Community Corner

Teens, Parents Show Support for Former Teen Center Volunteer

Teen Center Board stands by its decision to relieve LC Cunningham from his volunteer duties

LC Cunningham should be reinstated as a volunteer.

That was the message that a group of seven individuals gave to the Teen Center Advisory Board Wednesday during a regular board meeting.

The teens who addressed the board – brothers and Nikki Smith – are members of the Teen Council at the center.

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All three addressed the board as to why it should reinstate Cunningham, who was after the board learned that he was breaking a policy that prevents volunteers from using their personal Facebook accounts to communicate with the center’s teens.

“When this whole entire operation started, it was because there was nowhere in town for teens to go,” Dominic Mendisco said. “LC had an idea to open up this place as kind of a haven for bored teens who have nothing to do on a Friday or Saturday night. I believe you should bring him back, because … during the time that he has done the teen center, working, he has had so many great ideas for this place and without him there we would just lose those great ideas and future things that come to be.”

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“I understand rules are rules .… it’s kind of important to follow them,” added his brother, Ryan. “Basically that one broken rule, I thought it not a big deal. The rule is there for a certain reason, but that certain reason he wasn’t breaking that rule. He was on Facebook breaking up fights. He was there for kids. He was there giving advice and he was doing nothing but good. That one small rule is shadowed by … the tons and tons and tons of great things he’s done for here. He’s here week in and week out. All the kids love him.”

Ryan said that Cunningham served as a father figure to many of the teens at the center. It’s something that Nikki Smith, the third teen to address the board, could relate to, she said. 

“He encourages us to get along,” she said. “He understands what are interests are. To some people, he’s a father figure.”

Smith told the council that when she first started going to the Teen Center, she was too shy to talk to anyone. It was Cunningham who encouraged her to open up to her peers, she said.

“I think LC should come back, it just wouldn’t be the same without him,” she said.

“There’s no benefit in getting rid of him at all,” Ryan Mendisco said. “There are a few kids who come here who have troubled homes and I see his influence on them. If LC wasn’t in their lives, I just think that he is a good influence on them.”

The Teen Council members were not the only ones to address the board. Dixon residents Phillip and Patricia Mendisco, Ryan and Dominic’s parents, and former Dixon School Board Trustee were also in attendance.

Gabby told the board that he first came to know Cunningham during the planning stages of the Teen Center.

“I thought, ‘Is this guy serious? Does he really care as much as he claims?’ But it was true,” Gabby told the board. “I was taken aback. It was unbelievable how much he cared for these kids.”

Gabby said that talking to a kid on Facebook about the Teen Center is no different than seeing a kid in a public place and informing them about Teen Center. He also said that the Teen Center’s Facebook page also receives comments from teenagers.

But Cathy Morris, pastor at and DTC Board member, explained that the difference between the center’s Facebook page and the private pages of volunteers is that the center’s page is monitored by at least two adults.

“It’s the issue of monitoring,” Morris said.

“I know the whole virtual friend and social networking is a slippery slope so I don’t agree with not having some sort of policy,” Gabby said. “I just thought that it was a bit harsh to not just reprimand him but to say, ‘I’m sorry, you are no longer allowed here anymore.’”

Gabby asked the board if someone complained about inappropriate contact between a teen and Cunningham, but the board could not answer his question saying that they were not allowed to comment on private personnel matters.

But Dixon Police Chief and Interim City Manager Jon Cox confirmed that there was no inappropriate contact reported.

Dixon resident Philip Mendisco, Ryan and Dominic’s father, asked the board what prompted them to look into Cunningham’s Facebook practices. The board again cited a personnel issue and declined to comment. Board members would not discuss any specific aspects of the investigation and subsequent dismissal -- including if a warning was issued to Cunningham -- citing the personnel issues.

But Cunningham said, in an earlier interview with Dixon Patch, that it was he himself who told the council that he was Facebook friends with some of the teens at the center. It was soon after that the board requested his resignation, he said.

Mendisco also asked the board if it was planning to investigate the Facebook profiles of all of its volunteers to make sure that they too aren’t in violation of the board’s policy.

Cox told Mendisco that volunteers sign an agreement with the city and they are given the same privacy protections when it comes to personnel matters that’s given to other city volunteers and paid staff. He also said that if anyone knew that a teen center volunteer was communicating with teens inappropriately, they should bring the matter up to the board and it will take the appropriate action.

Most of the people on the board know Cunningham and many of the board members said that the decision was not popular. It was a decision that none of them wanted to make, they said, but that they stand by it.

“I’m a personal friend, close friend of LC, he attends our church,” board member Jamie Myers said. “It’s one of the hardest things I have ever been a part of because of that friendship. He is a friend to my kids and … he has been a huge support for them, personally.”

Myers, who abstained from the vote, said that Cunningham would continue being part of Dixon youths' lives, even if it's not at the center.

Chief Cox, who is also a personal friend of Cunningham’s, said it was a hard decision to make. But he re-iterated that without rules and structure, there would be no Teen Center. He told the group that he wasn’t there to make the decision, but said he stands by it nonetheless.

The board stated that it took a cautious approach to the safety of the teens who frequent the teen center on any given weekend. One board member, Kevin Johnson, said that he did not personally know Cunningham and that he made his decision from the perspective of being a father of eight children.

"I’m a policies guy," he said."When I made my decision, which was the decision that was made, I need you guys to trust me and I am also asking you trust the board, they are all people who follow policy and everything was considered."

Johnson said that 90 percent of discussion that the board had with Cunningham was sadness.

"We all love the teen center, we are all volunteers," he said. "We are here because we care. We need volunteers. We need people that are passionate. There has to be some degree of trust. We are here, the ultimate care is the safety of our kids, we are always going to side on caution."

Patricia Mendisco, Ryan and Dominic’s mother who also volunteers at the center, said that she too had befriended some of her sons' friends who happen to attend the teen center, and asked what would be the appropriate action to take in light of Cunningham’s dismissal.

Pastor Morris told her and the others that the board was in the process of working out a declaration sheet for its volunteers so that they could name the teens that they come in regular contact with through Facebook, sporting events or extra-curricular activities as well as their parents’ names. The forms will be used to keep volunteers within the boundaries of the center’s policies.

Gabby asked the board if there was some sort of period in which Cunningham could re-apply for a volunteer position, Cox told him there was none in place but it’s something that could be discussed at a later, more appropriate time.

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