Yesterday, the board of the Atheists of Florida (AOF) voted to remove John Keiffer and Ellenbeth Wach from their roles as President and Vice-President respectively. They also voted to rescind the memberships of John and Ellenbeth in AOF completely. As justification for this action, the AOF board accused John and Ellenbeth of “seriously obstructing the organization’s business, misappropriating the organization’s name, misappropriating the organization’s funds, and acting in a way that discredits the organization.”
According to Rob Curry, the former executive director for the Atheists of Florida who was at the meeting, the motion for removal came up and no discussion was allowed and no evidence for the allegations was made. Once it was clear that no discussion or defense would be allowed, Rob Curry, Ellenbeth Wachs and John Kieffer walked out of the meeting.
Attempts were made to contact board members who voted in favor of the removal resolution and no one has so far responded to requests for comment.
The timing of the ousting occurred in the middle of new board elections. According to the new Atheists of Florida website, those elections have been cancelled, and new elections will be scheduled shortly. Regardless, if John and Ellenbeth are no longer members of the organization, they can no longer run for seats on the board.
The fallout over the removal of John and Ellenbeth has been vocal as Ellenbeth Wachs and John Keiffer have been AOF’s most prominent and visible members. Both have been in the news for getting arrested as a result of their protests in favor of church state separation in Polk County Florida.
John Kieffer said that it was clear that the outcome of the meeting had been decided prior to the meeting and that he had no further interest in what he called “this sham of a democratic process. “As far as the allegations of financial mismanagement are concerned, John stated, “each and every transaction that I have ever made with Atheists of Florida funds has been appropriate, authorized and documented. Until these folks will tell me specifically what this is about, I will continue to be just as confused as EllenBeth, Rob and, for that matter, everyone else in our organization.”
Ellenbeth was less generous and blamed what she called a coup on Ed “Golly” Gollobith who chaired the meeting and who is now the President of the Atheists of Florida. She said the reason she and John were ousted was because “they (AOF board members) didn't want to pay legal fees any more so AOF could buy Ed's building instead.”
Rob Curry isn’t sure if this was the reason for the removal or not, but had this to say in support of Ellenbeth’s theory, “as funds were being used (with board approval) for legal costs associated with the suit against Lakeland. This left a diminishing pot for possibly buying his building as headquarters for the group. We lease it now.”
Rob also said that just last Thursday he had reviewed the financial documents with Ed and AOF treasurer Nan Owens and that Ed was concerned “that disbursements to attorneys that the board approved were not somehow being "refunded" or otherwise given to EllenBeth.”
For the time being, the official Atheists of Florida website is at: www.metrodirect.net/aof until they get control of the official AOF web properties back from Ellenbeth and John.
The new website makes it clear they are still raising funds for the legal actions initiated by Ellenbeth and John. It is also not clear what they plan to do with the $10,000 that was donated to AOF by the Stiefel Freethought Foundation that was earmarked for Ellenbeth and John’s legal defense now that Ellenbeth and John are no longer members of the Atheists of Florida.
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