The Stonewall Review is reporting that the National Stonewall Democrats corporate status was revoked by the District of Columbia for not turning in required reports. This has apparently placed their tax-exempt status in jeopardy. NSD is the country's only grassroots Democratic lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organization. They are supposed to be our voice to the Democratic Party at the national and state levels.
According to sources in the District of Columbia Business and Professional Licensing Administration, NSD failed to file a required two-year report that was due by January 2004. The Licensing Administration sent communications requesting the missing information, and it finally revoked NSD's corporate status in September 2004 after months of receiving no response. NSD subsequently failed to file the next two-year report in January 2006.
NSD's board of directors is responsible for the conduct and oversight of the organization's operations. The board's Co-Chairs at the time of the January delinquency were Julian Potter and Rick Trombly. Trombly resigned several weeks later after admitting substantial temperament and performance shortcomings unrelated to NSD's corporate status. Trombly admitted to being "strident" in dealing with board members as well as to failing to get anyone in authority in the Kerry presidential campaign to return his phone calls in his capacity as NSD Co-Chair. Trombly was replaced by Stephen Driscoll of Massachusetts, who, along with Potter, was Co-Chair at the time of the September revocation. Potter in turn resigned several weeks after the revocation following criticism for her chronic failure to protect staff from micromanagement by a handful of board members and to prevent a staff revolving door. Potter resigned the same night that then-Executive Director Dave Noble stepped down after only two years on the job; NSD had four Executive Directors during the four years that Potter was on the board.
The District of Columbia allows any of several corporate officers to sign the two-year report, but NSD has specified that the two officers primarily responsible for overseeing such matters are the Secretary and the Treasurer. NSD's bylaws specify that the board's Secretary is responsible for "all of the papers of NSD", and various papers filed with government agencies identify the Treasurer as the "custodian of records". The Secretary on both the submission deadline in January and the date of corporate revocation in September was Steve Brown of Kansas; the Treasurer on both dates was and still is Jeff Tooke of New York.
Brown was later removed from the NSD board of directors by voters in his region in the organization's April 2005 board elections after a concerted campaign by NSD insiders to recruit qualified challengers to run against him. Brown had long been subjected to criticism for various aspects of his performance as a board member, but he nevertheless had been re-elected in successive bids because NSD board races are largely uncompetitive....."
There's more at the original site at