Either BHL Or Kathy Jennings Is Lying. Correction: BHL Is Lying.
Her and her Opioid $$ Operators.
If you haven’t already, read Cris Barrish’s story. Some choice excerpts:
Delaware prosecutors are investigating how nonprofit Code Purple Kent County spent $290,000 from the state’s opioid settlement windfall, spurring Attorney General Kathy Jennings to call for an immediate halt to grants from the multimillion dollar fund aimed at reducing overdose deaths from prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl.
Jennings is co-chair with Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long of the 15-member committee that since last year has allocated $14.4 million to dozens of agencies that presented plans to help remediate Delaware’s opioid epidemic.
(Omigod, some of the recipients raise a bleepload of questions in my mind. Click on that ‘dozens of agencies’ link. But, that’s a topic for another day…)
The question of how Code Purple has spent money has also become an issue in the 2024 governor’s race.
That’s because Lt. Gov. Hall-Long, who is in a three-way Democratic primary for the state’s top political post, accepted the maximum donation of $1,200 from Code Purple leader Ennio Emmanuel Zaragoza just days after the agency received the $290,000 whose use is now being investigated. (BHL officially got the donation from ‘Ennio Emmanuel’, and also got a smaller donation from ‘Ennio Zaragoza’. We now know that they’re both the same person. He’s donated more than the maximum allowable donation, Bethany. Just wanted to let you know so that you don’t run further afoul of campaign finance laws.)
The Prescription Opioid Settlement Committee that Jennings and Hall-Long co-chair operates within the Delaware Behavioral Health Consortium that is part of the lieutenant governor’s office.The consortium, which Hall-Long alone chairs, must give final approval to all recommendations for funding.
This is where I need to encourage you to read the entire story. Barrish recounts the spate of controversies concerning BHL’s use of campaign funds. He points out throughout the story that BHL has refused to comment on any of this and/or answer questions. To me, though, the key takeaway is that AG Jennings puts the lie to the claim by BHL and her staff that they discovered the misuse of funds and swiftly moved to address it:
Holloway also did not agree to an interview, but said in a written statement issued by Hall-Long’s office that the dozens of opioid settlement grant recipients are monitored by a staff member who “regularly communicates with grantees, conducts site visits, and assesses compliance. Funding is frozen if discrepancies are flagged and validated.”
Holloway’s statement said that in the case of Code Purple, her staff “noticed data inconsistencies, which triggered a manual review of the numbers. Unsatisfied with the review, funding was immediately frozen while staff conducted two site visits to gain more insight’’ from the agency.
“They were unsatisfied with their additional review and as a result, funding was then permanently frozen in December 2023, and the organization has not received money since.”
Hall-Long’s statement piggybacked on what Holloway said.
“The disbursement of funds occurs in phases after thorough data reviews and site assessments. Non-compliance with these standards results in an immediate cessation of funding for the recipient. In addition to having funds halted, an awardee would be referred to the proper state agencies for investigation, ensuring that violators are subject to the appropriate consequences. This process worked recently when issues were raised.”
Jennings, however, provided a different account of the workings of the commission and her efforts to safeguard what she referred to as “lifesaving dollars” for people at risk of drug overdoses.
The attorney general wrote that, for the last 16 months, she’s been vocal at the public meetings and “repeatedly expressed serious concerns” about how money is allocated and monitored.
Jennings wrote that in February 2023, she sought to postpone the next month’s meeting “to give the commission time to review applications more thoroughly” and that previously, her own staff “had to advocate for commission staff to remove clearly inadequate, incomplete, or unmerited applications from its grant recommendations.”
She also expressed concern about inaction on “adopting a strategic plan that would help ensure we base grants on impact, rather than rubber-stamping spending on a first-come, first-served basis.”
And now, 20 months after grants were first awarded, Jennings contended in her letter that “we still do not know where these funds will be most useful, how we will measure their impact, or even whether our grantees are compliant. This project is rife with potential for fraud, waste and abuse.”
