it's a big
steep hill to climb
would you
is it fair to say that the agency he was
with in Delaware was a troubled agency
I can't speak
to that I mean there are you know
I think that you
I really I'm not
evaluated
how troubled they were or
whatever. That's not something I did. They did have the Justice Department bring some enforcement
against them. Objection. You asked the question, he answered it. Okay. I agree. Sure.
Mr. Harlow, do you have concerns about this team working with clients with criminal histories?
chris devaney has background with dealing with people with criminal histories but
you would the concern i would have is that the clients in pennsylvania and particularly in
philadelphia state probation state parole the city of philadelphia is much different than the
operations in delaware because i operate in delaware i can tell you but the expertise of
knowing how the criminal justice system works in general looks like it's in his resume but no one
else's okay um did you develop any conclusions about how likely it would be for this team
to operate a high quality residential treatment center at 508 more i think yes and that you know
based on all the documentation that i looked at i don't i think they will have serious difficulties
so let's go into some of the details about their program to see what your concerns are
Well, one is it's a large program. It's 56 beds for three, one in that locate. 56 beds is, is, is a lot to operate. You know what I mean? You have to, as it relates to security and a lot of other things, most halfway houses in Pennsylvania are 30 people or under.
so they're not
three fives
there are large programs
that are residential treatment programs
but usually halfway houses
Usually halfway houses are smaller in size, so you have a more contained population.
are smaller in size
so you have a more
56, and it's on multiple floors, is a lot to pay attention to.
It's not that it's undoable, it's just that it's a complex program, and with the leadership you have here, I think it would be difficult, to say the least.
Did you make specific findings about the quality of their proposed programming at the facility?
Yeah, I think I just got done saying that the size of the program didn't match.
It looks like there are some problems about when you look at staffing.
Their staffing plan had serious, I think, I'll give you an example.
They really looked at it as how many counselors you would have to have.
And that's not the only thing that you would have to do. You'd have to have security staff, but you also have to have peer counselors and house managers, people to manage people going in and out of the building all the time.
so you would need a 24-hour coverage day and night they did say that they would do that but
when they looked at how many counselors they would need it got it's got a little it got
they looked at the minimums that you would need to operate a program in the state of
pennsylvania as it relates to counselors so there's more to running a 3-1 than the counselor staff
so you're saying those other staff people are just missing from their plans
Yeah, pretty much.
I think that Steve started to, I listened to his testimony, he started to talk about that, but that's not in the documents that I got.
Does the amount of parking seem adequate to handle all of these staff and facilities needs?
yeah that's a i think that their plan if i if i read it right that they were looking to expand
their parking you know what i mean so but when i looked at the expansion there's uh there's going
to be a lot of in and out you have recovery support programs you have uh case managers that
are going to show up at the facility to see their clients because many of their clients in philadelphia
have case managers and sometimes they have more than one case manager they might have three
probation and parole people 12-step meetings where would they talked about 12-step meetings
but there was no how they would do that would they do it at that site and we think i have to
object because he's not a parking expert he is an expert on programming and i i understand
counselor is trying to extend programming to how somebody will effectuate the program. How will
they get there? But I think that's beyond his scope. L&I has taken a position that once the
lots are consolidated, the parking is satisfied. So here's where I am. I don't think he can
testify as to how many spots you need i think he could testify that these places are busy places
yeah see we're not saying we're not asking mr hall to tell you that there should be x number
of parking spaces we want yeah yeah i mean i i think he can say look these are busy places
and it takes a lot of people in and out to treat clients and i thought that's where he was but i
don't think he can say 56 we need 62 63 so i i agree with you there darlin okay i wouldn't
testify to the parking you know what i mean okay thank you but i do i do want to ask you mr harrell
um are is it typical or or or or would you anticipate that a certain number of the residents
in this facility would be would have and own cars uh when they when they arrive at this facility i
will have to object to that that's speculation you know it's not speculation it's based on his
experience you don't know what kind of patients will be there so that is speculation so i i i
agree i think i think mr harl would have a hard time figuring out who's gonna have a car who
doesn't i mean he could maybe give an example of a location he ran and how many people had cars
but i i don't so mr harlan in the in the locations that you that you ran 3.1s in philadelphia
uh how typical was it that that the residents uh that a number of residents would have cars there
yeah just something to consider is that if you ban them from bringing cars to the facility
Just something to consider is that if you ban them from bringing cars to the facility, that doesn't mean they don't have a car. That doesn't mean that they won't park the car around the corner.
