Daily reporter Michael Stewart had a good follow-up on the Thelma Manley/Front Porch investigation in today’s paper. The plot thickens, but not all things may not be as they seem.
New revelations:
On Sept. 15, 2004, Manley used $3,393 in Front Porch funds to pay back property taxes for a home at 6643 Hampton Road – which she now owns.
Manley paid herself the entire $19,490 for a “Mentoring Moms” program sponsored by the Escambia County Health Department in 2005 and 2006. Melanie Nichols says she and the board knew nothing about the program. — I’m not sure how the board didn’t know about the Mentoring Moms program since it held a dinner in March 2006 for it –that was publicized. Also the June 2006 audit report shows $35,655 in expenses for an Escambia County Health Dept. grant.
From PNJ news briefs dated 3/30/06:
The Governor’s Front Porch office of Pensacola will have a dinner today from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Landry’s Seafood, 905 E. Gregory St., to honor minority women who have given back to the community by mentoring for the past year.
The Closing the Gap Mentoring Moms Program is designed to recruit 50 minority pregnant women up to 30 years old or a mother/caregiver of a child age 1 or younger who reside in the Pensacola area. They are paired with a professional minority woman who is at least 25 years old who will mentor and serve as an extra support system during and after the pregnancy.
A canceled check -signed by by former Front Porch Council Chairman Malcolm McCorvey- shows Manley was paid $4,170 on Jan. 1, 2005, for a 30 percent disbursement for “housing.”
In a March 13 letter to Office of Urban Opportunity Director Esrone McDaniels, MacNeil stated Manley leased out one of the buildings for a children’s program at the office complex on Guillemard Street that MacNeil’s homeowner’s association rents from the City for $1/year. Front Porch rents space there, too, from the Long Hollow association for $1/year.
This rent issue is very confusing. We obtained a cash disbursement report yesterday that shows large checks were written by Front Porch to the Long Hollow Homeowners Association from a Computer Lab grant. This is missing from Stewart’s article, but this something I’m sure the state will investigate. I will post the disbursement report when I get into the office.
…Of course, the big question is why did the Jeb Bush administration wait nearly seven years to conduct an audit of the Front Porch program. Why did the board not at least have a CPA review the financials annually? It’s possible a local firm would have done it pro bono.
From the June 2006 audit report, there are five grants listed under program services – one is a Long Hollow Planning Grant ($22,784) – so MacNeil and Nichols’ neighborhood has directly benefited from the Front Porch program….not that there’s anything wrong with using the system to improve your neighborhood or that the grant wasn’t needed. However, like I said at the beginning of this post there’s more to this story.
This is where having a small staff and being a weekly hurts us in fully reporting this type of story. Hopefully if our advertising continues to grow at its current pace we will be able to hire more writers and devote more time and space to these types of investigations.
Until then, we’ll use this blog.