Liz Smith, executive Director of the Boys and Girls of the Redwood placed on administrative leave

Liz Smith, executive director of the Boys and Girls of the Redwoods, who received awards and under whose leadership the organization grew was just placed on administrative leave, just now.


Last year Ms. Smith was awarded the biennial Peacemaker Prize by the Eureka InterFaith Fellowship for her work with Humboldt County Youth for the past 20 years.





I briefly spoke with Ms. Smith right now who is in Ashland, Oregon with the organization's Mt. Shasta director and will do a follow up post with more from her and the board if they chose to make a comment.

The board is in retreat today and I have contacted them for an official comment; I already informally reached out before the post. Since Dale Warmuth is still on the website, hard to determine who is still a current board member.



Ms. Smith hinted at a build up since last December.

According to Ms. Smith, Dale Warmuth, a board member, turned in his letter of resignation and had it hand delivered by staff to Ms. Smith on January 2. Ms. Smith described it as "the nastiest letter of resignation."

"I called a colleague in Orange County to ask the name of the top BGCA executive staff and told him that I was going to publically expose the national organization's greed and misuse of resources. He called a BGCA person who has been blowing up my email. She then called someone on my board, saying she was concerned that I was going to commit suicide," Ms. Smith told me.

"An Oregon Sheriff showed up at my hotel door to determine if I was a 5150," said Ms. Smith. "One board member texted me to see if I would talk with her 'woman to woman.' Another board member texted me on behalf of the board to say that I am being placed on administrative leave, effective immediately."

"A very callous and cold message," added Ms. Smith. "And that I was to call the board president for details. I then received an email from the board president, again callous and cold, stating the same thing and he did not include my staff or certain members of my board."


This post that I did back on December 27, 2016 highlights Ms. Smith's achievements. It also called out Patrick Cleary.

http://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2016/12/liz-smith-expresses-disappointment-to.html