I don't know.
You know what I mean? So it becomes a man. You really would. If that's your policy, which that is here, you really have to figure out how to properly manage that.
All right. Now, the next area, I believe that my opposing counsel may raise an objection, so I want to raise this with you first, Mr. Chair.
I want to ask the expert witness around the viability of the facility and he spoke earlier of the connection between a facility that is not economically viable or is struggling economically and then the harms that that causes to the surrounding community.
So I want to go into some questions on his his experience about the viability of it.
But I know that my my opposing counsel is going to object.
So opposing opposing counsel.
Yeah, I will object because, again, you know, that's been a pattern with the Protestants case that, oh, it's not viable.
You're not going to make any money. You're not going to do this.
these are financial business issues when this is, and land use matter.
So I think I would allow him to testify to his own experience of programs that he was involved with that were not viable and what were the effects.
Let's go with that, Mr. Harrell.
Can you describe for us programs that you are familiar with?
Perhaps some of them are from your own agency that encountered financial troubles and what
the impact was.
Yeah, so if in fact you have, because of those problems that Gidenzi had in the past, we
would make sure that the financing, sometimes the financing may be for, you know, in this
case it's not clear but even when it is clear uh many of the contracts are year to year so a
contract could stop uh and when that contract stops and you don't have the ability and you
have staff there you have some choices do you close the program altogether do you how do you
how do you do that and if you don't have a plan ahead of time on how you're going to do that
things can go well well instead of talking about plans fast tell tell could you say your own
experience what's happened yeah i think that what happens is that you uh not what happens what
happened with you oh we you can get short-staffed your staff is not i would close programs i would
have to close it i'd have to either change the program make it something different than what it
was or close it you know mr mr chairman and steve maybe if you ask him what facility did you close
and why oh we closed that yeah so because of the lack of funding i'm sorry i didn't hear that could
you do that again so we closed the program in delaware because the lack of funding when we
started the program, there was funding available and it continued. And the funding source that
was funding the program was not a viable one. We fought for a long time to get them to be a
more viable funding source and the state didn't do it. And so we had to close. And in the interim
of closing, you ended up with, you're going to have to lay staff off, staff leave if they think
the place is not viable. They don't get, you can't hire people because people believe that
the program is not viable enough to operate. So if you, or you hire people that may have
quality issues because you're, you're, you're struggling to find staff that are, that are
capable. Did you, in your role as the, as, as one of the leaders on the, on the state and,
and national level with with accreditation and and and and supervising the the the quality of
of programs um are you can you can you share with the board uh examples that you know of of
of programs where uh they did have a negative impact on the surrounding community because
of various troubles that they had inside their program well you could look i would just ask that
it be limited to his experience i agree yeah i wasn't in you know but you can get newspaper
articles of programs that if uh people have died i would object to newspaper articles
so so so steve i think he should answer his own experience not what he's read
So, Steve, I think he should answer his own experience, not what he's read, but his own experience of problems that he ran.
But he also he's also been a leader of the industry.
So he so he know he has personal knowledge of other programs that have come before.
Let him say his personal knowledge of a program.
So what it did.
So we have I am the policy chairman for the state organization.
We have ethical issues. And when programs go awry like that, I'm aware of it. And when they are, what we do is we try to help them change and do whatever they need to do. Or if they're not meeting the ethical standards of the organization, we ask them to leave. And that and that has happened before.
How many times have you done that? How many times have you done that?
At least six or seven times over. But that's been over 40 years. So it's not.
okay all right all right thank you so that's my personal where i've seen it happen that close up
i've seen it from a from a distance a little further away and what i usually do and i'll tell
you is when i see that happen i contact if i know the people i contact me i ask them how it happened
i would object to that so so yeah i i think you're finding out after this the fact too when
you start talking, making calls. So I think your testimony that you observed your own self about
six programs over 40 years, basically have a problem that had to close. Is that right?
