CINCINNATI -- Members of Clifton Market's board of directors are attempting to wrest control of the struggling local grocery store from one another, according to an email sent to shareholders Friday.
"We are in danger of losing everything we have fought for over the last three years," unidentified members of the board announced in an email titled "WARNING TO CLIFTON MARKET SHAREHOLDERS."
The announcement arrived almost exactly two months after a June 24 meeting during which investors and shareholders such as publicly pressed market leaders for explanations of the market's poor financial performance. Prior to that meeting, the board had asked each of its shareholders to increase their weekly spending by $50 to help keep the hard-won project afloat.
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"Are they making it?" shareholder Dawn Fosnaugh asked that night. "Are they going to be open in two months?"
Although former board member Dr. Rama Kasturi characterized the meeting that night as "contentious and challenging," Friday's email framed it more starkly: According to the authors, it had been "an angry mob" that forced the meeting and was now empowering board members Gary Crawford and Ben Pantoja to attempt a takeover of the market.
Crawford and Pantoja intend "through deceptive practices," according to the email, to restructure the board around themselves and their desire to sell the market's building in exchange for a capital injection of around $2.5 million. To that end, it says they called for an Aug. 26 shareholders' meeting that was not approved by other board members.
"Any short-term cash infusion cannot justify the total loss of real estate equity," the email stated.
The meeting will still take place and attendees are still encouraged to share their thoughts on the market's progress, but it will be strictly informational and no voting on future policies will occur.
Friday's email was not signed by individual members of the board, making it impossible to know which ones -- with the presumed exceptions of Crawford and Pantonja -- were involved in writing it and levying accusations at their colleagues.
A follow-up email from Crawford himself stated the original "was not reviewed with or approved by the Board."
"We don't know for sure who wrote it," he wrote.
In his own email, Crawford included a message he said he had received from shareholder Mark Irey, a corporate portfolio manager at U.S. Bank.
Irey accused mother-son duo Adam and Marilyn Hyland, who initially helped spearhead the co-op project, of sending the previous email, obscuring the truth and attempting to enforce a singular vision that did not align with other board members' and shareholders' goals for the market.
"There was an angry mob at the 6/24/17 meeting because the meeting was a dog and pony show run with complete unprofessionalism," Irey wrote, adding later: "There are fractions on the board and the fact of the matter is that the board needs to be completely revamped. ... I continue to be appalled by the actions of the board."
He also accused Adam Hyland of calling other board members "crazy" and admitted Pantonja had been open about his desire to subtract the Hylands from the board.
Given these exchanges and the direct accusations made in both emails, Aug. 26 could prove enlightening -- although perhaps not reassuring -- for those shareholders anxious about the market's future.
