MORGANTOWN – While the Dunbar School Foundation Stop program has ceased operating, questions remain about items bought or rented with taxpayer dollars.
We reported on June 7 that a tour of the COVID testing and vaccine program’s High Street Fairmont headquarters revealed three vaccine storage freezers and a generator had been removed from the site.
We learned late last week that the items had been taken to “lockers.” DSF President Houston Richardson said on Friday he doesn’t know the location of the lockers or have access to them. He would have to ask Stop’s former CEO Romelia Hodges for the keys.
He also still doesn’t know why the items were removed, he said, and hopes to have a board meeting this week to discuss it.
The Dominion Post sent several questions about this issue to the Department of Health and Human Resources on Thursday and was told Friday they were working on it, but the answers didn’t arrive.
Another issue is the luxury SUVs – GMC Yukons – Hodges rented for the two years of the program. Hodges had kept at least one of those – with no signage marking it as a program vehicle – parked in front of her Fairmont home.
Last week, several sources told The Dominion Post the Yukon was still parked out front, even though the program grant expired May 31 and it had apparently ceased operation before that, with The Dominion Post being notified on May 26 that items were being removed from the HQ without permission.
Stop rented the SUVs from Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Fairmont and a call there on Friday revealed one of them has not been returned. Enterprise said the Yukon was rented in the name of Patrick Hodges, Romelia’s husband and a paid Stop contractor. – not DSF or DSF Stop – and paid for with his credit card and points.
Richardson said this change was made without the board’s knowledge or permission.
Stop ledgers provided to The Dominion Post by the DHHR showed that the SUV payments came from Stop’s bank account prior to it shutting down.
DSF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and the umbrella organization for Stop. DSF has a post office box for its mail but has used Richardson’s home address as its official mailing and process address, as indicated on its filing with the secretary of state.
Richardson’s address also appeared as Stop’s address for Stop’s Chase checking account through May 28, 2021. Hodges then changed Stop’s address to her – and Patrick Hodges’ – home address for the bank account beginning May 29, 2021.
Richardson and a source familiar with Stop said they were never informed of that, and don’t know why Hodges did it, or under what authority.
We told them it may be connected to an item recorded in DSF minutes (and reported here previously) from its Aug. 23, 2021, meeting, under the heading “Executive Privileges.”
It says, “Romelia and Tiffany [Samuels, former COO] requested the board to approve Executive Privileges within the grant. This will allow them the authority to make decisions on employees, compensation, bonuses, and other items that are allowable within the confines of the grant.”
Tweet David Beard @dbeardtdp Email dbeard@dominionpost.com
