Director: controversy hurts WASI

WASILLA — Having endured several months of controversy, the head of Wasilla Area Seniors Incorporated said she’s holding up OK.

Sondra Kaplan said the debate around how the senior center is run seemed to turn personal very fast.

“It’s unfortunate they made it about me instead of about the services we provide,” she said. “We fill a huge need for the seniors in our environment.”

Kaplan’s critics claim she has misspent grant money, run the center like a dictator, wasn’t particularly friendly with the seniors she served, that her financials were far from transparent and that she assaulted and ejected journalists trying to cover a WASI board meeting.

“I’m just blown away by it,” she said. “This poor little nonprofit has been through the meat grinder.”

She said that, in her view, the controversy springs from disgruntled former employees and their supporters. Some of them want her to implement certain programs or let them do things at the senior center its budget won’t allow, she said.

“I would love nothing more than to put in new programs and things for seniors to do,” Kaplan said. But there’s just not enough money.

She has answers for all the allegations. First, there is the grant money. The allegation was she used money granted for a specific purpose to pay for things not covered under the grant.

“You can’t misspend grant funds,” Kaplan said.

She said doing so would be not just illegal, but also impossible using the accounting system she’s put in place. It didn’t happen and it won’t ever happen under her watch, Kaplan said. Financially, she said, WASI is in relatively good shape, but she thinks all the controversy has hurt donations. For instance, a drive to raise $50,000 recently brought in $5,000.

“The areas we’re in trouble with had to do with past management,” she said. “I don’t think that anybody in the past did anything wrong. I think they were doing the work to the best of their ability.”

She said she worked hard to put together a board of directors that could monitor a budget and read a balance sheet. Kaplan said a number of board members have resigned because of controversy at WASI. Kaplan said she believes she took a struggling organization — which lacked even basic things like fire sprinklers in the center — and turned it around.

As for the allegations she’s a dictator, Kaplan said that’s not true. She said she doesn’t make a lot of money working for a non-profit. She said she is there because she cares.

“The staff does not find it a harassing environment,” she said. “My team works with me. Those who don’t want to work with the team don’t stay long.”

And then there’s the allegation she’s not particularly nice to the seniors she serves. She said she’s a very busy person. Running WASI, she said, is like running nine different companies all providing different services. But when she finds the time she will interact with the seniors.

“Do I walk through the center? Absolutely. Do I hug the seniors that hug me? Absolutely,” she said. “I treat all of the seniors the same. I would go to the moon and back for every one of them.”

The allegation that she’s secretive with the finances, Kaplan said, is also baseless. Anyone who wants to look at the center’s books is welcome to. Board policy says they can’t have a copy, only examine them at the center.

And finally, the incident in which Frontiersman reporter K.T. McKee and editor Heather A. Resz, who was manning a camera at the time, were asked to leave. Resz has said in these pages that she was taking pictures at what she thought was a public board meeting.

Kaplan says there was more to it. She said seniors had told her they didn’t want their pictures taken and that she asked Resz to stop, but she didn’t. In fact, Kaplan claims, Resz challenged her at every step, insisting on continuing to photograph. That’s when she put up a folder to block Resz’s lens.

That the folder made contact with the camera, pushing it into Resz’s nose and bending her glasses is not disputed. Resz says Kaplan was at fault. Kaplan said Resz was partially to blame since she was moving forward at the time.

Based on a conversation with a Wasilla police officer who asked if she’d like to file assault charges, Resz calls the incident an assault, but declined to press charges. Kaplan said she does not consider her actions assault.

Whatever the case, Kaplan said she thinks she acted reasonably and that board meetings are not required to be open to the public.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.