Did Wilmington’s Mayor Try to Funnel $4 Million to Southbridge Church?
On today’s Al Mascitti Show on WDEL, featuring notable guest El Somnambulo, both a City Council member and a city pastor alleged that the Williams Administration budgeted $4 million that would go to a Southbridge church to help build a gymnasium. According to both Wilmington Councilman Michael Brown and Reverend Derrick Johnson, the church in question is the church of City Councilman Justen Wright.
According to Councilman Brown, council members became suspicious because the destination for the money was unspecified in the city budget, and that subsequent investigation determined that the money was scheduled to go to the church, and council removed the money from the budget.
Councilman Wright and Council President Theo Gregory had gotten into a previous confrontation over Wright’s allegation that Gregory had removed him from the Finance Committee.
While neither Brown nor Johnson mentioned the church in question, Wright’s bio lists his church affiliation as the Ezion Fair Baptist Church. One of its stated missions is ‘physical fitness’.
Anyone have anything more to add, other than the obvious ‘if this is true, then it’s a violation of the separation between Church and State’?
Tags: Councilman Justen Wright, Councilman Michael Brown, El Somnambulo, Featured, Mayor Dennis Williams, Pastor Derrick Johnson, Steve Tanzer Delaware
Should be easy enough to prove. File a FOIA for correspondence, emails, etc., between and among administration offcials, council members, and church representatives regarding the church. Something of that magnitude had to be written down.
Oh wow. An unholy alliance between “pastors” and city politicians. Who woulda known.
This? http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20121119/NEWS/311190040/Ground-broken-future-Southbridge-community-center
I thought that the number was $2M? In any event, Justin Wright and Theo Gregory have been sparring all Council session. I’m surprised that anyone thought that this would fly in Council — especially in light of how the Council turned down Pastor D’s contract to do some non-violence counseling last year.
But if you were paying attention to the NJ, the last of the budget negotiations between Williams and Gregory were attended by Rev. Silvester Beaman AND Jea Street. No idea why his pastor attended this negotiation.
I noticed the paper mentioned the pastors attendance and found it rather curious.
I do hope it is not true the Mayor and Councilman were trying to fund a church project with city dollars.
I know of at least one project where a councilman and a legislator moved some DELDOT funds around to pave a parking lot belonging to a prominent city church. Equally illegal.
Had nothing to do with Dennis Williams. Other side of town.
The Justin Wright show was VERY interesting on Sunday – he was very chatty trying to justify his budget vote.
Then Norman Oliver had Theo and Maria (Council Pres and At Large Reps) and Justin called in to further complain. The church funding didn’t come up but it was a really good show. It will be up on facebook soon at “Comm Crossfire”.
The plastic palm on that local access station is the longest-running shrub in Delaware TV history.
The question is not whether this is a separation of church and state, the question is whether undue influence is at work to funnel tax dollars to favored organizations. Don’t get me wrong, Southbridge has community needs and this church may very well provide them, but in the absence of an explanation from the council/mayor, the public is left to guess what that money was intended for.
I checked out the above NJ link I see the date is 11-19-2012. So would this not be under Baker’s term?? and not Williams??.
Bob: According to Brown and Johnson, this proposal was in the budget that Williams submitted.
And I’m reporting what they alleged.
If what they alleged is wrong, then that’s important to flesh out, and it clearly raises questions of the credibility of those making the allegations.
The article was about the groundbreaking. It’s possible that work was begun with fundraising still ongoing.
Doesn’t FOIA not cover emails?
Emails to and from state legislators were exempted. All other emails are public, unless they fall under narrow exemption categories.
Link to minutes of October 12 DEDO Infrastructure Investment Committee
Discussion of funding Ezion Fair project.
http://www.dedo.delaware.gov/dedo_pdf/NewsEvents_pdf/minutes/2012/October4_2012_InfrastructureInvestmentMeetingMinutes.pdf
I have confirmation that Councilman Brown noted that this project was in Mayor’s proposed budget for $2M, not $4M.
