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By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. COMMENTS
 
Leaders of D.C.’s gay and lesbian community center approached Whitman-Walker
Clinic officials in April and asked them to consider turning over operation of
the city’s annual Capital Pride festival and parade to the Center, creating
a rift among the Center’s board and raising questions about the Clinic’s
ability to operate Pride festivities, according to sources.
Whitman-Walker officials said they turned down the Center’s overture,
insisting the financially troubled Clinic would continue to run Pride events
despite a dramatic cutback in Clinic health services as part of an overall downsizing
effort.
The Capital Pride parade took place June 11 and the 30th annual Capital Pride
festival was held June 12 on Pennsylvania Avenue near the U.S. Capitol.
President Michael Sessa and Vice President Larry Stansbury proposed that the
Center co-sponsor D.C. Capital Pride with Whitman-Walker this year, according
to sources familiar with the D.C. Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender
People, and take steps to become the sole operator of the Capital Pride festivities
in 2006.
Two sources with inside knowledge of the Center, who spoke on condition that
they not be identified, said Sessa and Stansbury acted after learning through
back-channel sources in March that Whitman-Walker was in the midst of a financial
crisis and might not be able to pay vendors and contractors for services crucial
to putting on the Capital Pride festival and parade.
“[They] were told how the Clinic was in deep trouble and that contractors
involved in Capital Pride weren’t getting paid,” said one of the
sources.
Whitman-Walker officials disclosed in May — nearly two months after the
Center began discussions about taking over Capital Pride — that a severe
cash flow shortage caused the health agency to miss payroll and withhold payment
to creditors. Clinic officials said longstanding funding problems would force
it to lay off nearly a third of its staff, cut its budget by $2.5 million, and
give away or close its satellite clinics in suburban Virginia and Maryland.
The information provided by the sources appears to contradict a statement two
weeks ago by Roberta Geidner-Antoniotti, the Clinic’s interim executive
director, that Whitman-Walker’s financial problems did not affect its
ability to sponsor Capital Pride.
One of the Center sources said the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights
group, helped avert a cash crisis for Capital Pride by providing Whitman-Walker
with an emergency donation of more than $30,000. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams
also stepped in to waive more than $40,000 in city fees for street closings
and police overtime pay associated with the festival and parade.
Without these two actions, Whitman-Walker may have been forced to greatly curtail
the size and scope of the Pride festivities, clinic and Center sources said.
In an interview, Geidner-Antoniotti disputed that assessment. She said she
would have rearranged the Clinic’s priorities and juggled its precarious
finances to pay any expenses needed to put on Capital Pride if the HRC donation
and the mayor’s fee waivers did not materialize.
“We knew how important Capital Pride was,” Geidner-Antoniotti said.
“So we prioritized our efforts.”
She confirmed that HRC gave the Clinic a direct donation and arranged for some
of its D.C. area members and large donors to raise an additional $22,000 for
the Capital Pride effort.
HRC spokesperson Steven Fisher said HRC gave the clinic a direct $10,000 donation
for Capital Pride and put out an e-mail alert to its D.C. area members informing
them of the clinic’s need for financial support for Capital Pride. He
said the HRC members responded by contributing about $22,000, providing the
clinic with a total of about $32,000 in HRC-generated funds for Capital Pride.
Fisher said HRC was pleased to provide assistance to what it considers an important
gay community event in the nation’s capital.
Geidner-Antoniotti declined to release a financial statement showing the expenses
and income associated with Capital Pride for this year and for 2004.
She said the clinic never releases “internal” financial information
other than its annual report and its audited finance statements, which are released
two years after the year they represent. Those statements, however, do not itemize
expenses and income associated with Capital Pride, Geidner-Antoniotti said.
Sessa said members of the Center’s 13-member board of directors have ...
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