JULY 15, 2005
Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani's All Stars Project still has some hurdles to leap (or evade) before it receives final approval of its $216,000 city grant to run a three-year after-school program under the Department of Youth and Community Development's OST (Out-of-School Time) program.
Wrote DYCD Chief of Staff Michael Ognibene in a July 14 e-mail to this blog journalist: "Prior to contracting with a service provider, the City conducts a responsibility determination. This review process includes an examination of the fiscal health of the organization as well as any pending investigations. This phase of the contracting process has not been concluded for The All Stars Project or any other proposed vendor in connection with the OST initiative."
Well, we know that All Stars is under investigation by State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in regard to charges by Molly Hardy, a former employee of an All Stars-linked charity in Los Angeles, that she witnessed teens being emotionally abused by Lenora Fulani at an All Stars facility in New York. We also know that Spitzer's office has described Hardy as a "credible" witness (since this adjective was used before Spitzer's office had ever spoken to her, it must have come from conversations with federal and/or state law enforcement agencies in California that have been following up for over six months on her charges about the finances of the St. John's Well Child and Family Center, an East Los Angeles charity run by an All Stars board member who allegedly engaged in questionable money transfers between his agency, All Stars and social therapy clinics controlled by Fulani and her guru Fred Newman).
We also know that Spitzer's office finally contacted Hardy last week--over six months after her complaint to Spitzer had been "lost"--and conducted an extensive telephone interview with her.
But this is not enough to automatically halt the DYCD grant to a charity which Mayor Michael Bloomberg has shown a remarkable devotion to over the past four years. The following question thus must be posed:
* Where is Councilman Lew Fidler, chairperson of the City Council's Youth Services Committee?
* Where is Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, chairperson of the City Council's Education Committee?
* Where is Council Speaker (and Democratic primary mayoral candidate) Gifford Miller?
* Where are Democratic primary mayoral candidates Anthony Weiner, Freddy Ferrer, and C. Virginia Fields?
* Where is Republican primary mayoral candidate Tom Ognibene (no relation to Michael Ognibene)?
* Where are Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton? (The DYCD is the designated New York City Community Action Agency of the federal Department of Health and Human Services' Community Services Block Grant Program, and thus falls within the range of concern of our state's federal lawmakers.)
* Where are the Mayor's daughters, sister and other family members? Isn't it time for a family intervention at the East Side townhouse to get hizzoner away from the Newman cult?
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