Fellow ATA Members:
As you know, American Telugu Association was founded in 1990 by a group of people who could not tolerate the arrogance and power mongering by a bunch of people controlling the sister Telugu organization. Unfortunately a similar type of thing is happening at ATA in the last few years, headed by a group of people from Chicago. You might have received a telephone message from a person asking to talk to an ATA Board of Trustee or an ATA regional coordinator in your area about having a conference in Houston this July. What they did not tell you are the reason why the conference is not happening and majority of the ATA members do not know the truth. Below is the summary of what is going on inside ATA board for the last several years, and reasons for ATA to come to this stage today.
The whole thing started a few years ago by one person from Chicago, whose followers call him "KING MAKER", and he wanted to control ATA. He systematically made sure that his friends and some rowdies get elected to the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee (who need to be ATA Board members). He manipulated the whole election process in 2008, starting from selecting a nominating committee, election committee and the election process to elect the board of trustees. There were several irregularities in the election process, which have been brought to the notice of the board of trustees. The board is unable to take any action because of the divisions within the board. The process went to its heights at the board meeting in Las Vegas in selecting executive committee, committee chairs, convention convener, coordinator and regional coordinators. Some of these Rowdies totally ignored the President and in spite of his objections they went ahead and picked people for all positions, which is totally unconstitutional.
Some of the major mistakes that happened at the Las Vegas board meeting were the election of secretary and treasurer, who were not qualified candidates as per ATA constitution. Due to the behavior of some rowdiness in the meeting, some of the important members of the ATA walked out of the meeting after pointing out what has been going and has to stop. The President of the ATA was ridiculed, insulted, and was not allowed to do anything, according to his wishes.
Since January of 2009, several attempts were made by some of the senior members of the ATA to correct the mistakes that happened in the January board meeting which were against ATA constitution and bylaws. In May of 2009, a special meeting was called in New Jersey by the majority of the board and rectified some of the things that happened in January, 2009 Las Vegas meeting. The Chicago gang took the ATA to the court, which cost the ATA around $100,000 in legal fees. In September of 2009, after manipulating the board to their majority, the Chicago gang had a meeting in Chicago and withdrew their case from the court. Currently there is another lawsuit pending about the legalities of the Chicago meeting in court.
The president reserved the best convention center in Houston, blocked hotel rooms and made several preparations to produce one of the best conventions ever.
The president has been trying hard to work with the board to conduct the conference for the last 15 months and presented several proposals. But the Chicago group in the board has been giving problems, starting from selecting the convention convener, coordinator and committee chairs. They wanted to pick all the above people and run the conference in Houston without the president's approval. President tried to call for a board meeting to discuss the status of the conference but he could not get the quorum to conduct the meeting.
The Chicago group basically made it impossible to conduct the conference. Now they want to blame the president by sending a phony phone message to all the members. How can we conduct the conference when there is only two months time left with no money in hand or a conference team in place? Still the president is willing to do the conference if he can get full cooperation of the board and help to raise funds and give him the option of selecting a good local team to run the conference.
There are several issues that need to be resolved prior to thinking of a conference.
Democracy in the organization: There should not be a one-person show. We need to get rid-off the rowdy people from the organization.
Fair elections: We need a third party to conduct elections and the slate system of selecting the candidates has to be abolished.
Financial Transparency: This is the major problem in ATA. There is no need to have a treasurer from Chicago all the time. In this electronic age, using teleconference anyone from any part of the USA can take care of the bank statements and financial issues over the Internet. The present so-called Treasurer does not want to give financial details to the board in spite of the request of the ATA members, Board of Trustees or the President. Writing checks and moving money around into different accounts and opening of new accounts without the knowledge of the board or the President for the last two years is a big problem. Because of lack of transparency there is a court case pending filed by some of the members of ATA to get the financial details from the ATA office.
Chicago Office: We need to move the office from Chicago as most of the ATA problems started there.
We all wanted to have a biannual conference in Houston this July, more so by the president, but we need to see what will be the out come? When most of the senior ATA members involved in NJ conference in 2008, with 2.6 million funds, we had a lot of problems and a deficit of $200,000 as per the Chicago gang. How are we going to do a conference with no cooperation among the board members, or convention team in place, no money at present with only two months time left to do the conference? It would be better to loose some money to the conference center and pay the hotel penalties, rather than doing a poor conference and get a bad name to ATA.
