Illegal Hindu Mandir Board Trustees Continue with their Contemptible Deliberations
It is with inordinate disappointment this publication is reporting the local community is disappointed by the actions of the illegal Hindu Mandir Board of Trustees to continue with their contemptuous behavior by ignoring the Mandir’s by-laws.
First, why the entire Board of Trustees is deemed illegal?
As per the current by-laws section III.2 (a) – Trustees – Annual dues shall be in the amount of One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00). Method of payment is negotiable and at the discretion of the Membership Committee.
This publication has learned that almost all the Trustees are in default and some haven’t paid their annual dues for over a decade.
Section III.5 clearly states that any member who continues to be delinquent for sixty (60) days or more, shall, without any further action by the Board of Trustees or without notification, forfeit his/her membership.
The above by-laws are still in place and apply to every member including Trustees. Technically and legally as well, the Mandir doesn’t have a Board of Trustees as the Trustees haven’t paid their annual dues. The “former Trustees” have no legal authority to hold any meetings and/or make decisions related to Hindu Mandir operations.
For the past one year, the former Executive Committee (EC) members have been pursuing to bring in the new leadership to manage Mandir’s ongoing operating affairs. Many dedicated members of the EC called community volunteers and leaders to self-nominate for the new EC. Eventually, some community members relented and self-nominated for the vacant positions.
The illegal Board of Trustees, a group of plutocrats, decided to interview the candidates where more than one individual was vying for the same position. As per the informed sources, three individuals were contending for the President position, two for the Treasurer, and two for the Vice-President position. All these individuals self-nominated themselves before the deadline and were asked to submit an essay on why he/she should be selected for the position they were applying for, followed by an interview by the illegal Board Trustees.
The illegal meeting was held on Sunday, June 6th, 2021. However, before the meeting, the two individuals vying for the Treasurer position were informed of the third candidate. The third candidate, a Physician and a Board Member did not apply before the deadline. His name wasn’t in the emails to the candidates outlining the selection process. The two candidates agreed to withdraw their application after the deadline to accommodate the Physician who did not apply before the deadline. The current EC failed in their fiduciary duty to go through proper procedures by re-advertising the Treasurer position and extending the deadline. This back-room manipulation was done only to please and accommodate a Physician with no professional financial background. The other two candidates for the position of Treasurer had over 50 years of combined diverse background in corporate accounting, budgeting, economics, and financial management. Moreover, it’s an insurmountable conflict of interest for a Board Member to serve on the Executive Committee.
The backroom deals among the former Trustees are despicable, illegal and, must be stopped by the Mandir plutocrats. The community is yearning for transparency, and accountability to bring back the glory days of Mandir to serve the spiritual and religious needs of the growing Hindu diaspora.
It has been over two weeks and still Mandir’s management has not officially announced the new incoming members of the Executive Committee.
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Temple should be handed over to Swaminarayan Temple – They will open temple full time, have prasad am anytime you visit temple, saint will impart the knowledge of Sanatan Dharma to all visitors and create a system for any one to convert in to Hinduism. The priest will be working without salary and proper management will established with discourses every week and days. IIf they donot follow by laws created by themselves- what is next?? Someone must sue these trustees for destroying Temple and sue them for 100 million dollars !
By-Laws are the guiding principles for any non profit organization. If by-laws are not followed, we risk loosing our non profit status. The board, The trustees and the executive committee are obliged to respect and follow the by-laws.
WE have a beautiful place of worship for our community .The board and the executive committee must do everything possible to address the gaps and bring back the focus to serve the religious and spiritual need of the community.
Past few executive committees have done an excellent job organizing, promoting and executing various religious functions. They have engaged the community as evident by increased participation by the community members and increased fund raising. Of course COVID did put a damper on the enthusiasm of the current executive committee to execute many of the festivities.
Trustees, Board , Executive committee and Volunteers need encouragement, right environment and support to step up and serve the community. Let us not forget the financial and personal commitments by many of the community leaders , volunteers and devotees for building and sustaining this beautiful place of worship.
I hope we all take this positively and look at this as an opportunity to revisit the by law, update them to meet current situation and bring back the house of worship to focus on meeting the temple mission. Working together we can address the issues and the gaps brought to the attention.
Thank you for sharing this post. It is insightful and makes one wonder what else is going on in the Temple committee?
I have been trying to get the executive committee to share Temple financials for quite some time which they should being a non-profit organization. But nothing has happened regarding that. They use to share it a few years ago under different management.
Many devotees have also complained that the temple organization doesn’t send year-end tax receipts to devotees. And the worst of all, they have not paid and under-paid the salary to their employees (Panditjis) for quite some time. What kind of operation are they running and how are they able to pull that illegal move off? If this was to happen in any other business, they would have been sued by now. Innocent don’t lodge a complaint to the labor commissioner, and so they are being taken advantage of.
I don’t expect much to change since it’s the same set of vocal trustees that influence others, and the executive committee is headed by the secretary from the previous tenure who hasn’t been able to share the details on how the decisions are being made in the Temple organization.
For things to change, the people in charge should be more competent, responsible, and transparent.
It will be more beneficial to close down the temple, demolish the building, sell the land, and use the money to directly help poor and needy Hindu Indian-Americans in Las Vegas. Since the temple has opened it has been run by egoistic, power-hungry, status-seeking, people who have no relationship with or accountability to the larger Las Vegas Hindu community. They are religious in name but have no spiritual values.
Summerlin Temple was realization of a dream of a few Hindus who moved to Las Vegas in the 1970s and 1980s. It took six years to build this temple from a vision to reality. At this point, let me remind the community othat there is a blueprint for every church, mosque and Gurdwara in the sense that there is a history, tradition and some central authority that is behind them – that directs them – and often provides financial support too. Hindus, excluding from Tamilnad, mmAndhra and Karnataka, had no ownership or stake in a Hindu temple. Most Hindus are satisfied with their individual identity associated with their close temple-lets in homes.
All temple dreamers were busy professionals when this temple was built up. A dozen people donated huge sums – from $50K to $400K. But they had no experience in running the temple. Priest and a revolving EC can’t do it. The Hindu temple needs a full time manager.
I am prompted to write this note as one person wants the Temple be demolished and land sold away- erasing the very vestiges of Hindus. Temple is a symbol of collective Hindu identity that has been decimated in India. Why new Churches, mosques and Gurdwaras are coming up every day? They measure the social and political clout of that community.
This talk of demolishing the Hindu temple is a part of the same global thinking that the Hindus are to be ruled even in India by the non-Hindus. Unfortunately, a vast majority of Hindus think this way too. Therefore, I urge the Hindu leadership to rise up to the challenges faced by the Summerlin Temple. It is a part of collective learning of our temples. That is enough of comments