It Takes A Village…
…TO UNCOVER ALL OF THE GRAFT IN BHL’S OPIOID SLUSH FUND.
You, my friends, comprise that village. Let’s all do this together.
First, the raw materials. Here are all of the 2023 grants:
If anyone has the 2024 list, please share.
Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to identify grants that never should have been, um, granted; ties between BHL and the grant recipients; and anything else that looks problematical to you.
We already have the Code Purple scandal.
We now know that the TV station that nobody has heard of received funds, oh, and then had BHL on for a softball interview. The stated purpose of the funds going to DETV?:
The funding will be used to implement a media strategy to promote access to information on opioid use, particularly synthetic opioids like fentanyl. The campaign will use broadcast and digital messaging to educate citizens on the facts about opioid use disorder. Evidence-based communication activities include advertisements, public service announcements, social media posts, podcasts, webinars, and expert panel discussions.
Oh, and a station that nobody watches is gonna do this? Which reminds me, and is a suggestion to all you sleuths out there: Many of these grants are for information campaigns on opioid use. I’m pretty damn sure that everybody knows that opioids are dangerous. Exactly what gaps are we filling, other than the gaps in certain grifters’ bank accounts? Please discuss.
I’ll add one more, then leave the rest to you. Something called the Congo Tarir Project. We all know by now who the Congo(s) is/are. They’ve been granted, wait for it, $475,000. Being a fair man, I decided to search the intertubes to learn more about this ‘project’. Guess what? The only links are the ones directly to BHL’s slush fund. Meaning, the Congos are being gifted this money for a brand new project for which they appear to be singularly unqualified. Check out what they say they’ll do for the money:
Funding will be used to support the establishment of a resource hub in an opportunity zone in Wilmington. The resource hub will be focused on youth and their families by providing opioid misuse education and prevention information. The hub will also offer anti-opioid and other drug interventions in an environment that provides alternative activities known to prevent and decrease
opioid use disorder in high-risk communities.
Oh. No beds. No treatment. If State Auditor Lydia York does not investigate this grant, she’s not doing her job. I, however, suspect she will look at this one.
OK, kids, I’ve started this off. The rest is up to you.
Have at it.
I just put up a post on Exceptional Delaware where I name dropped Bethany Hall-Long. Her ties to Naveed Baqir need to be looked at as well. With all of Baqir’s very shady purchases and shell companies, this cannot be ignored. Especially with the talk of Section 8 housing. To be perfectly clear, I have no skin in the game for who is Governor of Delaware. I live in NY now. And before any naysayers say it, I have never been approached by any of the candidates or their campaigns. I’m just reporting.
https://exceptionaldelaware.com/2024/07/30/shellshock-the-naveed-baqir-files-part-11/
That is a remarkable series Kevin. Poor Christina School District.
A school board member who lied about his residence to get elected in the first place, attends School Board meetings remotely from Pakistan because he would probably be arrested by the Feds if he comes back to the US, casts the decisive votes in controversial motions to oust the Superintendent.
Only in Delaware. Chris Barrish must be thinking “So many crooks, so little time.”
“attends School Board meetings remotely from Pakistan because he would probably be arrested by the Feds if he comes back to the US”
wait, what?
None of that poor Christina School District stuff please. Christina and its staff are great students, and people. We are a wonderful village with a crazy HOA
“We are a wonderful village with a crazy HOA.”
LOVE it.
My source has told me that the Auditor is reviewing the grants. But that Code Purple was so full of after-the-fact messiness that they were completed first.
And to defend the opioid grants a little, DETV is the successor of Ch 22, so it is watched by a bunch of people in the city. They could, for example, be a resource for how to get access to Narcan, treatment, and test strips to test for fentanyl. I’m picturing a grandma that watches it and orders some Narcan in case someone they are close to ODs at her house.
And I don’t know anything about the Congo grant, but if you think that a funeral home isn’t a great place to catch people in a time of their life where they might be interested in getting treatment, I don’t know what to tell you. That doesn’t mean that this is what their grant does, but on it’s face, I’m not completely skeptical.
YMMV.