It may be wise to take care of some of these burning problems in ATA and get rid off some of the rowdy elements from the ATA and plan a future conference.
Thank You
Regards
Concern ATA members
Posts
25 comments:
We got another email regarding ATA.
//Dear Fellow ATA Members:
Thank you! We appreciate your response.
We appreciate your overwhelming response to the "ATA Concerns" email. Many of you have asked us to elaborate on the accusations and provide proof. In the coming days we will provide proof for all the allegations made in the previous email. We will also identify the problems in ATA in the following categories:
1. Financial Irregularities
2. Election process manipulation and Fraud during the last elections
3. ATA Board of Trustees code of conduct
We appreciate your valuable suggestions. Our aim is to weed out all the corrupt leaders and Rowdy elements from the organization and make ATA a truly professional organization.
Thank you,
Concerned ATA members//
How ATA evolved?
Atlanta community had a big fight during TANA convention in 1989 in Atlanta. What I heard was, Community leaders shyam Nogalla, Mangaraju Vonapalli, P. Venugopaludu Rao, Ranakuma Nodella and T. Ramachandra Riddy had some misunderstandings. Some of them have no talking terms even after 20 years. This shows that they care for ego more than community unity?
Few disgusted people went to Chicago and started ATA.
I am not sure why Madhu called retired politicians Balram and Sudaker to the stage and gave recognition on ugadi day. Year 2001 was one of the worst years of TAMA and credit for that goes to Balram, Parsad, Padmaltha and sudaker. Team had enough issues during their term and spend all their time to fight with internal issues and infact they went to the streets. They got the record count of annual memberships and went to the elections. Balram's team lost the elections with little margin because other side did better canvassing. They also got the credit for not filing TAMA taxes properly and that is giving severe problems to TAMA executive committee every year. There is a potential risk of losing 501C-status for not doing tax work properly. They never worried about it. Why Madhu's team invited only 2 out of the 4 to the stage and gave recognition? They should have called others also. May be they recognized them because they don't have talking terms even after 10 years. Morale of ugadi function, you don't have to do anything to get recognision. They should feel shameful to get onto the stage and taking recognitions. They can atleast think about their achievements before getting onto the stage. Any TAMA team is better than that year team.
Why these people are taking of lot of time for recognitions? Can't they focus on community work? during Sankranthy and ugadhi functions they use time for recognitions as if they have accomplished something and all they have to do is recognitions?? They wasted innocent people's time before the elections for votes. They are wasting their valuable time after elections for cheap things.
Moorthy K.
I got another email regarding ATA.
//protect-ATA
Deat ATA member
As you all know that the issues in ATA board, ignored the openion of ATA members. Please take this survey to raise your openion.
http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2va3g7wg8i4e9es/start
Thank you for participation .
Sincerely,
Mebmers wants to protect-ATA //
Don't blame Balram . He may not be one of the worst Presidents we have seen in TAMA. He do not have enough organizational skills to manage people in his committee. That was the main reason for his failure.
He is better than Suridra mutyam. Surindra never worked for TAMA as a executove comm member. BY luck he became president not by talent. He used to show some attractions to get volunteers to work for him. Anand is the prime example for his crucked nature. Anands innocense and Surindras cunning nature were the reason for that election. Otherwise our Pinnamaneni would have become president unanimously like any other presidents. Surindra and Viju did several of such nasty things. infact viju endorsed losers before the elections. after the elections he has already joined hands with winners. Pinnamananeni is bether both past presidents. Even TSR i bettr tha them.
Ragva Thoda
Dear ATA Members,
In our previous email we promised you that we will provide proof for the allegations that were made against ATA administration. We have several documents to prove the allegations made. First we will start with the financial irregularities in the organization.
We have attached copies of a few checks, where you can see how your money is being misused:
· Checks have been cashed without signatures (Check No. 3077, 3078 )
· Checks have been written without President’s approval (Check No.1179, 3090)
· A check (1179) has been written for $98,000 without President’s approval/knowledge
· As per Section 7 of ATA constitution any check over $2,500 needs two signatures, a check has been written for $34,479.15 with only one signature and without the approval of the President.
