no she yeah she knew no no the city of philadelphia operated the facility so anything
we did there had to go through the city of philadelphia coordinating office for drug and
alcohol program. That's why I was saying this is a complex thing. We have to deal with them before
we even... But it takes a lot of planning. Yes. Right. And it sounds like for the facility in
South Philly, you decided to get the location first, secure that, and then you had a staffing
plan and then you you made sure you got your staffing plan in in place and then you execute it
once you knew that you received the property you understood the programming and then you was ready
to to execute on the project no it was a little more complex than that so we had to get multiple
city approvals to do that including the coordinating officer we had to get when you
asked about a benefit you started off by asking about a benefit agreement there was more to
opening a program than a benefit agreement so so once the it once we had the the right to be there
then we had to go set up a contract with the city of philadelphia to do this we had to get agreement
then we had to get financing to to renovate the property by the way so we went and renovated the
property uh we had to talk to the state of pennsylvania and get licensed for this for the
state from the state then what we had to do is we already had by that time we had identified
and the management team had agreed had done market research to show that that program could
could uh could survive with the per diems and the amount of money we got from medicaid and other
places so that we had a funding a financial plan for the facility and so it wasn't just a wasn't
just the staffing plan staffing plan was the probably the easiest part of this operation than
any other one uh it was not difficult but then again we had people that knew about three ones
that we were aware of the random and other programs that we talked to before we opened we
went and got expertise from outside uh that actually knew how to do this stuff before we
after after you secure the property right and i think what you just said was wonderful because
that's exactly what the applicant is doing so and correct me if i'm wrong you say secure the
property get the city approvals get the additional get the state licensing get your financing then
even come back and revisit your staffing plan to put that in to put that in place and if necessary
go and get outside expertise to help with that stuff.
But we also, you know, so you know,
the marketing plan was critical to us even going to Anna Verner.
So before we went to her, we knew where the funding would come from.
so before we went to her we knew where the funding would come from and she knew because we were able
to tell her so again keep that in mind that there was a a viable uh a plan for the operation of this
program before we even talked to her because we would have went to a different site we already
had the plan to open this program if it couldn't have been at this site it would have been at a
different way so but you as executive director president of condensia you know you can almost
chose that site today yeah because you're the 300 pound gorilla in in in southeastern pennsylvania
no so don't know there's someone bigger i have more power than the city of philadelphia
i'm just saying in in the service that condensio did bring uh you you're everyone knows condensia
All right. So let me just ask you this. Since, because you mentioned earlier about our staffing plans, are you familiar with how the standards have changed since COVID?
Yes. Okay.
I'm still the policy chairman of the Drug and Alcohol Service Providers of Pennsylvania, and I'm also presently the chairman of the Recovery Organization of Pennsylvania.
okay i'm aware of but i don't i don't read the documents day to day so but i do i'm aware of
the difficulties that our programs are having and some of the issues that they're up against right
now now let me let me let me ask you because you also said earlier that you typically do not
um do not uh testify in in the current capacity you're always a pro applicant um
why now because i i i looked at the plan and you're not the only one that's uh that's
following a civil all of a sudden people have decided that uh the city of philadelphia
is a good location that we should come to and uh there's a about four or five different you're not
the only one trying to open in philadelphia simultaneously without applying so you've decided
to pick and choose no i've decided to uh bring up the issue that before you go around opening
these programs you should have the expertise to open them and we or you should at least follow
the steps that you did to open
South Philly because if
we did those
things to which we are
but those aren't land use
issues, those are
other issues dealing with financing
I guess you wouldn't have a problem
let me ask you this
I didn't ask
I'm objecting
that's argumentative
you're basically arguing
So, listen, I think, Michael, respond when you ask the question.
When he's done, it's done.
Is that okay?
I don't want Darwin to proceed.
All right.
So, so when it comes to, so are you, are you aware that going back to Delaware, that
the facilities that you started that in order to maintain them they had to get a consultant
to maintain them are you aware of that no no i heard you say earlier i heard you say earlier
that chris devaney consulting in delaware was i right about that i didn't hear that i didn't say
that okay all right then yeah question um all right no problem no problem so the um
the uh um have you ever been named in a lawsuit in your capacity as a
as president of
Gondensia.
Objection. There's no relevance
to this.
When we had our
witness, he
actually demanded that he
shows all of these
documents
that were allowed.
And so I think it
goes to, it's
fair to ask if he's ever been
named in a lawsuit.
well it's harassing a witness to to someone who's in a civil civil proceeding to ask them
if they have been um that's just harassment so you get to do it so let's look so here
so here's where i am on this i think darwin could ask the question during the course of
doing business for your long career have you ever been involved in a lawsuit i mean that's what it
or have you ever been named in a lawsuit and i and i think that's an easy question to answer
and i employment law you know like uh somebody yeah i can't want to consume you for anything so
many times and mostly almost all employment law okay has any of condensative facilities
in philadelphia or elsewhere been cited by local authorities for like uh violations with their
property yes okay of course yeah um has has has has adenzia under your leadership um
had actions filed against it for for billing issues no not that not that i'm aware of but
Not during my watch.
All right.
No further questions.
Steve, do you have any follow-up?
I have a few, Mr. Chair.
So let me tell you where we are.
I'd like to get at least another one of your clients
to win today, Steve,
because I'm targeting 12-15.
