
    Bernard Melekian is.

    The PAGMC's recent statements have made it apparent that the current
    board is unwilling to address the issues mentioned in Paparian and my
    press releases. The battle of press releases is becoming a waste of
    precious time. Since Geragos is notorious for manipulating the law
    to circumvent justice, future attempts to amend the wrongdoings of
    the board may well be futile.

    There is a simple solution to ensure that the Pasadena Armenian
    Genocide Memorial doesn't get marred by the cancer of corruption and
    cover-up that has spread in the PAGMC's current board. The memorial
    should be built by a new committee. And actions should be taken as
    soon as possible to achieve that goal.

    In a conversation with Edna Karinski, CEO of the CFV, I discovered
    that many of the CFV's clients are not organizations, but rather
    groups of people who raise funds for specific projects intended to
    benefit the community. Instead of going through the trouble of setting
    up a non-profit organization, these groups use the non-profit status
    of the CFV to collect tax-deductible contributions and spend them in
    accordance with guidelines that regulate the relationship between them
    and the CFV. As strange as it may sound, most of the PAGMC's issues
    could have been avoided had it never had a non-profit status at all.

    Below is a list of steps to create a new committee:

    All donors will be contacted and offered the choice to participate in
    the formation of a new committee that will manage the construction
    of the memorial and future fundraising; All the members of the
    new committee must have no formal ties to any political parties
    and candidates and must not be representatives of any religious
    organization. This will help prevent the new committee from making the
    same mistakes as the current board; The new committee enters into an
    agreement with the CFV to pool donations for the construction of the
    Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial; All donors will be encouraged
    to request a refund for their donations made to the PAGMC/CFV and
    contribute them to the new committee's account managed by the CFV;
    The new committee petitions the City of Pasadena to transfer control
    over the memorial site to it and reissue all the permits related to
    the construction.

    The new committee enters into an agreement with the existing contractor
    and starts the construction of the memorial.

    If the construction professionals determine that the memorial
    won't be completed by April 24, 2015, then, upon the engineers'
    recommendations, some elements can be temporarily scaled-back to
    ensure timely completion of the project and finalized later; As the
    construction progresses, the new committee will continue fundraising
    and applying for grants.

    A memorial stands not only for honoring the memory of the victims of
    the Armenian Genocide, but also for upholding truth and justice.

    Building a memorial on the foundation of lies and cover-up dishonors
    our ancestors and makes our demands for justice from the Turkish
    government hypocritical. As the grandson of Shahan Natalie, who
    was responsible for the act of retribution against Talaat, Enver,
    and Djemal Pashas, the chief perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide,
    I feel morally obliged to do what my grandfather would have done in
    this situation.

    Ara K. Manoogian is a human rights activist; a Fellow of
    the Washington-based Policy Forum Armenia (PFA); creator of
    www.thetruthmustbetold.com; author of the white paper "To Donate Or
    Not to Donate", an in-depth study on the activities of the "Hayastan"
    All-Armenian Fund

    http://centerarnews.com/why-build-pasadena-armenian-genocide-memorial-without-current-board-and-how-p6941-1.htm

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