I suspect we’ll soon learn learn that we can strike the phrase ‘rife with potential for…’ in the previous sentence, and substitute the phrase ‘riddled with’. (BTW, when the News-Journal presumably does its ‘second day’ story on this, they will most most likely continue to pretend that what they present is original reporting on their part. Our readers know, that were it not for Cris Barrish and Karl Baker, we’d have no stories on this in the News-Journal. Prove me wrong.)
The point is that BHL and her designated point person Susan Holloway did nothing to ensure that the grants went to the proper recipients and did nothing to ensure that the money was spent properly. Had the AG not screamed bloody murder, had someone like Kathy McGuiness been in charge of burying the non-compliance by grant recipients, this would be just another Delaware Way giveaway.
How many more examples does anyone need to realize that Bethany Hall-Long belongs in a courtroom somewhere, and not in the Governor’s Mansion?
If this keeps up, I may have to revise my Gov’s race prediction. *checks notes* BHL wins with 39% of the vote.
Uh, NOW I know why one person on our committee supports BHL…all I had to do was look through the grants recipients.
Your RD committee?
Yes. To be fair, their contributions show no signs of any quid pro quo.
And, on our committee, this was the only person to prefer BHL. This person is also a valuable member.
One more reason why I love our committee.
There are actually two lists of grant recipients, since there were two rounds of grant funding.
Here are the links to both lists:
https://ltgov.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2024/03/1A_2023_Grant-Awardees-and-Descriptions-List_website.pdf
https://ltgov.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2024/03/1B_2023_Grant-Awardees-and-Descriptions-List_website.pdf
Thanks! When I read those mission statements, the overwhelming question I have with the vast majority of them is–how will they demonstrate that the money they get will go to fulfill those mission statements?
I’m filled with a healthy dose of skepticism, bordering on cynicism.
I’m deleting the normal generic ‘Bethany Sucks’ posts here.
Not because she doesn’t, but because I’d like to keep this thread on topic.
Reading the applications makes me wonder if dribbling out small sums for education programs and the like is really going to move the needle.
Delaware is third in the nation in opioid death rate and 30th in treatment beds per capita. It seems to me that the focus should be on increasing the number of beds in treatment facilities.
Agree. I also think that Jennings’ ‘first come, first served’ critique likely describes how they parsed out the money. A trough-full of dollars available for the taking. Not the best way to address the opioid crisis.
I wonder how much fun and enlightenment an Independent Office of Inspector General is going to have on this matter. Oh that’s right, thanks to Paradee and Senate leadership (or lack of) we don’t have an Independent Office of Inspector General. While your asking questions maybe you should direct one at Lydia York. Why did you oppose an OIC? and why do you still oppose the OIC legislation.
John Kowalko
Just my take but the list is a mixed bag. Out of about 65 grants I see about 30% going to established respected agencies and treatment entities. Of the remaining 70% it breaks down in my view to about half “interesting” but reasonable grants to adjacent groups with potential for success. That leaves about 20 grants that are just ridiculous on their face. My experience includes 40 years in the recovery community, about a dozen tears as Chair of the Governor’s Council on Substance Abuse and Mental Health under Carper and Minner, a mid life relapse of epic proportions followed by 17 years of continuous recovery with Officer and consulting gigs with 3 non profit treatment agencies, one of which is a grantee.
It saddens me that given the great need that this mess exists.
I just read quickly through the minutes of the Commission meetings. One thing that does not come through is ongoing concern by AG Jennings over accountability of the funds. I did see some concern expressed by Dr. Morrison several times. I met Dr. Morrison years ago and was impressed. I’d be interested to hear her viewpoint on this.
The disparity of funding requests between NCCo and the other two counties came out several times. The lack of addiction treatment centers downstate has been a problem for many years and that was evident in the numbers of applications received.
Just want to point out that the AG sent this letter out after the Auditor sent hers and that (as Chris Barrish mentions in his excellent article) the AG used to work for Matt Meyer.
