Guest Commentary: Yolo Food Bank Chairperson Censured and Admonished, but Board Cover-Up Continues

by Zane Hatfield

The Yolo Food Bank (YFB) Board brazenly misled the community last month when it denied any knowledge of investigations of staff complaints against the YFB Board. Although disheartening, I was not surprised to read in the July 8, 2022, Sacramento Business Journal article that the YFB Board, through its spokesman, Gene Endicott, said that it “has no knowledge directly of any investigations that have been done related to complaints against it.” Endicott’s statement is patently false and easily refuted by numerous documents. He and the YFB Board cannot be trusted.

There is ample evidence showing the YFB Board was well aware of formal complaints against individual YFB Board members, that those complaints were being investigated, and that the independent law firm investigating those complaints, Bowman & Associates, made recommendations to the YFB Board—including censuring and admonishing Chairperson Tom Muller for his abusive behavior toward staff at a board meeting in clear violation of YFB policies (see notes from a meeting about the investigation shown in the main image above).

Pursuant to standard YFB protocol for HR complaints, YFB human resources manager, Angela Hofstrand, notified the entire YFB Board on May 5, 2022, that an investigation had been initiated.

It’s also worth noting that YFB chairperson Tom Muller was interviewed by Bowman & Associates during the investigation, as was YFB Board member Donald Hartman.

On May 24, 2022, the YFB Executive Team (excluding Executive Director Michael Bisch) sent the entire YFB Board a letter reminding the Board that there were ongoing independent investigations into Board misconduct by legal counsel and that the YFB Board had been advised by counsel to refrain from taking any action against Food Bank staff until the investigations were complete.

The May 24 Executive Team letter also warned that any such action against YFB staff could be seen as retaliatory.

The May 24 letter also officially informed the YFB Board that they were in violation of the YFB bylaws and that there were now only four valid board members remaining (six board members had resigned in the previous four days). This was an alarming circumstance because we now had an insufficient number of board members to meet quorum requirements. The YFB Board was now unable to conduct any official business other than electing replacement board members. The Executive Team indicated that it would not accept any direction from the YFB Board until these matters had been fully investigated.

A number of items appeared on the agenda for the YFB annual meeting scheduled for May 25, 2022, including an election for replacement board members so the Food Bank could continue to operate legally.  Item #6 of the agenda states that the YFB Board was to meet in a closed session for a “Discussion of (Action on) Investigation of Findings and Recommendations.” As Nick Schroeder described in an earlier Vanguard piece, the YFB Board members shouted down an Executive Team member and signed off the Zoom meeting without meeting its fiduciary duty of holding an annual election and without properly replacing the board members who had abruptly resigned just days earlier.

Despite Bowman & Associates recommendation that the YFB Board refrain from taking any action against staff until Bowman had completed its investigations of the numerous  complaints of YFB Board misconduct, the YFB Board met in secret the evening of May 30, 2022 and voted to (1) re-elect termed out members Liz Schmitz and Matt Mariani to the Board, (2) terminate Executive Director Michael Bisch, (3) terminate Bowman & Associates (seemingly to quash the numerous independent investigations into Board misconduct), and (4) appoint now former Chairperson Tom Muller—whom Bowman & Associates had previously recommended be censured and admonished—to be the board’s “liaison” for firing Executive Director Michael Bisch on May 31.

The morning of May 31, Mr. Muller unexpectedly arrived at the Yolo Food Bank offices and began haranguing staff. A former colleague said that she inquired as to the appropriateness of his being there, given the harassment and other complaints against him, and he falsely stated something to the effect of, “What are you talking about? Those are all closed and done.” He then aggressively urged the Executive Team members who were present that morning to forward an email from the YFB Board to staff announcing that Michael had been terminated and that they needed to execute his termination. Mr. Muller’s behavior was so unsettling to my former colleague that she left the Food Bank offices in tears and submitted a letter two days later resigning in protest of the YFB Board’s actions.

Over the past four years, under Michael Bisch’s leadership, Food Bank staff worked tirelessly to grow trust with the community. It is only because of this trust that we were able to transform the Food Bank and provide such a needed service to so many during the darkest days of the pandemic. In less than two months, this YFB Board has eviscerated the community’s trust in the Food Bank.  And for what? To appease the Yolo County Board of Supervisors. They traded the community’s trust, the Food Bank’s reputation, and the trust of the tens of thousands of food-insecure residents in Yolo County, to curry favor with five cynical and petty men.

Other than the entire YFB Board resigning, the only way for Yolo Food Bank to regain the community’s trust is for an independent third party to conduct a transparent investigation and report its findings to the community.

Zane Hatfield is the former Director of Programs for Yolo Food Bank.