You know where people are interested in getting treatment? Treatment centers. You know what they’re doing with the money instead? Giving it to lots of the usual suspects to do stuff with no demonstrated efficacy (not true of all of it, but a good bit).
So yeah, my mileage varies.
A reminder for Facts and anyone else tempted to engage in it:
1) No outing. That will get you banned. If someone posts here under an avatar or pseudonym, that’s how you address them.
2) No flaming. That will get you banned. Take your personal beef to the person directly, don’t do it here under cover of anonymity.
That’s why your comment disappeared, and any others like it will too.
Well we have heard 2 of the most questionable agency grants defended..
I have give or take 40 years experience at this stuff including employment or consulting gigs at several large providers and one small one along with chairmanship of about 10 years of the Governirs Council on Substance Abuse and Mental Health. I offered to help BHL repeatedly over the years and was ignored.
I am going through every request, the good news is that a majority that I’ve looked at so far look legit but many stink to high heaven.
I will report my findings in a few days,
What happened to Bethany? She didn’t used to be like this.
I will say that she has previously done good things in Delaware and it brings me no pleasure to say this but she should drop out. She’s ahead in the polls and if someone like Mike Ramone wins the GOP primary she will most likely lose. They are going to beat her over the head over this stuff and the independents will go for the R candidate.
This race is wide open. No poll that I’ve seen has less than 40% undecided. People are only now starting to pay attention. I can’t see her beating Meyer.
BTW, that so-called poll we saw floated? Not only is it outdated, but the pollster, Public Policy Polling, is ranked, wait for it, #206 by 538 when it comes to accuracy and methodology:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/
After Kathy Jennings sent her letter to the Commission about BHL’s mismanagement, Peggy Geisler angrily accused the AG of going on a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
Peggy Geisler is a Bethany campaign donor, and she’s also the Director of the Sussex County Health Coalition- which got a nice big grant from Bethany.
https://delawarelive.com/delaware-opioid-officials-blast-the-ag-then-award-2-million-in-grants/
Yep, $75 K this time around. $300K in 2023. For this stated purpose:
“Funding will be used to support Delaware Goes Purple with a “yes I narCan” lifesaving campaign. The campaign is targeted to harm reduction through Narcan distribution with a strong focus on individual households.”
Maybe it’s worth the money, maybe it isn’t. But I have seen nothing to even suggest that the ‘Opioid Distribution Grants’ program has anything even approaching an empirical process to ensure that these grants are making any kind of a difference.
For example, all these media outreach programs. To me, when taken as a whole, many of them appear redundant and, in some cases, a total waste of money.
I haven’t heard of half of this sh*t and I’m in Sussex, and in the business.
Good point, Beach Karen. There are a lot of names on there that make me go- what the hell is that?
AHS, CMS Contracting, Love & Hope Rescue Mission, Community Outdoor Recreation Education, Triumph Program, Saint Albert’s, Women of Exception….
Anyone ever heard of these?
You can’t just throw names out there. I’ve never heard of a lot of them, but I don’t pretend to be an expert.
Since somebody tried to raise questions about St. Albert’s in an e-mail, I did a little research and found out that the person who heads the program has both Masters’ and Doctorates from Jefferson Medical, and appears well-qualified to provide the services represented in their proposal.
This has been tough, and this year has been exceedingly tough when it comes to trying to separate what’s true from what’s simply been throwing shit on the wall.
If that translates into a lack of enthusiasm by me for any of the candidates for Governor, so be it.
Fair point, let me be clearer. I’m not trying to throw shade on these orgs, so I probably shouldn’t have named them. There are actually a couple small orgs who received grants that I’m familiar with, and they do excellent work. The ones I’ve never heard of may also do good work.
My point is, it seems that BHL is more focused on distributing these funds widely than distributing them as effectively as possible. She wants to dole out money to a wide array of grantees, large and small, to earn widespread political goodwill. But I really doubt that spreading the money around to 80 different grantees is better than providing all the money to the 20-30 most effective and most well-run orgs.
my top 3 wastes of Money
Congo, Claymont Renaissance and DETV
Dead people, train stations and a bullshit artist saving the world from addiction…. not so much!!!!