Yeah, that I was involved in them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
I've seen many other programs close. I just didn't.
Well, let's just stay with the ones you had experience with. I think that's the better
way to look at it okay um mr parl to sum up um can you describe to the board what your uh in your
professional opinion what um are the what do you expect to be some of the negative impacts on the
community from from this program um as it's presently constant uh is it as it's presently
constituted with this leadership team i will still object to that that's speculating that's
asking oh the about the viability no it's not speculating when it's an expert witness
so look i i think i think we have an expert witness and i and i think he went person by person
and testified that he thought they lacked the kind of experience they've had and i think we
should leave it at that i think for him to say this is what's going to happen is a harder thing
to jump to and i think that he he went point by point well this one didn't have experience in
philadelphia this and that and i think we should leave it at that okay um my last uh area of
questioning mr harl is around the community benefits agreement um i'm going to share my screen
and i i i would like a proffer first because if he's he again he's an expert with programming
and not with land use.
So the profit is concerning the provisions
of the community benefits agreement
that would protect the community
and the types of community protections
that Mr. Harrell has created
and negotiated in his facilities.
He's never testified to his community engagement. He's only testified to programming. So maybe you should give a couple of questions.
I mean, I think he's testified that he's opened up numerous programs. So the question would be, Steve, during your time of opening up numerous programs, have you been involved in community benefit agreements?
Well, no, I mean, I was going to cross-examine Mr. Disley on the community benefits agreement. That's not possible because he hasn't appeared today. So my next best-
Yeah, but what I'm saying, Steve, over the years, Guidencia House has opened up a lot of places. He's met with communities. Have they done community benefits agreement? And if he has, then what's he think of this community benefit agreement?
Okay. I mean, I will ask that because that is your suggestion, but we are, but it's really not relevant what Godensia put in their community benefit agreement. It's relevant whether this community benefit agreement is actually going to deliver what they put together.
But I but I agree. But I think you've got to you've got to say that he has experience in the past of being involved in community benefits agreements and then look at this one.
Sure. All right. So, Mr. Harrell, let's start with that. Have you have you been involved with community engagement around the various facilities from Godenzia?
yes okay and in that in the in those in those encounters with community did you discuss um
Yes. OK. And in that in the in those in those encounters.
various uh protections or or um or or commitments that your agency would do to ensure a certain
level of quality of life or or lack of nuisance in the surrounding neighbors yes okay um did you
take a look at the community benefits agreement that's now up on the screen here yes all right
um in your opinion um does this community benefits agreement have uh the typical
mechanisms in it that would protect the community from residents in the programs that may that that
may create problems for neighbors objection he never laid a foundation as to his experience
he asked a general question so i know so so so i so i i think where we should be with this is that
he's looked at this and what's different between the ones that he's done in the past and this
all right so yeah mr harrell what do you think is missing um from from this community benefit
screen but that you normally would put into your commitments to the to the community
the only i i don't i don't i did not evaluate this in the way that you're discussing you know
i did do as i looked at it uh from our interactions that we've had with communities
and how we resolve things uh there is a whole section on here and how you address things that
is extremely um legalistic and would be i think would be very difficult for a community to
to follow through on uh you'd have to almost have a lawyer uh to do it and some of the communities
we're in don't have that kind of those kind of resources so so you're talking about the
the confidentiality provisions and the arbitration provisions?
Yes, sure.
So why don't we stay with Steve?
Let him be more precise as to what he thinks should have been.
Well, Mr. Harrell, is there anything?
Try not to lead him into that conversation.
Okay, I got it.
Mr. Harrell, is there any provision in this community benefits agreement that you've seen
that specifically addresses the behavior
and the conduct of the residents
in connection with the surrounding community?
Yeah, I think there's a little bit there,
but it's just that when it's not,
there is a community's concerns hotline involved
in that proposal,
which I think is probably a good thing.
There's a zero tolerance policy.
uh you know there's a residency restrictions uh my concern would be the enforcement of those