ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Emerging from a one-hour meeting with NCUA Public and Congressional Affairs (PACA) officials May 3, ousted Polish and Slavic FCU (P&SFCU) board director Andrew Kaminski told a mildly milling group of 100, bussed-in, P&SFCU protesters that NCUA had given him some "hope" that the agency would return full control of the FCU to its Brooklyn, New York-based, ethnic membership.
"Bob Loftus met with us and basically told us that in two weeks he'll give us an answer," Kaminski said after his meeting. "We expressed our concerns and the fact that we've been denied our rights, and we're asking for the (NCUA) to treat us no differently than any other credit union, but to respect the members rights.
"The appointed board (an NCUA-appointed board resulting from the FCU's April 17, 1999 conservatorship) cannot be replaced for at least two or three years...therefore it was not genuine that they (NCUA) said that they gave the credit union back to its members."
Citing management abuses and other irregularities, NCUA had seized the 40,000-member, $600 million-asset FCU in April 1999 and conserved it until February. It then imposed several organizational and operational restrictions on the FCU's agency-appointed board of directors-including a prohibition on board elections until 2001, when only one-third of the board could be replaced-as condition of its return to the membership.
It was these reinstatement conditions that the group was protesting as undemocratic.
Asked about his understanding of the meetings' results, Kaminski said he believed Loftus' promise covered a reconsideration not only of the election prohibition but also of NCUA's opposition to certain real estate purchases that the FCU had made in order to expand into underserved Polish-American neighborhoods.
Kaminski-who had been relieved of his P&SFCU board seat with the conservatorship action-had brought two bus loads of respectably dressed, decidedly middle-class but obviously agitated members of P&SFCU from Brooklyn to register their grievance outside NCUA headquarters.
And as Kaminski and seven P&SFCU representatives met with Loftus, PACA lobbyist Elizabeth Wirick, and Carlos Gonzales, an aide to Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) whose New York district contains P&SFCU, the throng of mostly middle-age, mostly Polish-speaking demonstrators-brandishing Polish and American flags and neatly stenciled signs of protest against curtailed rights-peacefully circulated and chatted with one another in their native language.
No NCUA Board member attended the grievance meeting or met with the demonstrators.
An official NCUA statement, released after the meeting, however, elaborated on the agency's position.
Citing FCU Act authority to release credit unions from conservatorship "subject to such terms and conditions as may be imposed by the Board," the statement went on to say, "NCUA regrets that a small minority of the membership is dissatisfied with this decision, and we certainly support their right to voice opposition to it. Nevertheless, we respectfully ask that all members of the Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union work with the new board of directors to deliver the high quality credit union services this credit union is providing." -gmcorrigan@mindspring.com
