Update from the Victory Neighborhood Association Board of Directors
January 9th, 2023
Hello Victory neighborhood,
Happy New Year and best wishes for 2023 from the new ViNA Board of Directors.
Four new board members were elected in November, filling all chairs and bringing the total number of volunteer board members to seven. The new board met on Saturday, January 7th, to plan for 2023 and make some difficult operational decisions due to diminished funding from the City of Mpls, which is the primary funding source for all the Mpls neighborhood associations.
In 2023 we want to give neighbors a voice, focusing on community connection, building safety through the block ambassador program, and promoting youth involvement through the Youth Chore Corp program.
We also want to update the community about fraudulent activity that occurred recently. Unknown persons accessed ViNA’s online bookkeeping system and stole some money by processing fraudulent payroll submissions. ViNA has filed a police report, and the Mpls police and the city of Mpls are investigating the fraudulent activity and theft.
ViNA’s bookkeeper discovered the fraud early in the attempts while he was doing normal activity. Immediately, all ViNA accounts were updated and/or closed, stopping four of five attempts to transfer money from the ViNA bank account. Unfortunately, one attempt was successful.
The online accounting firm did sustain some losses. Consequently, they hired an attorney to try and reclaim their lost funds from ViNA.
ViNA has hired a reasonably priced attorney who has many years of non-profit and collection-related experience to speak for ViNA. He has contacted the collections attorney and is waiting for a reply. ViNA is currently waiting for that reply as well as any information leading to future discovery and prosecution. ViNA has no additional information until the attorneys meet and/or the police make progress in the investigation.
ViNA will update the neighborhood when we have determined the final solutions. Thank you for your understanding. This activity was a random cyberattack that ViNA responded to immediately to limit losses and protect ViNA assets, and we will continue to protect assets through the process.
Sincerely,
ViNA Board of Directors
Diwin O’Neal Dale, Patrick Whelan, Christina Newell, Rachel Bundy,
Tonia Brinston, Marissa Galan, Kerry Jo Felder
