He should remove every piece of advertising and site sponsorship. He should remove the paid sponsor threads and any other form of Howie elitism he has in there. Remove every staff member there and start fresh, one moderator that is dedicated can handle that site in it's current state without a problem. Just let people be admins and socialize.
He has to see anything he has tried is an utter failure, which clearly shows he has no concept on running a forum. Time to let someone else run it, and no one that is staff currently/formerly either.