Guest Opinion - Day worker advocate responds Guest Opinion - Day worker advocate responds (October 29, 2004)

By John Rinaldi

I am responding to the call of the Mountain View Voice editorial opinion for mediation of the issues between the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and those original representatives of the Worker Center in Mountain View who have re-established the center under local control.

You should know that on Sept. 17, within two days of my resignation from the presidency of the Diocesan Council for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Santa Clara County, and nearly a month before your opinion was written, I was earnestly engaging the incoming president of St. Vincent de Paul in discussions leading to the unwinding of the merger of the original St. Joseph the Worker Center from St. Vincent's through mediation. To foster the spirit of openness required to bring the parties to the table, I offered to refrain from accepting a leadership role in this process.

The response to repeated requests for such mediation was underwhelming to say the least. St. Vincent director Steve Pehanich's own self-serving letter to the editor ignores the thrust of your opinion in that his letter is silent on the issue of mediation, while replete with references designed to minimalize the five years that I served as the chief officer of the corporation that employed Pehanich.

In retrospect, I do not regret my decision to leave St. Vincent de Paul when the alternative was to fire the executive director. What I do regret is the poor decision-making exercised by that executive director in not informing me of an issue that directly related to a program, the welfare of which I was so personally concerned about, until after the fact. Apparently this type of questionable stewardship continues as just this past Friday, the pastor of the church was served a letter notifying him that a lawsuit would be filed against him and his church unless the demands of St. Vincent de Paul are met.

In the face of this continuous onslaught, I maintain that the appropriate manner in which this may be resolved requires mediation and I have written to the attorneys for St. Vincent de Paul advising them of the availability of mediators to assist us. I have also contacted the national and regional representatives of St. Vincent de Paul for the purpose of urging them to contact local Vincentians to bring this matter to an appropriate conclusion.

By a copy of this open letter, I am likewise informing and enlisting the support of the 30 conference presidents in this diocese, who elected me to serve two three-year terms as their president, to get involved. I remain hopeful that such an approach will ultimately be successful and that this valuable resource may be returned to community-based, volunteer stewardship soon.

John Rinaldi, a lawyer and day worker advocate, recently resigned as president of the local St. Vincent de Paul Society board.

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