The following letter was written to the Boston Teachers Union regarding a potential fundraising event by Paul Carnes and Sidney Sherrel, who were both unanimously voted to be disavowed from all Occupy Boston financial activities. The letter was written by the Financial Accountability Working Group and addressed to publicly listed members of the Boston Teachers Union. It is being reposted here for transparency.
On behalf of Occupy Boston, we wanted to reach out thanking for your
support for our movement. However, it has come to our attention that
you all may be the target of a potential fundraising scam. Recently,
the Finance Accountability Working Group of Occupy Boston has passed a
resolution disavowing Paul Carnes and Sidney Sherrel from any
financial activities on behalf of Occupy Boston. We’ve included the
text to the resolution that we passed below, as well as a link to the
Press Release that was posted on our official website. The reason for
their disavowal was embezzlement of Occupy Boston funds and a lack of
transparency and accountability in all actions. They have specifically
been stripped of any privilege to raise funds on behalf of Occupy
Boston.
We were informed they may be trying to throw a fundrasier in
conjunction with the Boston Teachers Union, so we felt it incumbent on
ourselves to let you all know the actions we’ve taken on the matter.
Given their corruption, we strongly recommend against giving them any
funds for any reason whatsoever.
We regret that our first point of contact with you had to come with
such a negative tone. We cherish your support and look forward to
working with you in the future.
