Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with provisos.
LeBaron Leonard Palmer, my vote is yes with provisos.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much, Board.
Give me one minute.
Hi, Ron.
Did you want to share your screen?
thank you kindly sir
number eight mi 2023 007 020 508 to 14
moore street darwin beauvais and steve masters are both involved this is a resumptive hearing
i i did swear you a little while ago right uh mr chair you're talking to me yeah i think i
swore you in a little while ago then i yes you did when i when i came up prematurely yes all
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, I can raise my hand.
Could you state your name for the record, please, if you don't mind?
Yes, Darwin Bovee, B-E-A-U-V as in victory, A-I-S as in SAM.
All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Okay. Go ahead.
Mr. Chairman, right. I think there's the, you know, there's been a lot of stuff flying back
and forth. And I was just trying to see if I can.
And I was just trying to see if I can make a suggestion to the board there that if possible, if we could present our case without interruption, then then opposing counsel can present his case and with cross examination.
Once he's done cross-examining, he can present his case. And then once he's presented his case, then we get to cross-examine.
That way, because last time it seemed very disrespectful on both ends, cutting everyone off and not getting too much guidance on how to deal with something, with a case of this nature in front of a virtual audience.
That's one suggestion. The other two points that I had to make, and these are just housekeeping points. One is, I believe Mr. Masters keeps suggesting that he wasn't aware of our witness.
When we submitted an updated exhibit package on April 19th, it was a Friday, five days prior, we did list our witnesses and those witnesses are there. I did double check to see if he was on that email, and he was. So that's a housekeeping point, right? Because I believe Mr. Masters wants to move on some sort of-
So, three, the third point, and this is the point that concerns me the most, the last time we were before the board, there were three board members the way I understood it to be.
You, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Holloman, and Mr. Snell.
I think we only have two of the three here today.
And under the rules, I'm kind of concerned because I believe, no, I begged the board and I appreciate the board's accommodating us that we will come back as quickly as possible because our transaction had a deadline.
So I'm begging the board.
Excuse me, Mr. Bouvet.
Excuse me, Mr. Bouvet.
So we have three board members that were present previously.
So, yes, LeBaron with an alternate board member on that date.
So we have three board members who are present.
And our rules only require a quorum to have a hearing.
It's just a matter of the voting that would be impacted if we didn't have the correct quorum present.
Yep, and that's exactly what I wanted to get guidance on.
So we are okay.
Okay. So with that said, if begging the chairman's guidance.
Why don't we do this? Why don't we do this? So why don't we do this? Mr. Masters wants to make a motion to continue this. So before we rule about who's going to let's let Mr. Masters speak. Okay.
Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. There's two items that I do want to raise as preliminary matters with the board today. Before we get to the motion on a continuance, we raised a motion a few days ago that there's no jurisdiction for the board here today because there's no evidence that Darwin represents either the property owner or an equitable owner of this property.
he's claimed that there's an agreement of sale that entitles his client to purchase this property
he's also spoken many times before the board that there's some kind of an urgency and that this
agreement is is threatened to to run out of time but when i took a look at his exhibit
which I believe is exhibit four, which is the agreement of sale. It's a nine-page document,
and he only provided us with the first page. The first page does have the name of one of his
clients, Michael Daly, but it doesn't have the name of the entity that is the buyer. It says
the entity is to be determined. So the agreement, the one out of the nine pages doesn't even tell
us that 3R Ventures is the correct entity that wants to purchase this property. But more
importantly, there's no dates. There's no signatures on the first page. We really need
to see the whole document. For some reason, Mr. Bove has continued to update his exhibit
binders, but he only keeps giving us the first page. So we don't know if there was a deadline
if there was a deadline of when this agreement of sale would expire he's made representations
of when this agreement of sale
would expire, he's
to the board that there is a deadline we don't have any of that information and this is this
is not a standing issue that um that the uh and maybe that was my error in calling it a standing
issue but it's actually a jurisdiction issue the zoning code says that only property owners or
equitable owners can file applications and pursue applications before the zoning board so we first
have to determine whether mr beauvais client is actually is actually legally authorized to
represent this property today um that's that's question number one and the second one is yes
it's totally true that on friday mr beauvais gave us an an updated exhibit binder and he
He listed two representatives from the American Treatment Center, which is a recovery treatment facility and outpatient-only facility in Havertown.
He did not say that either one of those individuals had a role as the interim director of his proposed facility.
