Local ACORN leaders plan break from national group

Several Louisiana ACORN leaders, including the recently ousted state leader, will announce today that they have started a new organization under the same name after national authorities of the community action network voted to take over the chapter.

A written preview of a news conference scheduled for today at 3 p.m. in Light City Church, 6117 St. Claude Avenue, says the event will include "Louisiana ACORN Executive Director Beth Butler," who was fired from that post Oct. 12 by national ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis.

The document states that Butler will be joined by several Louisiana ACORN officers, board members and the head organizers for the state chapter and the New Orleans regional chapter, all of whom apparently are leaving their posts within the existing structure.

Both sides have given every indication that the tug-of-war over the name and resources will end up in court.

The split from the national organization apparently has been in the offing since national leaders last year pushed out ACORN founder Wade Rathke after disclosures that his brother, Dale Rathke, had embezzled from the organization, but later paid back, more than $1 million.

But it intensified in later skirmishes between Wade Rathke's national successors and Louisiana ACORN figures over the assets and operations of the organization's originating chapter, which remains one of its largest and most successful.

The dispute reached a new peak with Butler's unceremonious departure, followed days later by the national board's vote to take over the Louisiana entity and install longtime ACORN employee Stephen Bradberry as a temporary administrator.

About the same time, national and New Orleans leaders traded barbs over local complaints that the initial public itinerary for President Barack Obama's Oct. 15 trip to the city included only a stop at the University of New Orleans.

Vanessa Gueringer, among those who criticized the White House, continued her excoriation of ACORN's national leadership on Friday. "We don't recognize the illegitimate interloper placed in the New Orleans office by national ACORN," she said. "We view this action as an aggressive move to steal our resources because the national organization is going broke."

Gueringer sits on both the state governing board and the national board, though she did not attend the Vienna, Va., meeting where her colleagues voted to temporarily take over the Louisiana organization.

Bradberry said in an interview earlier this week that he believes Butler or anyone else "has the right to start their own organization." But he said he believes the new outfit does not have the legal right to the ACORN name or any of the financial resources the organization controls.

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Bill Barrow can be reached at bbarrow@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3452.