Always follow the money and the influencers. Oh, and the 501c3s, c4s, etc.
The City of Takoma Park’s influence on MoCo government policy has been covered here before but a quick review of the 501c3 non-profit Old Takoma Business Association’s (OTBA) website provides more visual examples of what this tiny town (population 17,500) does with some of the money and power vested in it, a great deal of it courtesy of Maryland and federal taxpayers (via the federal worker employment base right next door). In a nutshell, it acts as a funder of a “main street” wholly for “aligned businesses” — and as a promoter of every “progressive” cause or event in its immediate area. But beyond that, it also appears that the 501c3 OTBA openly tries to push and prod people visiting its website and events page to wholly partisan (Democrat aligned) 501c4 activities and even express advocacy.
The Old Takoma Business Association says it is a 501(c)(3) organization (EIN 75-3131452), governed by a board of directors elected by the OTBA membership. But – the OTBA is “funded in part by a businesses services agreement with the City of Takoma Park, MD.” Details on how much Takoma Park City is granting here were hard to determine but this funding is conceivably for “Economic Restructuring” in which OTBA “works on issues of business retention and recruitment and networking with the various levels of government.”
This includes “finding Financing for Local Businesses including managing the OTBA’s Revolving Loan fund…” a fund for loans to small biz, but only those small businesses that meet the following criteria:
It gets better – and more clearly supported by the state taxpayer as well. Per thesourceofthespring.com and reporter Mike Diegel, back in February 2021:
The Old Takoma Business Association received a grant of $264,549 from the state of Maryland for its Main Street program, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced today.
So, it isn’t just MoCo taxpayers footing the support for OTBA — it is all state taxpayers paying into a state program fund for “Main Street” and then seeing the money doled out to this non-profit.
In a predictable pattern, the “Main Street” money granted under former Governor Hogan to OTBA, assuming it has not all been spent or allocated already, now flows to the near weekly promotion (by OTBA) of a Takoma based church group using the partisan 501c4 group Vote Forward.
Vote Forward is most definitely a partisan-aligned org, as shown on its website:
Something tells me they won’t be mailing letters to those populations or addresses more open to voting for Larry Hogan for United States Senate.
More to come.