Bottom line is this is a difficult issue and one that should not be politicized. The state is in line to receive $250million and that is a hell of a lot of money. I think everyone would like to see it make a real and lasting difference, but there isn’t enough infrastructure right now. We can complain the Commission as a whole has a lack of vision in how to approach this maybe but I think its a real stretch to infer to BHL some type of malfeasance here.
My concern isn’t so much stealing money as wasting it. As usual, Delaware’s public servants determined that the best thing to do was to form a committee. This seems to be BHL’s answer to everything, too. “Lack of vision” describes this process, and this candidate, very well.
No it’s not. Whole thing is being run by her office. Some of those grants are just bullshit, and everyone now admits that there have been too few guardrails to make sure the money is spent properly.
Call it malfeasance, call it misfeasance, she controlled where the grant money went. Jennings didn’t even have a say in it.
It’s some galaxy brain thinking to blame this on Jennings. It’s almost like they’re setting up a defense for something? I wonder. I do recall this being the same defense as McGuinness. “She wanted to be Governor that’s why she went after me!” I hope Bethany’s court cases don’t take that long but this is pretty bad.
It’s one thing to steal from donors. It’s another thing to steal from sick people who need help. That’s what happened here. When you fuck things up so bad that we literally have to shut down the program that is Bethany hall longs fault. No one else’s.
Your best defense – as always – is “she’s not a crook. She’s just an idiot. And so is everyone around her.” That’s not a great one to take to voters. It’s a good one for the courtroom though! Which is what I think you should be focused on now. And at this point it smells a lot more like a criminal conspiracy than just Bethany acting alone.
But again. The idiot defense and passing blame is par for the course. It’s not an attractive leadership quality. And when I talk to people about the race I’ve been surprised at how many people are aware of all of her chaos and mess. But the thing they bring up the most is … why can’t she take any responsibility?
I think the voters are smarter than Bethany does and I think we are seeing at the national level and similarly suicidal move to preserve the establishment at all costs. Luckily we haven’t voted here yet and we can just cast Bethany off to the side so the cops can deal with her.
Btw. Rufus. The minutes are kept by Susan Holloway and Bethany’s staff. I’m unsurprised you don’t see Jennings thoughts I don’t trust them and I notice that the April ones were just uploaded on June 28th. Funny timing there.
I have a fake poster – I’m so flattered.
For meetings I am familiar with, the minutes usually get posted after they are approved at the following meeting and that would normally determine the timing.
The approval is by vote of the entire body. If anyone objects the minutes get amended or it is noted.
At this point you’re just throwing things out there.
I looked at the minutes for the January meeting.
As of yesterday, they were still listed as draft minutes.
Hey, this is your final warning–don’t be trashing Rufus Y. Kneedog.
They’ve been a consistently valued poster here.
Tone it down or we’ll tune you out.
Fine. I’ll leave them alone. I should have remembered that a hit Kneedog will holler.
Your problem as I see it is getting ahead of the evidence. We have no evidence that this money turned up in Dana’s checking account or anything, and until we do incompetence is her baseline problem.
Denying her the nomination and prosecuting any possible crimes are two different things, and one takes precedence over the other.
Look at it this way: If she gets elected and then it turns out there were crimes, she’s not going to be in office long, so pay attention to the Lt. Governor’s race.
Your other problem is attacking the motives of the real Rufus. Flame wars are so ’00s. Stick to attacking the candidates, not each other.
“(BTW, when the News-Journal presumably does its ‘second day’ story on this, they will most most likely continue to pretend that what they present is original reporting on their part. Our readers know, that were it not for Cris Barrish and Karl Baker, we’d have no stories on this in the News-Journal. Prove me wrong.)”
This, at least, is 100% accurate. Sad to see the decline of TNJ, especially when it comes to covering government and politics.
I love quality journalism. When someone reports something meaningful, they deserve credit for their work. Simple as that.
The Delaware Restaurant Association?
Omg that list is hilarious.
Yeah, that one jumped right out at me. Read the bullshit planned use for the money. It’s something they should be doing anyway.
They also got $$’s in the, wait for it, Grant-In-Aid.