Connie Del Signore drastically changed Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County as its CEO for 17 years. In the three months since the tourism organization fired her, it plans to drastically change again — but with half the money and in a fraction of the time.
Acting president and CEO Dani Botcher, acting chairman of the board Gary Jobson and Vice Chairman Tyler Patton told The Capital on Tuesday that the internal investigation leading to the firing of Del Signore in April prompted major changes taking place next month.
Under the advisement of a D.C. law firm specializing in board ethics and Maryland Nonprofits, Visit Annapolis will rewrite its bylaws and employee policies and downsize and retrain its board.
“Visit Annapolis is running well right now,” Jobson said. “The house is in order. We feel good, but clearly it wasn’t in order. And that’s what we’ve corrected.”
The law firm, Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell, advised Visit Annapolis to adopt a new code of ethics with an updated whistleblower policy, a conflict of interest policy with annual conflict of interest statements required of board members and key staff and expense policies tracking staff spending.
The Visit Annapolis executive committee, board and advisory group totals 45 people, which Jobson said they plan to cut down to a board of about 11 to 15, who will serve two terms of three years each.
“There needs to be structure,” Jobson said.
The Visit Annapolis board’s existing bylaws had committees, Jobson said, but they were never used. There will now be a nominating committee to create a board reflective of county diversity and a compensation committee to approve the president’s salary. The current board, while large, is mostly white, male and Annapolis-based, Jobson said. Until now, the president and CEO’s salary has only been approved by the board chair. According to a 2017 tax filing by the organization, the president and CEO made $193,928.
“We all know a change needs to be made,” Patton said. “I don’t think anybody’s going to be shocked.”
Botcher said she is also bidding out contracts to be approved by the board.
In an analysis of Visit Annapolis’ operations, Maryland Nonprofits wrote, “Board members interviewed generally think that, over time, governance became somewhat lax, in part due to confidence in and the success of the CEO. … Many noted that board engagement has not been ideal.”
“Over the last several months we found things that didn’t make us happy and we needed to make changes. And that’s what we’re doing,” Patton said. “Quite frankly, we’re changing things all over the place of things that didn’t work right or didn’t work appropriately.”
Visit Annapolis collected close to $4 million, mostly from hotel taxes, during this fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. But travel and social distancing restrictions put in place this spring to slow the spread of the coronavirus meant the organization’s budget was cut in half for the next fiscal year.
After their Paycheck Protection Program loan ran out, four administrative positions were eliminated this month.
Visit Annapolis put in a demand for arbitration with Del Signore, which she has until July 29 to respond to. The organization will not release its investigation detailing why Del Signore was fired until arbitration is completed.
Del Signore publicized accusations that she misused funds, drank at work and permitted racist and sexist remarks in the office in a lawsuit earlier this month. Del Signore is suing Historic Annapolis president Robert Clark for $75,000, claiming he made up the allegations in a plot to get her fired after she rejected his plans to divert resources to his projects.
Botcher said Visit Annapolis has never given money to Historic Annapolis, as the lawsuit claims.
In a memorandum, attorneys agreed with the organization’s investigation and decision to fire Del Signore after “complaints alleged that both Ms. Del Signore and Mr. (John) Astle created a hostile and offensive work environment.” The analysis said Visit Annapolis “secured” former Board Chair Astle’s resignation, which he announced in April. Astle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The firm added that additional findings could have been made in the investigation that “would only have served to bolster the board’s decision to terminate Ms. Del Signore’s employment.”
“The additional findings we have made relate to Ms. Del Signore’s overall conduct in the performance of her job duties and her decision-making,” attorneys Kathy Ghiladi and Brendan Tyler wrote.
“They are serious and pervasive in nature. they implicate private inurement concerns, ethical concerns and contracting irregularities, among other things.”
Del Signore and her attorney Tim Maloney did not immediately respond for comment.