We're going to finish up.
And we do have tomorrow,
we have 40 cases
and I have to have the staff ready for tomorrow too.
So let's, I think we've got about a half hour left. Let's see what we get done in this half hour.
All right, Mr. Harrell, just a couple questions.
Darwin was asking you about your, the steps that you took to open up the facility in South Philly when Anna Verna was the council president.
In your view, did this facility that we're here on today, did they take those same steps and have the same type of plan that you?
On the applicant's actions. You should ask the applicant that question. How can he? How can he answer a question that requires the applicant's actions?
He I'm asking, I'm like, I don't understand the objection, Mr. Chair.
Ask the question one more time, Steve.
All right. Mr. Harrell, Darwin asked you about the specific steps you took to before you opened up a facility in in South Philadelphia under when Anna Verna was the the the president of council.
And you have you have made some opinions about the steps and the planning that this current applicant has done.
But can you compare the two, what Gaudenzia did in South Philly to what this applicant has done so far?
Can you compare it and say whether it's the same or different?
Objection.
So, Darwin, I think he can do that.
I think he can say what was different.
And I think, and I would think he could say what's different because starting off, there was no zoning process for that.
am i correct didn't he testify that he never went to the zoning board for the one in south
philadelphia correct so why don't we why don't we he can tell us what the difference was
so we we have other facilities three ones in philadelphia and we did go to the zoning board
for them and were approved and different but he's asking about this one in south philadelphia so
what's the difference between the one in south philadelphia and what's being done on more
We responded to an RFP. The city wanted us to do, asked us to do this work, but it was our job to get the approval. It was not something we thought up. You understand what I mean? So we already knew that there was funding. Number one, it might not have been exactly what we wanted. We had to verify everything. There was an RFP we had to respond to, that we had to competitively.
we had our plan had to be in writing with the city before we did it you see what i mean so
it was different this is different it would be different if we just said
we're located we're going to open up in um cumberland county pennsylvania and uh we think
you guys need a program and we're going to open up there you know what i mean so let me yeah let
Let me ask you specifically about the staffing plan, because you testified that that you chose certain people in the staffing plan to move to this new facility from some of your other facilities.
in the staffing plan to move to this new facility from some of your other facilities right
Right.
so i wanted you to compare the background and the experience of the people that you
put in your staffing plan to the people that we know that are on the staffing plan of
the applicant right now uh other than uh chris and he has some limitations they have no they
had no they they have no background in this that's that i can see very limited very limited there
there is a consultant they have that is doing that is doing hiring or or or in charge of the
staffing plan right the the revive uh yes right and i didn't in the dot by the way i don't know
that what i do know is what i what i read that that came from those documents that you have with
uh the councilman and the the uh the stuff that was submitted prior to uh chris devaney's testimony
right um so but what's your opinion on the uh if if there's any equivalence between the people that
you chose to staff your south philly location and the people that they're choosing to staff
their their location at south philly i think the management team is different i mean the management
team had expertise our management team had expertise our board of directors had expertise
and the regional director and the local director had expertise in doing this before so it wasn't
wasn't a new venture for any of them for anybody you know what i mean the different the new venture
was was um was operating in south philadelphia it's probably the newest part of the thing and
By the way, Anna Vernon was the city council president, but also Joe Vignola was the first person we had to go to because he was the, what do you call it, the city councilman at the time.
Right.
So we had to go through a whole process to get to where we got.
Let me ask you about the provisos, the conditions that you talked about in the earlier part of the cross-examination, where you mentioned that in other occasions, sometimes the zoning boards that you went to would put some conditions on the grant of your zoning for these facilities.
In this case.
They were usually limited.
so so you you know any any other agreements were made between us and the okay and the same way that
you did here in meetings where where it would be documented right responses well so in this
in this proceeding you are taking the position um that the zoning board should just vote no on this
instead of putting conditions on it right i didn't i don't have that that's that's your i'm not
i'm testifying as an expert witness i'm not right
that's their they they have a lot of other things to consider than just
my testimony i understand um all right i have i have no further testimony i go across uh direct
redirect on him just one you're done question you know um mike right you know you were asked
to compare what steps you took compared to what steps we we've taken it's safe to say that you
have no idea what we did in terms of um getting ready for um our financing am i correct no i i
everything you presented there was no evidence that that happened yeah so you don't know right
so no i don't know like would you share would you have shared that as executive director yes
yes your discussions with banks what's that your discussion with banks in order to get
the construction loan oh you mean share that yeah finance i thought you meant financing of
the actual program itself you're talking about the construction and buying the building and all that
yeah um it would be hard for us not to because we're a public agency you know and we have a
board of directors and you know so it's not unreasonable and usually the financing would
come from our bank along with other funders you know what i mean so the city might be funding
some portion of it pnc bank might be portioning someone so it usually wasn't there was no secret
operation going on but i wasn't talking about financing of your building i i don't know
anything about that all i know is there is i was looking for the financing of the actual operate
day-to-day operations of the programs that's what i was looking for okay so but so it's safe to say
So but so it's safe to say that that that's something that probably wouldn't readily be shared.
that uh um
Right.
Entity.
And then you also mentioned.
Now, actually, that's that's I'm fine with that.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you for your testimony.
Steve, who do you have next?
Sarita Sini.