By the way, I can confirm – Lydia York is auditing the Trippi Congo grant. Cannot wait for the results.
While I like the person who, for all intents and purposes IS the Claymont Renaissance, sorta an unofficial Claymont Chamber of Commerce, that grant was nothing but a hand-out to a longtime supporter of Bethany.
I appreciate that you like me (I like you too), and true, my husband and I have contributed to BHL’s (& Meyer’s) campaign in the past, but you are dead wrong about our Recovering Claymont Lives Program being a handout. The nonprofit Claymont Renaissance Development Corp. (CRDC) mission is economic development and neighborhood revitalization. Yes Joe Conner, we were instrumental in securing a $90M public transit center for Claymont, but CRDC was also key in the rehabilitation of 18 blighted homes for affordable homeownership in Overlook Colony. Since Claymont is not incorporated, the CRDC wears a lot of hats.
The opioid settlement funds grant has afforded us the ability to address the addiction health crisis and the pain that it brings to one of Claymont’s most challenged neighborhoods, Knollwood.
We have hired a program manager with experience managing much larger Federal opioid abatement grants. The Recovering Claymont Lives program has partnered with a peer to peer addiction support nonprofit, and mental health, housing and food insecurity nonprofits.
We have gained trust in this isolated community and helped a growing number of residents in need. Knollwood has not been much of a beneficiary of Claymont’s renaissance as other areas have, and we aim to do our best to make a dent in the drug culture and the hopelessness some on “The Hill” feel.
The CRDC receives less than 10% of the grant money’s received to pay for administrative costs and my time. The rest of the funds are being put to work for the common good. I would be happy to email you our program’s scope of work and the regular reports we send to the grant administrator assigned to us.
Brett Saddler
CRDC Executive Director
Exactly how many people do you have in this program, and how many have you graduated from your program. You should have verifiable numbers handy. What are they?
Flowery words are meaningless…what are your numbers?
Graduates? It is not a certificate program or a boot camp. There are multiple metrics that measure impact and success in opioid abatement. Bear with me, I’m not the expert in this field but I know how to find qualified professionals who are. They include our program manager, a Claymont resident with both extensive work and lived experience with substance abuse, and the specialized NP’s/firms we have contracted with to provide services under our direction.
Of the 122 households in Knollwood, so far we have surveyed 60% of all adult residents. The results to be part of a needs assessment report. Our certified peer support specialist has counseled 22 substance abusers and several of them voluntarily entered residential treatment that we arranged. We are working towards getting space in a quality sober living residence outside of the neighborhood for those who want to get away from the local triggers.
Trust and community building may seem like flowery language to you, but they are key to empowering the residents and getting more residents in recovery/housed. The events we have either sponsored or supported helped us change the perception of us being outsiders swooping into Knollwood, giving out some NARCAN, then leaving. We have hired a well known resident as support staff and are paying rent of $24K to the Knollwood community center for their support and to get the building ready for use as a food pantry to address that insecurity.
One focus of the grant showing Claymonters helping other Claymonters in need. The CRDC plans to use our non grant funds to begin a resident supported neighborhood revitalization strategy that will hopefully entice government to fund a housing program and other infrastructure improvements. Oops, sorry. Getting flowery again.
You obviously have no idea what opioids do to a person, family and community. Your metric means nothing to a kid born to an addicted mother, or a mother raising their daughter’s or granddaughter’s kid. It is insulting to people that have had their communities destroyed by open selling on their streets or overdoses in their front yard.
Stop trying to fix one aspect of a pervasive problem, idiot.
Kendra Johnson was an early endorser of BHL. And she’s an Exec at Coras and Conexio. Both places got money.
Also Brett Saddler may do perfectly good work. Maybe Coras and Conexio do too for all I know.
But supporting Bethany and giving her money gave them a leg up in competing for these grants. And that’s a problem.
Here is the website for the Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission:
https://ltgov.delaware.gov/prescription-opioid-settlement-distribution-commission/
I am finding it a little crazy that we are impugning a bunch of people and organizations because of one of the co-chairs (but for some reason the other co-chair is cool). Meanwhile, people are second-guessing the grants made and randos on the Internet are demanding people answer to them on how effective they have been in the 6 months or so since they received their funding.
