At the most recent Alcona County Board of Commissioners (BoC) meeting, it was revealed to all in attendance, that the Alcona County Commission on Aging (ACCOA) is having trouble paying back a loan from the Small Business Association (SBA), due to a certain individual who no longer works at the ACCOA in any form or capacity. You can view the clip of this particular news being released in the meeting at the end of this article.
However, this is roughly (not verbatim) how the information was presented by Carolyn Brummund, who is the BoC’s liaison to the ACCOA:
- The ACCOA applied for and received a loan from the SBA in the sum of $150,000, for a term of 30 years.
- The SBA Loan was not filed under the name of the ACCOA, but instead, under the name of Lenny Avery, who was the previous Executive Director of the ACCOA until he was dismissed in February of 2023. Lenny Avery is currently employed as the Economic Development Coordinator with the Alpena Area Chamber of Commerce, under the Target Alpena umbrella. (Sources: https://alpenachamber.com/staff/ & https://www.thealpenanews.com/news/local-news/2023/02/avery-takes-new-position-with-target-alpena/ )
- The previous ACCOA Board of Directors did not pay on the loan for 18 months, aside from payments on the interest accrued.
- Due to the loan being in Lenny Avery’s personal name and personal mailing address, no statements regarding this loan has been sent to the ACCOA or have been seen at the ACCOA since Avery’s departure, at the very least.
- The SBA will not talk to the staff at the ACCOA about this loan, due to it being in Avery’s name, and not under the ACCOA name.
- Every month that this loan goes unpaid costs the ACCOA more money (interest continues to pile onto the loan). The ACCOA is doing all they can in order to gain access to the loan, in order to pay it off completely.
- The loan was secured originally in order to purchase a vehicle, however this fact too is up in the air as to whether or not it was used for these exact purposes or something else entirely.
- Brummund also said that there are other things that aren’t on the up & up from the Avery administration, and this is just another thing that the ACCOA is trying to clean up from that time period.Considering that Avery wouldn’t even give the ACCOA their Facebook page back to them when he was removed from his position as Executive Director, it leaves a very bad taste in your mouth when presented with these additional facts that have come to light. It also makes you wonder what exactly Avery was doing while employed as the Executive Director of the ACCOA, and why the Board of Directors at the time, allowed such an obvious mistake (and apparently others) to take place. So we must ask… Is this what malfeasance looks like?
What do you think about this news?
Stay tuned for more updates as we receive them.
Video of meeting, starting at 59:05 minutes into the meeting, where Carolyn Brummund begins her comments on this very issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZgOTWCjr3Y&t=3545s
Jess Dobbs
P.S. I want to personally give a huge shout out to Carolyn Brummund for reporting this matter to the public at the Board of Commissioner’s meeting today. Thank you for not keeping this hidden from the public purview. God bless you!