In 2008 the Board of Trustees appointed an ADHOC Committee headed by our past president A.V.N. Reddy garu to look into the finances of ATA. We have attached a few pages of the report in which our past president Dr. Chandra Reddy garu, had written a letter to the ADHOC committee chairman A.V.N. Reddy garu about the 10th ATA conference accounts. He also recommended a detailed auditing by an outside Accounting firm but majority of the Board of trustees do not want an AUDIT…..WHY?
Thanks to our past president for his contributions and he took the first step to clean up the organization by recommending a thorough Audit. Unfortunately current President and Board of Trustees does not have access to ATA finances …….what a joke…. President of ATA and some of the Trustees can’t get a copy of Bank Statements…..than who has access…..we will provide more on this in the next email.
Nowadays most of the Not-For-Profit Organizations are publishing their accounts online. Where as in ATA, President of the organization does not have access to ATA accounts leave alone trustees and members……… In coming days we will provide more information/documents regarding ATA Finances - specifically ATA Funding recipients, cash Withdrawals and unapproved spending.
Thank you for your support and cooperation in saving ATA.
Namasthe!
Concerned ATA Members
pokiri dialogue sponsored by mahesh
chandugaanni chusthe tingarodiki kaaredi....
galthi gotham and kalthi karnakir - meeku asalaina officer tagalaledu anduke website petti vedava veshalu vesthunnaru.
who is the right officer for galthi gotham and kalthi karnakir?
a - laavayya
b - tatayya
c - gurvayya
d - singayya
TAMA will celebrate 30th birthday next year. Who is the right person to lead the exec for the year 2011?
There are several candididates who have the ability to lead the community. Some candidates are ready to lead if they are elected unanimously. Some candidates are ready for elections if there is enough support to win. Some candidates are ready to contest no matter the outrcome. We are going to list the candidates and discuss about their chances. If current team promotes Ravi alla will become next year President.
Ravidenr Reddy Alla - ATA candidate
Dr. P.V. Rao. Whene he started TAMA he relinquished the opportunity because he already had bigger role in IACA.
Dr. BK Mohan - Past HTA President.
Dr. Mangaraju - Past HTA President and past TAMA exec member. Played key role in TANA and now he is in NATS.
Dr. Sujatha Reddy - Past HTA President. Runs Sai Health Fair with lot of energy.
JC Shaker Reddy - Played key role in ATA 2000.
Dr. Vijay Vem - Current VIBHA exec member. Led TAMA sports committee duing Silver Jubilee.
Chris Gadde - Past TAMA executive commitee member. Led TAMA Business Seminar during Silver Jubilee.
Ravi Ponang - Editor IA.
GS Reddy - Telangana Forum
Dr. ranga Rao S. - Co Founder Sai Temple and Past President.
Dr. Hyma Mikkili - HTA President and past TAMA exec
Madhavi Ganda - Past SAI Temple President
Venkat Veera - TAMA Sec and TANA volunteer
Mallik Meda - Past TAMA exec and NATS volunteer
Paddy Rao Atm - Past TAMA executive
Raghava Tadav - past TAMA exec member. Led TAMA Technology committee during Silver Jubilee.
Phani Dokka - Past TAMA exec and coordinated Jaya Prakash Narayan visit to Atlanta.
Venkat Chennubhot - Past TAMA exec and started Amruta Varshini.
Ram Dur - Past TAMA exec
Ramesh Duv - Past TAMA exec
Srinivas Laavu - Helped TAMA during 2009 and coordinator Karnataka CM visit to Atlanta and active NATS volunteer.
Chaudary Dhana - Helped TAMA during 2009 and coordinator Karnataka CM visit to Atlanta.
Dr. Devanand - Past TAMA Exec and NATS volunteer
Laxmi Veda - Past TAMA exec.
Sudakar Valluru - Past TAMA exec.
Prasad Nimmagadda - Past TAMA Vice President.
Gurava Reddy - Active freelance writer. Coordinated YSR victory celebrations.
Poorna Veerap - TANA regional coordinator.
Karunakar Reddy - Past ATA regional coordinator.
Viju Chillu - Past TAMA Technology Committee and my3 coordinator.
Satish Vilas - TAMA volunteer
Tanooja Powwada - Past TAMA Vice president.
Anand Akki - Past TAMA exec member.
Srinivas Cheruku - TAMA and NATS volunteer
Ravindra Singa - TAMA Volunteer.
