Mr. Jaime Pimentel reported that was a heated debate between the PACF Board of Trustees and some members of the community, including Philippine Community Council NSW board members, about Constitution Law. The meeting happened on November 14 at the new site of the Multi-Purpose Centre in No. 50 Forge Street Blacktown.
According to Pimentel, “Father Renato Paras, a founding member of the Trust, intervened by asking the opposing sides to exercise calm and approach issues as friends or everything envisioned for the Centre would come to naught.”
“The two sides of the debate had their merits. Unfortunately, neither side would give an inch, and each went back to their 20-year-old trenches to continue a battle with no end,” Pimentel added.
A ‘lower tier’ of management needed
He proposed during the meeting that the PACF Board of Trustees should loosen its grip and hand over some of its responsibilities and power on the Centre’s affairs with the community at large by allowing the formation of a community-elected or appointed ‘Management’ that would be answerable to the Board of Trustees. “This would release some of the Trust’s powers, allowing a ‘Management’ to run the day-to-day affairs of the Centre,” Mr. Pimentel said. He actually proposed a lower tier of ownership or management of the Filipino Multi-Purpose Centre.
Pimentel’s proposal would comprise a ‘General Manager’, and under him/her a ‘Finance Manager’, ‘Administration Manager’, ‘Events Manager’, ‘Building Manager’, and a ‘Public Affairs Officer’. He said this would eliminate having to wait for “the next meeting of the board” to deliberate and make a decision that should actually take a few minutes.
According to Mr. Pimentel, this ‘Management’ would give the Filipino community [the true owners of MPC] a more significant participation in the Centre. The Board of Trustees would continue to make and be guardians of policy as dictated by its constitution.
Pimentel wanted the Trustees to make a decision “while the iron was hot”
but it appeared that no one was listening when the next speaker was called. Unfortunately his proposal of a new tier to manage the Centre may have died there but “he challenged anyone to put a better one on the table to help settle this long-simmering sticky point within the community about the multi-purpose centre.”