Tonight, the East Village Association is hosting its regular meeting at Bliss 525. The meeting, which starts at 7 PM, will feature a number of guest speakers, but many community stakeholders are planning to show up to protest the recently published organizational by-laws.

The EVA is now accepting nominations for its board, through February 28th. Past and current board and community members have been asking to see the bylaws for more than a year. Just a few days ago, board president Michael Mosselli posted what he claims are the bylaws that were approved by a previous board in 2011. The bylaws posted, however, are full of contradictions and inaccuracies, and outraged community members are convinced that they are not authentic.

Challenges raised by these bylaws include who qualifies as an organizational stakeholder, who can vote, and who can serve on the board. In an interview with Mosselli back in mid December, I asked him to clarify the EVA’s definition of the word.

“[A stakeholder is] somebody that lived here,” Mosselli said. “Somebody that has a business here. Somebody that’s here every day, doing business. Somebody that cares about this particular area. Somebody that has a stake in it.

“I am a stakeholder. All my businesses that I deal with are here. I lived right here across the street at the Mason Linden, but I moved out of the area two and a half years ago. I don’t live here now. My business is located in Alamitos Beach, which is 10th Place and Ocean.”

Regardless of whether you use the City’s map, or the EVA’s own description of its service area, Alamitos Beach is not part of the East Village. Since Mosselli neither lives, nor owns a business in, the EVAs district boundaries, I asked him if he was a stakeholder.

“I’m not a stakeholder. I’m a stakeholder because I’m here every day. I’m here at seven o’clock every morning cleaning the alleyway, which is our beautification project. I don’t have to clean that alley if I don’t want to. We did it for the community. I do it because I care.”

East Village Association Bylaws 2013

I was still a bit unclear about how the EVA defined a stakeholder, and what the requirements were to serve on the board.

“Our board elections are open. Anybody can go and they can be voted in for the position. You don’t have to be [a stakeholder]. This is what we went for last year, because we felt like people who live here would be more inclined to care about their community. So, that was the goal.”

Here’s where it gets a bit dicey. When pressed, Mosselli seemed to say that, for the positions of board president and vice-president, there were more stringent requirements, yet he himself fails to meet them.

Lisa Hernandez, founder of the Long Beach Depot for Creative Reuse, served on the EVA board as vice-president. Hernandez has served on many boards over the years, and has vast experience in creating and maintaining organizational structures.

“Since 2008, my understanding has been that the EVA served both businesses and residents, therefore the board members must either be residents [similar to Councilmembers] or have a business located within the East Village Arts District. These are the stakeholders. Perhaps Michael couldn’t articulate who the EVA serves and who can participate because there are no by-laws that contain the basic rules and procedures on how the EVA will operate and be governed. Without any governing document or accountability, it makes it easy for Michael, who is neither a resident nor a stakeholder, to make up his own rules.”

Hernandez and other past and current board members have repeatedly requested copies of the bylaws from Mosselli. During our conversation, I asked Mosselli about the existance of bylaws for the EVA. He assured me that they existed, and that he’d provide me with a copy within two weeks of our conversation. Since then, nine weeks have past.

He also said that they were drafted two years ago, and had not been changed since then. Just this week, a PDF of bylaws appeared on the EVA website, with the claim that they were approved by the board back in 2011, but Vincent Sanchez, who works for Appleby Realty and currently serves as board secretary for the EVA, expressed incredulity about the legitimacy of the posted bylaws.

“I’ve asked Michael to provide me with proof that the document he posted is, in fact, the same document that he claims was approved by the board in 2011,” Sanchez said. So far, no proof has been forthcoming.

The posted bylaws are full of confusing contradictions which seem to match some of Mosselli’s statements to me during our conversation, while others do not. For example, even though the East Village, as defined by the EVA website, includes both the 1st and 2nd Council districts, Mosselli insisted that board candidates “have to be in the Second District. They have to be a neighborhood resident. They can’t be somebody from outside the city or something like that. Or at least they had to have had a business here or work here and have some kind of stake in the neighborhood.”

In the posted bylaws, it states that “membership shall be open to all interested residents and business owners within EVA boundaries, including renters, homeowners and businesses in the surrounding areas of downtown and corresponding neighborhoods of the 2nd and 1st District of Long Beach.” Yet, just a bit further down, in the requirements for board members, it states, “a minimum of half (50 percent) must be homeowners who also reside at least half the year (cumulatively six (6) months within the boundaries of the 2nd District.” If he were to run for board president again, this may favor Mosselli, in that he neither works nor lives within the Arts District boundaries.

Hernandez had a number of concerns, all of which could have been addressed by the bylaws. Her first request to see them began when she was elected to the board back on February 15, 2012.

“I asked Michael for a copy of the EVA bylaws,” Hernandez explained, “because I had questions about why we didn’t elect a Treasurer, and whether or not Phil Appleby held a perpetual position, since he was not actually at the meeting but ‘voted in’ automatically as an Honorary Member. He stated that he would get them to us by the next meeting, which he never did, even after repeated requests.”

Eventually, Hernandez resigned from the board.

“The more I questioned him about anything, the more he started excluding me from emails, etc.  The last straw for me was when he openly disrespected and blasted me during a board meeting.”

The boundaries of the EVA are another source of confusion. According to Mosselli, the City’s definition of the Arts District, spelled out in PD-30, is the gold standard. Still, he had no explanation why the EVA’s area extended two blocks north, to 10th Street, further confusing who is an EVA stakeholder. The EVA’s website claims that the Museum of Latin American Art is part of the EVA, but neither PD-30 or the EVA’s own description of its borders includes it.

All these, and many other issues, will most likely be raised at tonight’s meeting.

Bliss 525 is located at 525 Broadway. Learn more about the East Village Association at EastVillageLongBeach.com.

Listen to the entire, unedited, conversation with Michael Mosselli below:

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