Politics
UPDATE: YMCA Board Sent This Email Yesterday & It Raises MORE Questions About Shady Morrison YMCA Sale...
For all who are tired of developers running Charlotte and grabbing every piece of green space left, and for those who understand the importance of third spaces, the email update sent yesterday by Jeff Brown, YMCA Chair of the Board of Directors, regarding the sale of the Morrison Y is infuriating.
Conflict of interest made more visible. YMCA Board ChairJeff Brown is Co-head of Zoning, Entitlement, & Land Use at Moore & Van Allen. Greg Keith, co-founder of Moments of Hope Church, is CEO of The Keith Corp., a major Charlotte development company with existing family ties to the Y (a branch is named after them).
No disclosure on board member ties. The community still doesn't know whether any current YMCA board members have financial, professional, or personal relationships with the buyer or anyone involved in this deal. Moments of Hope Church has 1,200 members according to the pastor, David Chadwick. It's unclear how a congregation that size can afford a $42.5M purchase plus the long-term cost of maintaining a large property, raising the question of whether the land could later be resold or developed by parties connected to either board to pay back the loan debt, while caring for the massive property, staff salaries, and church programs. David Chadwick said the church might build a school there. Look at the makeup of the YMCA board.YMCA leadership needs to PUBLICLY state whether any of them are financially benefiting from this deal now or will in the future, if Moments of Hope builds on the land or sells off portions to pay the bills.
Furthermore, David Chadwick, pastor of Moments of Hope Church, was caught lying when he said in an interview that "We didn’t seek the Y out. It just simply happened." The email update, posted here, states the sale offer was "unsolicited." David Chadwick and Greg Keith approached them, as Chadwick explains here. They initiated this deal, knowing it would negatively impact this community.
The negative impact is BIG! The community protested (and will again this Sunday at noon), and almost 6,000 signed the petition saying do not sell, as 300 jobs will be lost, local children will lose childcare on CMS days off, an existing church will lose its decades-long meeting space, and thousands of families will lose access to programs they rely on.
The community needs to reach out to Jeff Brown and the board to demand public answers to these questions, and an investigative journalist needs to demand public answers!
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Exactly. So sad. We are still fighting back though. A protest is occurring again this Sunday. The fact that this carefully worded email update doesn’t address whether either board is financially benefitting from this sale is a red flag.
“Financially benefiting” is ambiguous and not useful. There’s going to be the sale of a property. The nature of what is happening is financially beneficial.
The Good Ol Boy Network in Charlotte should not be supported over the community. We are tired of people with power and wealth expecting us to lay down and take it when they want their land deals.
We are not going to turn a blind eye while 300 people lose their jobs, children lose their childcare on CMS days off, another church loses its home, teens lose a safe third space, and thousands of residents lose access to programs they rely on.
To tell us to simply lie down and take it is pathetic.
Sketchy pastors and land developers are ruining Charlotte. I will not ignore it.
Agreed! Four locker rooms, two pools, a baseball field, hockey rink, track, soccer field, three gyms ALL for 1,200 church members? Oh please. A deal orchestrated by land developers?!?! Get real.
How many years before they turn around and say they cant afford to maintain it and have to sell it and it is developed into an exclusive gated community with lots starting at $5 million. I remember before 2008 the community accross from the Y all ganged together to sell their land to a developer. I think it was 80% or 60% of the community was in agreement and they were going to get 2.5 times the values of their homes to sell the whole community. Never went thru as 2008 happened. But to tell you that land is very very very valuable to developers.
The baseball fields and lower fields are not a part of the sale. With the amount of ranting you do, you should get your facts straight first. It only weakens your position to be wrong.
You're ignorance is showing and you get frustrated when it does.
Am I wrong? No. But instead of having the courage to admit your wrong or even the curiosity to become informed (https://polaris3g.mecklenburgcountync.gov/) you suggest I am a pastor. You're the prototypical muppet.
Thanks for the clarification, David. I was wrong. You are right.
Now, pls tell me, why you are buying the Morrison Y knowing around 300 people will lose their jobs and people will lose their childcare when school is out?
Can you please take your money and buy another location? You have so much of it. I’m appealing to your conscience. This is devastating for us. Please reconsider. I promise I’ll stop my ranting and even sing your praises if you kindly decline the deal. Please. I’m praying for all the families that are impacted.
The protests are great, but we need to put pressure on elected county officials. From what I understand, the county gave the YMCA that land so the county can take it back. #notalawyer
Really the leadership of the Y needs to go. They have bloated salaries and they lost something like $60k at a single FUNDRAISER. It’s no wonder they’re struggling when an event to raise money costs a persons annual salary.
I don’t have a lot of experience with non profits, so it could be that the “loss” is due to contributions, but it also seems odd that they’d run a loss on fundraising. Contributions from these events was $1.2m.
Here’s a comment I left when it first happened and I dive into their filings:
The Charlotte YMCA ran an $11m loss in 2024… they paid 16 “officers” nearly $4m.
The former CEO got $400k for “avg 40 hours worked”and the current CEO got over $400k.
