By Walter F. Roche Jr.
An affiliate of Tennessee' s
largest provider of group homes for disabled residents has obtained tax
free bond financing through a public board on which one of its business
partners sits.
A $20 million bond issue approved by the Health and
Educational Facilities Board of Nashville and Davidson County is being
used to construct eight group homes for current residents of the Greene
Valley Development Center, a state facility under a federal court
closure order.
The same bond issue, approved by the Nashville
board on May 30, will be used to refinance the debt on facilities
providing care to 256 disabled patients.
Sitting on the Nashville
board is Richard "Dick" Brown, an attorney and former employee of the
state agency providing care to the physically and intellectually
disabled.
The bond issue was issued in the name of the WCO AL DP,
the non-profit that owns group homes run by the Open Arms Care Corp,
another non-profit. But the contract to operate the homes, including the
eight new ones, is a for-profit firm called Integra Resources.
Integra is owned, in turn, by the SMI Group and Flatrock Investors. Flatrock is owned by Brown and Joseph Torrence.
Minutes
of the May 30 meeting of the Nashville board show that Brown was
present for the meeting and was involved in a discussion about the bond
issue but recused himself from the vote.
"Mr. Brown then provided
information on the services provided at the proposed facilities and an
historical overview of the closing of the State of Tennessee's
institutional facilities," the minutes state.
"Mr Brown described
his consulting and management role with WCO and his involvement in the
proposed financing," the minutes continue.
Brown said in an email
response to questions that he participated in the discussion at the
board's request "given my experience with facilities for intellectually
disabled individuals over a career of thirty plus years and my current
position as an executive with Integra Resources, which is now manager of
Open Arms Care."
Though Brown said he disclosed his own personal
financial interest to his fellow Nashville board members, he did not do
so during meetings with other county boards whose approval was needed
because Open Arms facilities are located in those jurisdictions.
"Because
none of these bodies had a financial interest in the bond financing and
I am not a member of any of them, I did not make a disclosure of
financial conflict of interest at those meetings," Brown said, adding
that he accompanied the bond counsel at those meetings in Hamilton,
Shelby, Greene and Williamson Counties.
He said he only actually spoke at one of those meetings to answer a question.
Minutes of the Hamilton County Commissioners March 30 meeting note Brown's presence, along with an attorney for Open Arms.
The commission voted its approval of the bond issue at a subsequent meeting.
In Greene County records show the commissioners were told the refinancing was being requested "to obtain lower interest costs."
Brown
said in response to questions that he consulted with legal counsel to
ensure that his actions complied with state ethics statutes.
"I
did have legal advice from the board attorney, bond attorney and Integra
Resources counsel on the applicable conflict of interest requirement
and followed it as described," he wrote.
Technically, Brown
added, the only direct beneficiary of the bond issue was WCO AL DP, the
nonprofit that owns the facilities, but he acknowledged that Open Arms
and Integra "will benefit from the use of the facilities to provide the
services requested and required by the State of Tennessee."
He
said the Nashville board was the logical choice to seek funding since
the same board provided funding to Open Arms Care in 1998.
Records
show the bonds issued by the Nashville board were purchased in a
private sale by Facilities Funding Group. Facilities Funding, state
records show, is located in Brown's Nashville office. He is listed on
state records as resident agent for the corporation.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com
Friday, August 12, 2016
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Harwell Disclosure Includes New Partnership, More Questions
By Walter F. Roche Jr.
Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell has disclosed an ownership interest in the same partnership that she denied any involvement in just two months ago.
In a new disclosure statement filed Friday with the state Ethics Commission, Harwell listed Legacy One Partnership as both a source of income and an investment. The filing states that her husband Samuel Harwell has an interest in and income from the same partnership.
In response to questions in January, Kara Owen, Harwell's press secretary, wrote in an email that the speaker had no interest in the Legacy One Partnership.
While the partnership is disclosed, the speaker's new disclosure does not include a similarly named corporation, Legacy One, Inc.
State corporation records show Beth Harwell has been listed as an officer and director of Legacy One, Inc. in multiple filings with the Tennessee Secretary of State going back eight years.
When asked about the omission in January, Owen wrote that Legacy One, Inc. "has been a dormant corporation with no assets, liabilities, revenue or expenses."
