LAKELAND — Downtown's "alphabet soup" will get a little thinner as the Downtown Lakeland Partnership's executive board agreed to shut down early next year, the board president announced Thursday.

The DLP, created as a nonprofit business league to promote downtown commerce, learned earlier this month it had been operating without a tax-exempt status since 2011 and had not been filing corporate taxes in the six years that followed.

Financially, the organization could probably weather the incident as it would likely be on the line for between $140 and $7,000 in back taxes and fees, President Mark Parker said. But structurally, the organization is in trouble, which he said was revealed when a new executive director took over the job in July.

"The majority of us, while we want the activities to continue, we can't financially afford to put that much time into the organization to make it healthy again," Parker said, and the nine-member board of directors unanimously agreed to close. Parker owns Bella Visage Medical Rejuvenation, a downtown day spa, and has been the DLP president since summer.

The Lakeland Downtown Development Authority may take over DLP's signature events, First Friday and the Food Truck Rally, pending a vote by its elected board. LDDA is the elected authority over a special downtown taxing district.

LDDA Executive Director Julie Townsend said conversations with board members have been positive, but the events need to be self-sufficient and not detract from the public agency's other operations.

"The plan is to get with the DLP folks and evaluate the First Friday event and make sure it is something we can realistically take over and manage," Townsend said.

"I think it makes sense that an organization that is beholden to the downtown stakeholders (the LDDA) … runs these events because they reflect positively and sometimes negatively on the downtown property owners and downtown business owners," she added. The LDDA also hosts a weekly farmers market.

It's not yet clear whether Lori Long, the recently hired executive director of the DLP, would or could be hired to run events with the LDDA. Townsend said it will depend on the finances of those events and governmental hiring rules.

The Ledger left a message for Long at the DLP and did not receive a response.

The DLP's news release insinuated that some of its problems were the result of one person having too much control over the organization's various administrative duties: former executive director Ellen Simms. Simms was named the executive director in 2015, but had performed various paid roles within the organization since 2010. Prior to that, Simms had also performed unpaid work as a board member and treasurer.

"The problem is that when we look back at what was going on, with everything consolidated under one person … things were being kept from the board," Parker said. "I don't think the problem was with the money, it was that she was controlling everything. She was spinning the plates, which made it easy to keep everything behind closed doors."

Simms said she left the organization stable, sustainable and with cash reserves. Simms is the owner of Two Hens and a Hound, a downtown boutique and framing shop that she is closing after 14 years.

"The administration of the organization was transparent, internal controls were in place and the financial position was reported to the Board of Directors in great detail," Simms said. "I cannot speak for what has gone on in the intervening seven months."

As for the loss of the tax-exempt status, Simms said she was told in 2012 by the treasurer, Lynn Dennis, that the issue was being handled.

"I assumed it was handled as I was given no information to the contrary, subsequently," Simms said. "In retrospect, I wish I had pushed back harder on what was being done to fix the problem."

Dennis said the issue was brought to the board in 2012, an accountant contacted and the expenditure approved. It had been presented as relatively simple to fix.

"Regarding Ellen's comment (that Dennis said not to worry about it), I don't recall, but I find it hard to believe. It was not brought up again," Dennis said.

Townsend, the LDDA director and a former DLP director, sent a letter to current DLP board members in December. In it, she said Simms, first as treasurer and then as a paid contractor, had been responsible for filling out tax information. During those years, Townsend said, she always received a Form 1099, an income document for contract workers, which she took as evidence the organization's other tax concerns were handled.

"In retrospect, I regret that," Townsend wrote. She said she had not known of the loss of the tax-exempt status by the time she left the DLP in September 2011, about the same time the IRS was automatically revoking the status.

Though presented as an amicable separation at the time, Simms' stepping down as DLP executive director has since produced discordant tones.

In a July email from Simms to the DLP executive committee, she pushed back on comments presumably made by members that the organization's financial records were "in a mess."

Parker made similar statements to The Ledger earlier this month.

"Those comments impugn my reputation, and distract from the DLP's Achilles' heel: cash flow and continued financial stability," Simms wrote.

Terisa Glover, Simms' partner at Two Hens and a Hound and a close personal friend, called Long "disrespectful and downright unprofessional" in an October email in response to an email newsletter Glover said benefited downtown businesses that weren't DLP members.

She also criticized Long's handling of other events, saying "the membership of the DLP deserves more."

DLP board member Kevin Rios, who owns Just Dance, a downtown dance studio, said it was a difficult decision to end the DLP, but said he sees no value in figuring out on whom to lay blame.

"This is a situation that has occurred over X amount of years, and there's been a lot of hands in that pot," Rios said. Rios joined the board within the past year.

He said he hasn't been privy to much of the discussion since the tax-exempt status was discovered and had not seen the DLP's news release by the time he was contacted by The Ledger.

He said he hopes the mission of the organization can be met again in the future.

"The biggest thing to look at is not what went wrong but what good has been achieved by the DLP. Hopefully, an organization will come in the future that will fill this gap," he said.

The DLP will cease operations Feb. 9, remaining as a financial committee to wrap up the organization's final obligations. The remaining funds will be donated to an undetermined nonprofit organization.

Christopher Guinn can be reached at Christopher.Guinn@theledger.com or 863-802-7592. Follow him on Twitter @CGuinnNews.