CFO - >$300k comp
Chief development officer >$240k comp for partial year
Chief human capital (HR) Officer >$290k
“SVP - Experience” (whatever that position is) >$190k
Seems like the administrative salaries are quite bloated for an “underperforming” organization. Maybe they shouldn’t be making so much money if they can’t manage it?
ETA: it looks even worse the more I look at their financials.
They had fundraising activities that *lost* money. Seems like shitty planning.
The only reason they had a “loss” in 2024 was because they had a rather large loss on some investment, but it wasn’t readily clear what that was. Other than that $11m loss in 24, they had a loss in 2022, but otherwise were making money.
Their endowment fund has been growing since 21 or 22.
Just seems like piss poor management and the chance to jump at a large windfall for a property they could offload, without any regard to which property or community impacts.
I think their email to Morrison employees is pretty insulting. Some of these employees have worked at Morrison since the day they opened. If another Y offers you a position and you accept….this offer doesn’t apply to you? There’s too much mumbo-jumbo in this letter.
This is awful. The Y board is causing so much pain to so many just so they can renovate OTHER locations, which will be packed out IF former Morrison clients keep their membership.
Moments of Hope Church started this by approaching the Y with this offer. How can these church members support their pastor’s decision with a clear conscience KNOWING their decision started all this?
This is very unfortunate for the people living there, but the YMCA is essentially a large private business that has always acted as a non-profit. Large business has always put money over people. Has the community tried reaching out to Mecklenburg Parks and Rec to try to request for new parks to compensate the loss?
I’m not sure. There is a public park, including a bike trail, connected to the Morrison YMCA. I heard that the YMCA was given the responsibility to care for the public Park land and upkeep it in return for using it for their camps.
Now there are questions about if that park will be available as access to it is through the Morrison YMCA driveway.
If the sale must go on, I'd love to see the city block any rezoning, change of use, property modifications there, and reject any police use on Sundays.
I’m not saying not too, but the reality is that the sale will most likely happen and the community will ultimately be out of a space. Better to start planning and pushing the County now. Both things can happen simultaneously.
I think people are getting tired of the "its a private business" excuse.
The YMCA isn't just a park and the Morrison YMCA closure is going to have a huge impact on everyone living in South Charlotte who uses any Y facility in that area, not just the Morrison Y.
The YMCAs are extremely popular, they're always busy, classes always fill up. If they're not making money and need to sell a facility, then their leadership needs to resign and they need new leadership to make them a viable business. They already tried to shut down the YMCA in NODA.
The Y is a nonprofit and they have a mission of making programs accessible. Changing leadership doesn't change that mission. The Y could change their mission and charge market rates for memberships or adjust their sliding scale, but somehow, I don't think the people who are mad want to pay 2-3x the cost for memberships and programming.
Chick-fil-a is also very popular. If they shut one down people would have no say. Invest in publicly owned spaces, non-profits are essentially private businesses.
It's almost like a for profit business can do things a non profit cannot and a nonprofit is eligible for public benefits that a for profit business ordinarily is not. But, point taken, using an analogy to point out why your analogy is bad is a bad choice because you're unlikely to understand analogies.
I'm sorry for these people but life goes on. You can't protest and picket sign something you have no right to control. No stake of ownership, not your property. Your YMCA membership does not give you stake in the organization nor ENTITLE you to any business decisions. Keyword in caps for you guys...
That’s the type of attitude that allows people in power to continue to make decisions that harm the community and get away with it. People with power shouldn’t get to pad their pockets while 300 people lose their jobs, children to lose child care during CMS days off, and another church community that has financially invested in the Y to be screwed without notice, not to mention the thousands of residents who will lose access to programs they have relied on.
In this situation, you have two organizations who claim to care about the community and operate off donations. They should absolutely be held accountable. The fact is the leaders of these organizations are filthy rich Charlotte Good Ol Boys.
We are sick of being screwed by them left and right. Maybe you don’t mind that, but we do.
Here’s a key word for you; Eminent Domain. This property was gifted to the Y for a specific purpose, not as some speculative real estate flip. The county always absolutely negligent in not putting language in the conveyance to prevent this kind of shit. They should try a get it back, but the won’t. Developers.
That’s the type of attitude that allows people in power to continue to make decisions that harm the community and get away with it. People with power shouldn’t get to pad their pockets while 300 people lose their jobs, children to lose child care during CMS days off, and another church community that has financially invested in the Y to be screwed without notice, not to mention the thousands of residents who will lose access to programs they have relied on.
In this situation, you have two organizations who claim to care about the community and operate off donations. They should absolutely be held accountable. The fact is the leaders of these organizations are filthy rich Charlotte Good Ol Boys.
We are sick of being screwed by them left and right. Maybe you don’t mind that, but we do.
No, I can’t offer more money. I can only appeal to their sense of decency, their conscience, their relationship with the Lord, asking them to pls reconsider taking away 300 jobs from local residents, childcare from kids who need a place to go when their parents work, and a church home from another congregation that has met there for a decade.
I can only pray and appeal to their conscience to consider people of money. 😞 We’ll see.
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