Nonetheless, federal patent and trademark records show Legacy One, Inc has applied for eight trademarks over the past nine years and three of them remain active.
Owen did not respond immediately Sunday to questions about the Speaker's new disclosure statement.
As for the Legacy One Partnership, real estate records show it has been involved in several multimillion dollar land transactions in Davidson County over the past year.
The disclosure filing comes as Harwell's husband's toy company is featured prominently in a lengthy story published Sunday in the New York Times.
The article details an ongoing court battle between Harwell's company, Big Times Toys, and a company that developed Amazing Live Sea Monkeys. In the suit Yolanda von Braunhut has charged Big Time with breach of contract and trademark infringement.
According to court documents, Big Time had a contract to distribute the popular toy, but abruptly canceled the agreement and began marketing its own China-made Sea Monkey. The suit, now pending in U.S. District Court in New York, followed.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com
Statement of Disclosure of Interests (ss-8004)
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Icing, Loss of Engine Cited in Fatal Nashville Plane Crash
By Walter F. Roche Jr.
A 2014 Nashville, Tenn. plane crash that took the lives of four members of a Kansas family was caused by the failure of the pilot to maintain airspeed after an engine failed on his third attempt to land the Gulfstream turboprop in icy conditions.
The fiery Feb. 3 crash killed Glenn Mull, 62, his wife Elaine, 63, and a child and grandchild of the couple.
In a lengthy and detailed report issued last month, investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board said that due to extensive damage they were unable to determine the cause of the engine failure, which apparently caused the aircraft to veer to the left.
A contributing factor, according to the report was ice accumulation "due to conditions conducive to icing."
The NTSB found that there were several reports of aircraft icing problem around the time of the crash although it was unclear how many of those reports were relayed to Glenn Mull, who was piloting the plane, owned by his cattle raising company, Mid-Kansas Agri Co.
The report describes in detail the anti-icing and de-icing equipment on the aircraft including a warning from a manufacturer that the system had to be activated before ice began to form.
"Warning: When icing conditions may be encountered, do not delay operation of the engine inlet heat systems. Turn the systems on before any ice accumulates. Engine inlet heat must be on if icing conditions exist or are anticipated," the NTSB report states, citing instructions from the manufacturer.
The Mulls , their daughter Amy Harter, 40, and 16-year-old granddaughter Samantha, died from "multiple blunt force injuries," according to an autopsy report cited by the NTSB.
The twin engine turboprop first hit trees near the Bellevue YMCA outside Nashville and then slammed into the ground creating an 11-foot by 11-foot crater six-feet deep. It was attempting to land at the John C. Tune Airport.
Mull was traveling with his family to Nashville from Great Bend , Kan. to attend an agricultural convention. According to the report, the plane, built in 1982 and purchased by Mull's company in 2000, had been serviced and inspected just prior to the flight to Tennessee.
The report provides a detailed accounting of Mull's attempts to land the plane including a conversation with traffic controllers after one failed attempt in which he said he wanted "to do it again."
According to the report, Mull, at one point, failed to follow the heading instructions radioed to him, but traffic controllers did not correct him because the difference was not consequential.
On the third landing try, the report states, "the airplane was on the final approach course when it veered to the left and began a descent... The airplane impacted trees and a field adjacent to a building (the YMCA)."
"The type and degree of damage to the left engine," the report states, "was indicative of an engine that was not operating with rotation consistent with a wind milling propeller at the time of impact," the report states.
Following the crash Mull was credited by some with steering the plane away from the nearby YMCA, packed with children, but the NTSB report states that the descent was "uncontrolled."
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Dead Pilot Fixated on Taylor Swift
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
By Walter F. Roche Jr.
The pilot who crashed his plane on a fog bound Nashville, Tenn. runway in 2013 was drunk and fixated on Taylor Swift, perhaps explaining his fatal and unauthorized flight from Canada to mid-Tennessee.
A report from the National Transportation Safety Board concludes that Michael Callan, 45, of Windsor Canada crashed his rented plane while attempting to land in dense fog.
"Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s mental state, his impairment due to alcohol, and his decision to operate the airplane from Canada to the United States without the owner’s permission and without proper clearances for the flight," the brief report concludes.