In fact, on Friday, when he updated his exhibit binder to us, he kept the page that describes who is on the development team.
And when it comes to director of the facility, it says to be determined.
Only today, two and a half hours before the 3.30 list, did Mr. Beauvais decide it was time to inform us that Mr. Chris Devaney is not just going to appear and testify as a supporter from a different recovery center,
but he is actually going to be employed, supposedly, as the director of this project.
Our expert witness, we've been preparing him for quite some time now, and when I was preparing
him literally late this morning, he said to me, well, these two new witnesses, do they
have a role in this in this facility or are they just going to be endorsing from a another
objection and i and i told him yes all we know all we know is that is that all right so so all
all we know is what is what um mr bovet told us on friday when when he added those two names and
he added an exhibit which was a letter of support from the american treatment center to the board
or maybe it was even to council member for some reason um so so there was no indication
until this morning um and or early this afternoon and for that reason it it is manifestly unfair
for him to be for for for the applicant to be able to proceed with that witness i don't i don't
object to another witness being called to support his project. But to have a witness who's now
saying, I'm going to be the director of this program, we have uncovered tremendous amounts
of material just in the few hours that we've been looking to find out more about this person. Do
they have any kind of a background? And what is their background? But the board has historically
treated very seriously, and I know this because it's been in cases that I've been involved with,
Mr. Chair, that when expert witnesses are listed without having the five-day notice,
I, in my case, when I've made a mistake and done that, my witnesses have had to,
there's been continuances and they've had to testify later times so that there was enough
time. We've had literally two and a half hours of notice that this person is testifying in his
role as director of this project as opposed to as a booster who who is who is employed by another
another facility so for that reason we think it is really important to have at least a five-day
continuance for that one witness um because otherwise it's manifestly unfair okay all right
Mr. Bilbeck, could you respond?
Right.
Clearly, right.
We've said that we're on a time deadline.
So, of course, he's asking for a continuous.
And to come up with a stretch that an agreement of sale is technically flawed.
When the board has the full agreement, it has the full agreement.
I don't know why Mr. Masters doesn't have it.
i don't know why mr masters doesn't have it but i'm always asking for that but i i'm sorry i'm
But the word does happen.
i have my time right and and standing there that mr masters i have my excuse me can i can i interject
for one moment um just for for the sake of clarity for the record i went back through our records and
a full copy of the agreement of sale was submitted to all parties by the applicant on april 12th
so we do have that for the record thank you and then furthermore the or to suggest that the
applicant cannot prove his case with testimony right that that's it's ridiculous we are not
presenting mr devaney devaney as an expert because he's part of the team and to say that
oh, he wasn't part of the team before, therefore he's not allowed to speak, right?
That goes against our burden in trying to prove that we meet the threshold for a special exception.
Mr. Chairman, it's clear.
He's requesting more time.
He submitted a...
Let me take over here, right?
Mr. Masters, we're going to go on with the case.
i'm not agreeing with your two issues so we're going to go on with the case darwin you're going
to you're going to start you're going to you have two witnesses that i understand now i want you to
both know that we put a timeline on this today for about an hour right i'm gonna get to an hour
we're already 15 10 15 minutes into this so i i know you we all want to be thorough with this but
Mr. Bovee, please start your case.
I apologize. I missed the email that had the full copy of the agreement of sale. I do see it now. So I withdraw that part of my request.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Please proceed, Mr. Bovee.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. Again, my name is Darwin Bove, and I represent the applicant in this matter. This is a resumption hearing, and earlier, I believe April 10th, we appeared before you, and we discussed all of our exhibits. If I can share my screen.
All right. Sorry, that was the email that we sent Mr. Masters. Let me take that off.
All right. So we were at the April 10th hearing, and we presented our exhibits from 1 through 18, where it includes our referral. This is a misnomer. It's not a deed. It was an agreement of sale.
Our updated tax clearance. We have prior zoning permits, description of our activity, memorandum of law, our community benefits agreement, as well as photos and a support letter from American Treatment Network.
We did meet and interviewed and presented to the board Ms. Bridget Daly, who will be our facilities manager.
Her job is to make sure that the nuts and bolts of the facility is up to par.
With that, we did go over our plot plan and our floor plans to describe how the residents will live and eat and receive their, not medical attention, but receive their counseling services.
