To the Editor:

The Hayden Project is being presented to the public as a Senior Services project.

Senior Services is a non-profit with a community purpose. But this presentation is not totally true.

Nothing is known about Senior Services’ equity partners other than they exist, and Mayor Raystine Johnson-Ashburn and Councilwoman Mary Hilliard have not explained to the community what their deal is with the mysterious equity partners.

When Senior Services mentions their financing scheme, they never say how much money, if any, the equity partners are putting into the project. But it seems that somewhere down the line the equity partners will be able to possibly dispose of the building after maybe 15 years.

Johnson-Ashburn, Hilliard and their alliance know that they are fooling the public because they know that they are also selling Hayden to a mysterious group or a mysterious individual, or a mysterious collection of individuals.

The only question is should we know who the mysterious equity partners are?

An equity partner is a partner in a partnership who is a part owner of the business, and is entitled to a proportion of the distributable profits of the partnership.

Johnson-Ashburn and Hilliard know who they are, but are refusing to tell the community for some reason. Why not tell who they are? Why not tell us how much profit they expect? Why didn’t everybody in the community get a chance to be a equity partner and make some money on the deal? Well, that is a mystery too.

During City Council and Planning Commission meetings, the Hayden Group name has been mentioned. Many people think the Hayden Group is the Hayden Alumni Association. This is incorrect.

I talked to the president of the Hayden Alumni Association and she said they are not equity partners in the Hayden Project.

So is there a Hayden Group involved? Only Johnson-Ashburn, Hilliard and their keep-too-many-secrets alliance know and they aren’t telling.

Thomas Councill Jr.
Franklin