The Oct. 29, 2013 crash occurred in the early morning, but the wreckage on a Nashville International Airport runway was not discovered till hours late.
Callan's body was found among the charred and scattered remnants of the Cessna 172R aircraft, the pilot had rented from a Windsor flying club.
"This pilot was not supposed to be in the United States flying to Tennessee," an NTSB record states.
The NTSB investigation noted that Callan had apparently circled the airport for some two hours before making his final fatal approach. He had taken off from Windsor some nine hours earlier on a flight that was supposed to end on Pelee Island on Lake Erie within the Canadian border.
Noting that Callan was not qualified to make an instrument landing, the report states, "the pilot was unaware of the IFR (instrument only) conditions in Nashville until he arrived in the area and that, because he was not instrument rated, he was unable to safely land the airplane with no visual contact with the runway."
Callan's mysterious trip drew widespread attention when officials disclosed that he had listed Taylor Swift as his emergency contact person.
Records gathered by NTSB investigators show that Callan had named Swift on his application to the Windsor Flying Club, the organization that rented him the plane. Swift has stated through her publicist that she did not know Callan.
"He (Callan) had developed a significant interest in a celebrity who lived in Nashville," the NTSB report noted, adding that he also had "a history of repeated convictions for criminal activity."
"Although the medical records did not include a specific psychiatric diagnosis, the pilot’s prior criminal actions and impulsive behavior are consistent with antisocial personality disorder, which likely led to his impetuous decision to fly to Nashville," the NTSB states.
The report cites an August 2012 mental health evaluation of Callan in which "he reported that he had developed a significant interest in a celebrity and had written several letters to her. According to the mental health evaluator, the letters 'have the flavor of stalking.' The celebrity of interest resided in Nashville, Tennessee at the time of the accident."
"Toxicological testing of the pilot’s blood revealed significantly elevated levels of ethanol, indicating that the pilot ingested alcohol before the accident. The alcohol likely further impaired the pilot’s judgment and his ability to fly the airplane safely in IFR (instrument only) conditions," the report adds.
An autopsy conducted by Tennessee authorities following the crash found that Callan's blood alcohol level was .081 percent, over the .080 percent Tennessee legal limit to drive a car. Federal regulations set a .04 percent limit for aircaft operators.
The NTSB examination of the wreckage "found no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation."
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com
Monday, April 11, 2016
Loan From Haslam's Dad Repaid ..at Last
By Walter F. Roche Jr.
Several years after it first came due, the wife of a well-connected Knoxville developer has paid off a $1 million loan from the father of Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam.
Records at the Nantucket Registry of Deeds in Massachusetts show the Haslam loan to Ann Furrow, wife of Samuel F. Furrow of Knoxville, was just recorded as satisfied last month.
The elder Haslam loaned the $1 million to Ann Furrow in 2011 during the same time period Sam Furrow and a group of investors were trying to sell an office building to the Pellissippi State Community College at a substantial profit.
The Furrow group purchased the Strawberry Plains building for $5 million and ultimately sold it the community college for $10 million in 2012.
The notice of satisfaction of the one-year loan comes some four years after it was originally due in June of 2012. Records at the Nantucket deeds office show the only recorded activity on the loan in the interim was a June 4, 2013 agreement by the elder Haslam to subordinate his interest in the property to a bank loan.
As first reported by the Tennessean, the purchase of the office building came despite the need for extensive repairs estimated at as much as $16.6 million.
In response to questions posed at the time, the governor, through a spokeswoman, said he was unaware of his father's loan to Ann Furrow. The collateral on the loan was a Nantucket property at 112 Baxter Road owned by Ann Furrow. Samuel Furrow transferred his interest in the property to his wife prior to the Haslam loan.
Dave Smith, spokesman for Gov. Haslam, said Monday the governor was not aware that the loan had been paid off.
Samuel Furrow, when asked about the sale to Pellissippi, described it as "clean as a whistle."
The loan was not the only Haslam interest on the Massachusetts resort island. Cleveland Browns owner James A. Haslam 3rd, brother of the Tennessee governor, owns an oceanside property on the island which has been up for sale for over a year. The current asking price for the home at 37 Sankaty Head Road is $9.99 million, according to real estate listings.
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