Gotham Gol - Helped last year TAMA and active sponsor.
Kamal Sat -Past TAMA exec
Srivalli - TAMA volunteer.
Girish Meca - Past TAMA exec and ATA volunteer.
TAMA loses a lot not because of blogs and bad people but because of the silence of good volunteers.
Please come forward with potive vision community is for you.
Analysis about the candidates: It is just my analysis. It is not just about the candidates’ ability it also require the support from all circles. I have taken few names out because they have no interest in TAMA. Also addedfew names.
K Gang: Order of preference from top to bottom.
Kris Gadde ; Dr. Vijay Vem ; Paddy Rao Atm; Dr. Hyma Mikkili ; Dr. Mangaraju; Srinivas Laau; Chaudary Dhana; Sudakar Vall; Mallik Meda; Poorna Veera; Anand Akki ; Tanooja Puvvu; Satish Vilas.
R Gang: Order of preference from top to bottom.
Dr. Sujatha Reddy; JC Sekar Reddy; Ravi Reddy Ala; GS Reddi; Gurva Reddi; Karun Reddi; Ravi Singa; Adi Chinna; Gotham Gol; Madvi ganda; Girish Meca.
Others
Dr. Ranga Rao S; Venkat Veera; Raghava Tadav; Srikon Kon; Morti Rek; Laxmi Veda; Ramesh Duvv; Devanand; Cherku; Phani Dokka; Prasad Nimma; Ram Dur; Srinivas; Venkat Chennubhot; Viju Chillu; Kamal Sat; Srivalli.
Gurvayya philosophy<
No need to worry about TAMA 30th year. No one expected Tatayya will become TAMA President for 2009 while he spent all his time for Prajarajyam ticket in India. You need credibility and luck to become community leader. I see the big list for next year. I can tell one thing from the above list. Greesh reddi and Anand A will never getinto TAMA exec if there is election forget about President post. Last year I was planning to defeat Greesh but now anyone can defeat Greesh Meca.
rames Chapper and tatayya at swapna<
We may not get strong President but we can get sincere President if there is no election. Most of the names in the list are useless. I don't suggest anyone from K gang and R gang. I think one should become president for next year from Others category. Don't bring vijju chillara eru to tama. He is virus to community.
Poornam veer at kamma vilaas<
I don't have cast feeling and anyone can become president except TANA dissidets.
Venkat reddi monday<
I am the right choice and i won in my lost elect got trapped with seeta's politics. I am putting lot of effort for samaikhyandra. TAMA for samaikhyandra not just for telangana.
paddy rao ATM -
I have support from all circles. I let it go lost time because of Tatayya. Why should I let it go this time?
Gopi duggarla>>
We don't like mangaraju so we may not support paddy. This is just internal talk let's not make it public.
lavayya >>
I have support from all groups. Don't waste your time for next year. I need all of you to support.
I guess this is wake up call to community. So far 29 People have served TAMA as Presidents including the current President Madhu.
We need a change and that comes with young generation. Let's not even worry about seniors. They are experienced people but they may not have energy, time and commitment for next generation needs. You can always rely and expect more from new generation.
Let's look at TAMA Silver Jubilee team. No one has experience and all are new to the community. Bala Indurti has picked many new faces like Paddy Rao, Adi Chinntima, Ramesh Duvvuri, Ram Durvasula and Venkat Pandiri to executive committee. They did not have any exprience in TAMA but followed the leadership and did their best. We all know the success of that team. Bala's executive committee also picked 5 experienced peope (Dr. Jaganmohan Rao, Chand Akkineni, Shaker Reddy, Syam Yellamraju and himself) to the planning committee.
Considering the past history I can think of the following folks for the TAMA 30th year. I can suggest 3 names for each position. Names may not be from the above list.
President - Paddy Rao Atmuri or Ravinder Allala or Vijay Vemulapalli.
Vice President - Devanand K or Srinivas Laavu or Venkat Veera.
