DV Journal

(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty)

When Upper Darby resident John DeMasi sought information in late May on a federal probe of township misspending, the township demurred. This month, when he turned to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the agency let him see the documents.

The contrasting responses from the state and federal governments underscore issues Upper Darby has contended with in light of the HUD revelations. Among those issues is transparency — or lack thereof.

The information the township withheld from DeMasi included the May 14 HUD report that Broad + Liberty obtained via its own federal Freedom of Information Act request. That letter detailed Upper Darby’s misspending of $40,000 in federal funds. On July 8, this outlet reported on the improper expenditures of money from HUD’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program.

In his May request, DeMasi asked for “any and all notices and correspondence sent to the township [from January to May] from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development regarding any money that must be returned to HUD or reimbursed to HUD.” All the township gave DeMasi was a set of instructions on how the municipality could repay the federal agency. After DeMasi wrote to HUD earlier this month, the department gave him the May report as well as a June 13 response from Upper Darby Chief Administrative Officer Crandall Jones.

In denying most of DeMasi’s request on July 3, Jones cited a provision of Pennsylvania’s right-to-know law that allows officials to withhold records of “an agency relating to a noncriminal investigation.”

DeMasi filed an appeal to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records (OOR) challenging that argument. He noted the township’s home-rule charter states that municipal “investigations” occur “by majority vote” of Township Council, but Council took no such vote concerning the HUD money. And HUD itself didn’t demand secrecy, so DeMasi believes Jones shouldn’t have used the (now completed) federal probe as an excuse to conceal information.

While OOR has yet to rule on DeMasi’s appeal, the local activist feels what transpired so far speaks damningly about Democratic Mayor Ed Brown’s administration.

“What exactly are they [Upper Darby] trying to protect…?” he said. “It’s not the nation’s nuclear codes; it’s what was going on with administrative malfeasance in our… local government. So, who are they trying to protect…? And if the federal government says, ‘Here, you should have this information,’ why would the local government say, ‘Oh, you should not have this information…?’”

The ineligible purchases with CDBG funds included toys, Chromebook laptops and gift cards for charitable giveaways in 2022 and 2023. In the May 14 letter, HUD alerted township Administrative Services Director Scott Alberts to the $40,309.44 in misspending. On June 28, township staff informed Brown and Township Council that Upper Darby would repay HUD in full.

At a Council meeting on Thursday, three different residents asked officials during public comment what revenues Upper Darby would use to pay back HUD. The first two women received prolonged silence, prompting an audience member to say, “Can we test the microphones?”

After the third woman asked for the source of the repayment, Jones replied, “It’s going to come out of the general fund,” prompting members of the audience to groan. (Some residents came to the meeting to complain of the township’s worsening finances which the Brown administration wants to address through a new earned income tax.)

CDBG funds typically go toward such activities as public-facility improvements and housing assistance. Last year, the use of the grants for holiday toy giveaways caught the attention of Councilwoman Laura Wentz, a former Democrat who is now an independent. She felt that providing holiday gifts, food and other items to poor families was a worthy cause but she raised objections over how the township and Men of Action Brothers of Faith (MOABOF), a nonprofit then run by Brown, administered the giveaways.

Wentz questioned the municipality spending about $6,000 on toys for the 2021 holiday event, complaining that the purchases were improperly documented. She also took issue with a Target receipt for a $153 hoverboard, a much larger expenditure than most of the other toys, most of which cost between $10 and $20 each. The councilwoman also said she found it irregular that the township bought the items and sought reimbursement on behalf of a nonprofit rather than CBDG reimbursing the organization.

In her opinion, township officials exploited the holiday charity efforts for “political purposes.”

When Jones wrote to HUD assuring it would take remedial action, he attached a document titled “Internal Control/Compliance Documentation & Procedures Policy” which governs the use of CDBG funds. The policy, revealed by DeMasi’s FOIA request, acknowledges that “ineligible activities” include “political activities.” This reflects HUD’s own rules.

Brown and his Democratic predecessor Barbarann Keffer are now on the defensive as to whether they kept the use of HUD funds apolitical. The holiday events they funded served to boost the public profile of Brown, then an aspiring mayor, and were advertised with flyers that displayed a list of cosponsors which included councilpersons and councilpersons-elect allied with Keffer. Administration critics on Council were omitted.

The bipartisan group excluded from cosponsorship included Wentz, Burke, at-large Democrat Matt Silva, 1st-District Republican Meaghan Wagner, 3rd-District Republican Brian Andruszko and then 2nd-District Republican Lisa Faraglia. Wentz and Burke told Broad + Liberty they were never asked to cosponsor the events.

And although Brown is no longer MOABOF leader, he continues to tout the work the organization did using ineligible public funds. During a June 10 Township Council meeting the mayor could not attend due to family travel, Jones read a statement from Brown wherein Brown praised MOABOF’s distribution of laptops, food and toys, failing to note that the township improperly funded these items. He added that Council once bestowed a community award on MOABOF for these activities.

Brown maintained that gift cards were “the issue,” though they accounted for a small portion of the misallocated HUD money.

In DeMasi’s estimation, Upper Darby officials seem to have aided MOABOF to burnish the reputation of Brown and local politicians aligned with him.

“It does appear that the new mayor was getting all these benefits and all the Township Council members that signed on were using this giveaway in their political propaganda saying, ‘Look at what we’re doing; we’re all supporting this,’” DeMasi said. “So, yeah, that’s absolutely political.”

Brown’s July 10 statement to Council said “all expended funds were returned [by MOABOF] to the township,” thought he did not specify an amount. During Thursday’s Council meeting, DeMasi asked for the amount but got no answer.

During the July 10 meeting, Jones credited Upper Darby Community and Economic Development Director Rita LaRue with spotting the community-development misappropriations.

“As a result of Ms. LaRue becoming responsible for oversight of that area [CDBG funds] once I came on board [this year],” Jones said, “it was she that actually identified the issue, brought it to myself and Mayor Brown, and we started the process of rectifying the issue.”

Jones neglected to note that Wentz, Burke and Democratic Township Treasurer David Haman began examining the holiday-event spending last year. He also did not observe that HUD began its probe after Broad + Liberty investigative reporter Todd Shepherd inquired with the HUD press office about potential inappropriate spending..

Neither Brown, Keffer, Jones, nor any of the holiday giveaway cosponsors returned emails requesting comment.

According to Jones’s letter to HUD last month, Upper Darby will send the federal agency updated municipal guidelines on the use of CDBG money by September 30.