The funding that is discussed in the DEDO document that AGovernor links to is one part of the whole project. Ezion went to DEDO for a 1.8M grant for a building and some site infrastructure work and they got approx 1.3M for the site infrastructure work. This doc does not make it clear what this infrastructure work is, but I’m thinking that DEDO ought to publish approved proposals.
Did Councilman Brown clarify where the $2 million was supposed to come from?
I didn’t speak directly to Councilman Brown, but it was a capital item. Which I believe means that funds would come from bonds, but I’m not sure about that.
Ezion is building a community center in South Bridge. I think their non profit is requesting the funds, technically not the Church itself. If that is the case, there would be no separation issues. It’s a fine line.
If anyone gets the urge to drive through South Bridge, land clearing has already begun for the project adjacent to the church itself. They will run child care programs out of the facility and other activities to assist the community including providing facilities for people to work out. Some folks can’t afford those $50 a month YMCA memberships.
In fact… yes. According to the minutes that AGov posted, Ezion Fair CDC is the non-profit arm of the church’s members. It is not the church itself. Technically this is not illegal because Ezion Fair Community Development Corporation is not a church. As many of you know, the church has been a powerful force for good and bad in urban America. However, the most culturally aware churches understand that they must actively tend to the needs of the community. However, their are understandable limits to the reach that churches have to accomplish these goals. So the more aware churches start non profits. Its not illegal nor is it uncommon. South Bridge needs help and it doesn’t look like they’ll get it without groups like Ezion CDC.
Infrastructure is fine. Building not sure, but really I need more info. I think the issue is what are govt funds being used for and why there?For the city funds that were cut why there and not for Hicks? Why hide it in capital budget why not be upfront with what you are trying to do? The lack of transparency is the issue.
But it is Capitol Infrastructure. Most Capitol Infrastructure committees allocate funds for buildings, repairs, and aide. Even the General Assembly’s Capitol Infrastructure Committee does this. I don’t think this was being hidden.
Question the judgement of selecting this particular project; Thats fair. But I don’t think the process was shady. They proposed a line item in the budget for a project that had already been vetted and awarded aide by the State, and the council voted it down. I don’t think there’s anything here.
How about this. Wright is a councilman at large I may be wrong but I have heard no mention of the district council person supporting or asking for funds from the city for the project. This is the kind of behavior that makes one think here is something amiss with the request. And yes I know it was removed.
We’re getting closer, but I think there are still a couple of questions.
From what I’ve read, the infrastructure dollars became available due to a flooding situation for which the state was responsible.
In the case of the dollars the Administration attempted to provide, Councilman Brown and Pastor Derrick Johnson alleged that it was to build a gymnasium. And they mentioned Councilman Wright by name as the mover and shaker behind this fiscal request.
Is that accurate? And, if it was for a gymnasium, then I, for one, don’t think that it’s constitutional for a non-profit, created by the church, to access public dollars for such a purpose. And I don’t understand why the purpose would be kept secret unless someone WAS trying to hide something.
BTW, thanks everybody for your contributions here. We’re learning a lot from some really-informed commenters, which is why I wrote the piece in the first place.
They proposed a line item in the budget for a project that had already been vetted and awarded aide by the State, and the council voted it down. I don’t think there’s anything here.
The church’s project was not vetted by the state — and the award moneys are supposed to be for infrastructure work up to the curb of the planned building. Here’s what’s too opaque about this — what infrastructure did they award funds for, exactly? The minutes of the meeting discuss a wide range of plans and ambitions by the church with a specific note from Levin that the DEDO funds do not fund buildings. But this is an across-the-board problem — better, final descriptions of all of the projects they fund ought to be available from DEDO.
As for the city’s process for selecting this project for funds — as long as no one really knows how this project got proposed for funds over the many other worthy projects in the city, the process is shady.
Actually, let me put that differently. The Ezion project got nowhere near the public vetting that Pastor D’s ($70K or so) training project did.
Cassandra that is exactly the point. You got it. I am continuing to try and find answers short of a FOIA request, though that may come.
A FOIA request is easy and simple. Why not?