Tornado funds, part 4:
HARRISBURG—At the end of the last part of Disclosure’s ongoing series about our ongoing investigation into the DCEO grant which is being administered by the Harrisburg City Council and Roy Adams Services, Commissioner John McPeek had agreed to look into the funds and work with Disclosure to put the matter to rest.
Unfortunately, things did not become any clearer after that point. In fact, the City of Harrisburg gave Disclosure even more reason to wonder what was REALLY going on.
Post-meeting information obtained
After the November 2013 meeting at which the situation was mentioned, Disclosure’s correspondent had more invoices to look into. Rather than just FOIA those invoices, however, Disclosure decided to look all the way back at every invoice that had been paid up to that date. Those invoices were to cover any payment that had been made out of the DCEO grant for tornado recovery, and any that had been paid to Roy Adams Services, or Roy Adams himself. FOIA requests were also sent to the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for the original grant paperwork and terms. This would have provided the ability to cross check the grant and the terms by which the money was supposed to be spent with the way it was being spent by Roy Adams and the Harrisburg City Council.
The requests took longer than the five-day time frame set by the Freedom of Information Act, but that was permissible by the law because of the large quantity of documentation that was being requested. Aside from the time setback, everything looked as though it was going incredibly well. Combined, those documents and any information that McPeek might be able to gather could have potentially sort out any unclear issues, and uncover whether everything that Disclosure had seen was in fact done outside of the grant guidelines, or if it was all done correctly. Either way, reaching the end of the matter was welcome, and was anticipated.
It should have been obvious, NOTHING dealing with this mess was ever going to be that easy.
No fee waiver, with no warning
When Sally Wofford, who acts as both the City Clerk and FOIA Officer, was finished preparing the documents for the invoices, Disclosure’s correspondent went to retrieve them. The documents were in a neat little stack, ready to be picked up.
The first unanticipated problem was a charge for the documents. The documents should have been free of charge, because they were requested under the law to have a waived fee, which is clearly spelled out in the FOIA Request form that was used, because “Disclosure of the requested information to me is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in my commercial interest.”
Regardless, Wofford said the fee would not be waived.
Obscured locations
The second problem was nothing short of a blatant retaliation to the use of the information that Disclosure had requested with the intent of informing readers of the nature of the expenditures. Wofford had redacted the information regarding where the homes were located, which is NOT acceptable. There was no reason to do so, and no allowance under which she could have conceivably been put in a position where she HAD to do that. When asked why she had done that, when the request that had been submitted (and was sitting right in front of her) stated that those addresses were to be included.
Regardless of what reason Wofford presented as the cause to redact the addresses, which one wasn’t really presented, that was a blatant and deliberate recourse to the correspondent’s questions at the previous city council meeting. Why Wofford felt the need to take that form of action has yet to be determined.
After coming to an impasse, the documents were accepted. But, the largest problem yet was found when Disclosure’s staff started reviewing the stack of documents.
Do the grant copies look like this too?
The first invoices that had been received after the first FOIA request for invoices has been clear of any items that obscured the exact contents of the documents. These documents, however, had been photocopied with copies of the checks obscuring the nature of the charges in some cases, the amounts were hidden in others, and overall the invoices were completely illegible and useless to the research for which they had been requested.
When Wofford was confronted with this problem, she responded that even the original documents were as obscure. Three problems arise with that statement. One, the first documents that Disclosure had received were clear as day, therefore not all of the originals appear that way. Two, that simply couldn’t be the case, unless Adams had written the checks himself and only provided Wofford with photocopies. Three, grants require very clear and legible documentation as to where the money has gone that was provided by the grant.
The third issue was also backed up by the fact that the grant clearly states audit dates, when documents must be presented to the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
Wofford, it appeared, was covering them up on purpose. For some reason, she didn’t like where Disclosure was going, and didn’t want to pave a clean way for our research.
The question remains, WHY didn’t she want to provide the clearest documents she could? What is she, or whoever is pulling her strings, hiding?
Follow up with the next print edition of Disclosure NewsMagazine to find out where this leads next. If you or someone you know has any information that you would like to share with Disclosure and our staff, drop us a line at lyndi@disclosurenewsonline.com, or Disclosure News, Attn: Tornado Funds, PO Box 83, Harrisburg, Illinois, 62946. Your identity is completely confidential. You may remain anonymous.