Secretary - Mallik Medarametla or Gurva Reddy or Alwal Reddy
Treasurer - Ramesh Duvvuru or Kamal Satuluru or Pravin Kaza
Cultural - Vasantha Kandikuppa or Tanuja Puvvada or Sridhar Munagala
Education - Bhushan Mocherla or Raghu Govardhan or Venkat Chennubhotla
Literary - Madhav Darbha or Rao Oleti or Prasad Kalli
Media - Gopi Duggirala or Kiran Kandula or Venu Pisike
Technology - Raghava Tadavarthi or Prashanth Kollipara or Anita Bhaavatula
I am not sure who got the time to analyse in detail about TAMA? It seems the writer has lot of time he/she must be 60 plus year old. Otherwise why the writer stress about youth and list all veterans ofcourse Anita is exception from the list.
We are glad Gurvyya is finally admitted his feelings about Grish and aanund.
When you have 9 positions please pick at least 4 youngsters.
Vibha Vijay is right choice if he is interested and no one objects.
What about Murty Rekkalapuli and Srikanth Kondayya? I think they also did good job to refugees?
First of all Tatayya has to say sorry to community for not doing any charitable activities. If he can not continue his predicessors activities he should have taken up some other project. If tatayya fails then blame goes to chaand because he is instrumental to defeat previsous committee. When you help someone to get into TAMA they should do better. May be tatayya's team is not violating bylaws like previous committee but his team's charitable activities are way below last year team. May be gurvayya is correct, we should not have taken greesh and aanand to last year committee. Because of them that team got defeated so badly. It was not chaand's credit but it is last year executive committees leadership. if we have right leader we can see smooth sailing.
ATlanta is special compare to other telugu associations in USA because of our charitable work. If he can not do charity here then how could he do charity to AP level. glad he did not get the ticket. may be tatayya like people tried for prajarajyam and it has not retained opposition capacity.
So far we saw the people with ATA flavor and TANA flavor. may we should give chance to NATS this time???
sridavi completed scholarship with NATs help that means if we give the chance to NATS they can do good projects? so lavayya may be better than tatayya?
please don't call us for elections and votes. We are tired with phone calls emails.
No one thinks Vijay Vemulapalli, Mallik Medarametla, Gurva Reddy, Alwal Reddy, etc would be interested in serving on the committee.
people like aluwal are much interested in business.
Now the talk of the town is he resigned from the Tama team. This is not published in TAMA website yet.
Now the opposition team is trying to bring it up in the GBM and make a fuss out of it.
what a pity. Tatayya promised a lot and deliverd very less.
People like him are very shame to the society.
emotions ni , caste nu use chesukoni gelicharu ....winning tharvata emi chesaru .
Can they do palleku podam program.
Do these people have any idea how difficult to design and implement such a program.
Mallayya tells his neigbor/friend kiran kandi posted 14th comment and also suggest he put his name.
Before you spread your venum try to have a good plan to spread and malign the image of madhu.Idiot Pallekupodam will be done with the present EC Can't you wait there is time for that also regarding the charity activities i heard that they are planning to do scholarships in a big way and better than the previous guys.So it is bettter to shut your mouth and watch and let them finish their term and analyse.
Kiran kandula gadu pedda pudingi laga GBM ki vacchi janalani count chesthu vaarthalu jeraveshthunnadu.Vedo courrier gadu.Vedini malli new jersy pampisthi sari.
Gurava reddy is the owner for rachabanda.He thinks no body knows about this,Unfortunately every body knows.
Before people talk about charity activities question them selves how much they donated till now we know the answer $0 and write blogs because they don't cost money.I am writing this because I donated to TAMA for some years now.So please question ur self before u pendown something.
Ee Kiran gaadu evadiki power vunte valla side untadu.suddengaa side maaristhuadu. CB Naidu ni pogudukuntu vuntadu malli ys jai antadu. Chivariki evadu nammadu veedni.Pedda pudingi. veededo tama lo pedda leader anukuntadu. Bokkaliruguthai ro kk gaa.
We have to congratulate the current EC for following the bylaws every one expected that they would manipulate and pass the By laws changes but they strictly followed the laws and declare that they could not meet the corum requirements.Guys I am not a supporter of current EC Infact I voted against them but we have to appreciate where they deserve pat and ofcourse critisize objectively.One more suggestion to current EC,Do not waste your time in these unnecessary things try to do some thing new and innovative,You guys have the musle looks to me like you are side tracked in your approach.
rachbanda owner says gurva reddy owner? my owner? atlanta telugollantha owners ee blog ki. okka owner kaadu. hahahaha
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