Let’s not assume that every grant went to an ineffective program. Read the grant requirements and the goals of the commission (as laid out in the opioid settlement agreement- which is also on the link above).
One needn’t be a supporter of any gubernatorial candidate to at least give these non-profits some space to do their work without us being up in their grills.
There is also a very, very, very easy way to safeguard against this. One taken by many elected officials….they recuse themselves from substantive decisions about grants.
The elected can still be the head of the commission, create a scoring rubric for grants, and then appoint independent people to review.
BHL chose not to do that because she isn’t concerned about either the appearance of impartiality…or actual impartiality. She wanted to give money to people who support her.
This isn’t rocket science.
I’m sorry but, no, these are public monies… we need to be up in their grills. We should do that for any politician but especially one who has proven to be untruthful and unable to manage money effectively or morally
That’s reality. I know the BHL camp doesn’t exist in reality but if you hang with crooks – don’t be so surprised people will think you’re a crook.
Lie with dogs and get fleas. Lie with Bethany and get hauled into the AG.
Here’s the difference. My idea for this thread was to focus on specific examples of highly-questionable grants, including grants to donors of her campaign whose stated objectives raised questions about whether the grants had any value.
That is different from painting all of the recipients with the same broad brush.
So. I will ask you: On whose behalf are you raising these issues?
I don’t know if that question was directed at me, but I will answer.
I am defending grant recipients (like Brett above) from random attacks. I am not doing it on behalf of any office-holder or seeker. I am doing it as a guy who’s wife has a career that has been mostly grant-funded, under-funded and often under-appreciated. I don’t want to see people shying away from grants from this settlement because they fear that some internet troll is going to show up at their office to call them fraudsters.
This is the other reason for the people in charge (Bethany Hall-Long) to run a competent process with checks on improper political influence. If she had done her job like a competent leader, creating absolute impartiality and robust checks on the recipients qualifications, the grant recipients would be insulated from these attacks.
She is the one who has put the recipients in this position, not concerned voters who are worried about impropriety.
No. My question was directed at Facts.
They haven’t answered it yet.
“Lie with Bethany and get hauled into the AG”
You know what they call the AG on this commission? Co-chair.
I swear to god, the thing that always gets me is when people overplay their hand. This one is particularly irksome since there is is such a problem with opioid addiction and deaths. You’re throwing babies out with bathwater here. And in this case, some of them are literal babies that will be harmed by the assumption that this is all money-grubbing instead of a few poorly-run charities that met the requirements for being awarded a grant.
See my comment above. I am not operating for any candidate. And if someone was on here bitching about the Hope Center that NCC created, I would defend that as well.
Fair enough. We are just going to disagree on this.
” few poorly-run charities that met the requirements for being awarded a grant.” This is what this thread is trying to fix. You lose all credibility here, dude.
Often, charities aren’t known to be bad until something happens. But this thread seems to have devolved into an assumption that they are all guilty until proven innocent. There is literally a single data point (and it was already being investigated before this thread).
Credibility, some have said I have none so beware. So far 8 million give or take has been distributed so if 12% is being dropped in an open hole that’s a million bucks wasted and potentially being scarfed up by BHL cronies. That’s the very real damage of a “few poorly run charities”. When one undertakes to defend the indefensible the first loss is one’s credibility!
The issue isn’t even whether a charity is ‘poorly-run’. The question is–how much of this money is being spent on things that have NO IMPACT on addressing opioid addiction. I go back again to all the money being spent on ‘educational’ outreach. I mean, who doesn’t know that it’s bad to take opioids? How will repeating this over and over again will have any impact, and how can BHL’s commission measure this empirically?
Here is the link to the priorities as they were set up BEFORE any applications:
https://ltgov.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2023/05/2023-Delaware-Grant-Award-Priorities_2.10.2023.pdf
And as for the WHY, you want to look at Schedule B Section G for the educational outreach in the settlement:
https://ltgov.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2022/12/Final-Distributor-Settlement-Agreement-12.23.21_Exhibit-E.pdf
This is all on the main page of the commission website. If the plan here is to actually read the documents, let’s start at the beginning, where everything is stipulated before any settlement money was allocated.