So with that, I want to, and then we had our witness, Courtney, she explained the need for 3.1 level facilities and how there's very little to none freestanding facilities here in the city of Philadelphia.
Next, I would like to call Chris Duvaney. He is currently the general manager to American Treatment Network. If he could be identified.
Mr. Duvaney.
He's been allowed to speak.
I'm here, sir.
Sir, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court's sonogram?
Christopher Duvaney. C-H-R-I-S-T-O.
Christopher Devaney, C-H-R-I-S-T-O-P-H-E-R, Devaney, D as in Delaware, E as in Edward, V as in Victor, A as in Apple, N as in Nancy, E as in Edward, Y as in yellow.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
uh mr devaney can you please uh tell us your current position for the record i'm the general
the general manager of america treatment network okay and can you tell us your educational
background specifically relating to community counseling and substance use disorder treatment
i have a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and a master's degree in community counseling
Great. Can you briefly describe your roles and responsibilities as the general manager at ATN?
I oversee all of the clinical operations at American Treatment Network. We currently have
four facilities, and I provide oversight to each site manager of those sites.
Okay. Can you describe your experience in these facilities and managing these facilities?
So, yes, I have 24 years experience in the Behavioral Health Treatment Network in Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
I also have worked a little bit in Florida.
I have extensive background in program development, policy development, grant writing, and supervising and providing treatment services at all levels of care from incarceration, detox, inpatient, and outpatient levels of care.
great great and you mentioned grant writing can you describe your experience in writing
and implementing policies and procedures so yes i've led or facilitated
approximately 18 carf and joint commission surveys i've written policies for those
that meet state and federal guidelines and i've written policies that are in accordance with
accreditation. I have implemented those policies in various places, most recently at American
Treatment Network. Great. And how do you ensure compliance with both state and federal regulations
in your facility? So we are licensed by the department in Pennsylvania. Our programs are
licensed by the department of drug and alcohol programs ddap and we are um between myself this
each site manager and our compliance manager uh we have an extensive process that we use to
review clinical records review personnel files and and review our policies and make sure that
all three are consistent with the standards of D-DAP. And what specific responsibilities
would you have as the interim director for 508 Moore Street?
So as part of my role, like I do at American Treatment Network, as we're developing new
programs, we put together an implementation timeline. Within that timeline, we identify
people that could oversee and run the treatment programs and we build around them the training
the policies and the protocols needed to operate the program so my my role with this project would
be to help build the on-site treatment team and fill the role as interim director be available
for consultation and implement the treatment program
that's agreed to by the executive team.
So just with that said, how many staff would you think
this facility would need?
Approximately 30 between clinical counseling staff,
support staff, and behavioral techs.
okay and out of out of the uh when you say clinical step you mean counselors yes the clinical director
and seven counselor positions okay is there a standard uh a state standard for the number of
counselors to residents yes so ddap has in their policies a one to eight standard uh for all
residential programs, but recently due to the opiate addiction, the opiate problems in the
uh problems in the state of pennsylvania and some workforce concerns they have
state of Pennsylvania and some workforce concerns they had.
in december they passed the legislature passed the law or passed um exceptions that were adopted
by the governor and on february a document came out from uh ddap saying that we could go to one
to twelve and for the foreseeable future as a ratio so we are well within that ratio of one to
12 and we meet the ratio of one to seven when you include the clinical or one to eight when you
include the clinical director in that ratio okay so safe to say that even though the standard will
be relaxed you're going to maintain this one to eight yes okay um
Um, like, let me ask you that, because you said earlier that you, you've done several
treatment centers.
Um, how do you plan on applying your previous successes to 508 more?
Because in essence, you're, you're hired as the interim director.
So you're trying to build up the program, correct?
Right. Right. So I think it's important that we have a couple of different foundations.
One, you guys have we have already done it with the drawings of the architectural drawings, the way the program is going to look.
It's designed well. It has adequate clinical space.
It has adequate space for the residents to relax and have social time and to prepare and eat meals.
The second piece of that would be to hire and train, recruit, hire, and train qualified staff to implement evidence-based programming that would meet the needs of the individuals living in the house, including the services that would include peer support, employment, soft employment skills, employment and job training, helping the residents to find employment, et cetera.
And so once all of those programs are documented on protocol and policies, and the building is done and it's licensed, we can get ready to get rolling.
On the other end, the leadership team will be working to get credentialed and network with the various insurance companies.
And I presume you've had experience in doing all of these things.