“How will repeating this over and over again will have any impact, and how can BHL’s commission measure this empirically?”
I don’t think I’m outing anyone by repeating that your wife is a pharmacist. She knows people that have been overprescribed. I have a person in my life that became addicted after a joint replacement surgery. Luckily they recognized it before it got too awful, but it was not painless to stop taking them. That’s literally why there was a settlement. It is soooo easy to become addicted that it catches people that don’t make the connections.
Last link for the night (the second google hit for “research opioid addiction campaigns”). Are we in favor of research-based programs or not?
https://www.cdc.gov/rx-awareness/media/pdfs/2024/03/Overview-Rx-Awareness-Resources.pdf
I’m in favor of coming up with a plan and executing it, not just doling out money to organizations who’ve come up with some well-worded explanation of how to fund their programs. I’m sure most of them will put the money to good use – the Congos I wouldn’t bet on, they’re parasites – but the state’s most glaring deficiency is lack of beds for treatment, and I see nothing in these grants that addresses that.
For me, the issue isn’t that these groups got the money. It’s that the people who got it saw fit to then donate to BHL. This gives the appearance of a quid pro quo, and there’s really no convincing way to prove there wasn’t one. That’s why ethical standards usually ban the appearance of impropriety.
I also have a son-in-law who is a statistician. A genius.
He could explain why the system as set up is not capable of evaluating the empirical results of the grants.
One more thing–these so-called 2024 grants have been designated as ’emergency’ grants. The Congos and that TV station are both beneficiaries. Would someone please share with the public how the Congos spent the FIRST $475K? I bet that nobody can.
I’m sorry, the more I dig into this, the more I see a slush fund. You mentioned that the AG is co-chair. But you know that she has no say whatsoever in who gets the grants. She has urged the Commission to stop awarding grants. To no avail.
The State Auditor has already identified one blatant example of misuse of funds and is investigating others.
Nobody, certainly not me, is arguing against the effective use of these funds. But what appears to have happened is that grants have been awarded on a ‘first-come/first-served’ basis, according to the Attorney General. That makes no sense, at least not to me.
I’m not sure why you would think that Jennings has “no say whatsoever”. Here are the minutes from the July 2023 meeting (I found this by looking at some meeting minutes on the site I linked above. There was a note that the 2023-B funding round was approved in July 2023, and here we are):
https://publicmeetings.delaware.gov/Document/75568_Minutes-Final.pdf
Are you suggesting that the AG, although in attendance, didn’t vote? Peruse those minutes. I did. It should put to bed any concerns about Kendra having a conflict. the conflict was noted and she recused herself. The AG engaged in the debate and asked questions.
Why would you think that Republicans aren’t making a deal out of this? Mike Smith was in the meeting. Same with Richardson. There are some good questions raised and answered in those minutes. You know, like you would have in a functioning committee within a functioning democracy and bureaucracy. But Facts and Beach Karen apparently didn’t attend.
Finally, the Auditor did indeed find a problem with Code Purple. But so far it is a single data point and a lot of people predicting a trend. Let’s get the first few done and see where we are before we burn down the house.
The trend is that lots of people who got money also donated to her campaign. Why? “That’s the way we do it in Delaware” is not a strong answer.
I assume that there will be a similar effort to cross-reference with the AG’s campaign finance report (not to mention the other electeds on the committee).
Especially when one considers the Jennings’ campaign histories of sign-stealing, accessing information illegally for political gain, and criminal violations of campaign finance law.
Oh, wait…
“I assume that there will be a similar effort to cross-reference with the AG’s campaign finance report (not to mention the other electeds on the committee).”
You still don’t get it. That’s the point. The whole system is rotten. They all scratch each other’s backs. Fish don’t know they’re in water.
My gripe about her, besides having a husband with money-handling problems, is her lack of ability to do anything but form committees. Oh, I forget, that’s “forging consensus.” What a bunch of corporatoid bullshit.