In the wake of any man-made or natural disaster, it’s a human response to want to help. No matter the distance, people need to feel that if something happened to them, there would be those who would be willing to come to their aid, and so they come to others’ aid, often in great abundance; such was the case in the disaster left in Harrisburg after the February 29, 2012 Leap Day Tornado.
This abundance often takes the form of material possessions, as many people can give of their excess with relative ease. Clothing, furnishings, dishes, pots and pans…the biggest problem with this is often delivery, but it gets done. However, more frequently, it’s easier to write a check and send it along to the stricken area, especially for those who have money and don’t mind parting with it…often in large chunks of charity.
And sometimes, those tasked with disbursement of those charitable chunks see the sums and find temptation.
That is compounded when the government entities get involved in securing funding in the form of grants and other taxpayer-supported dollars…because then the donations arrive in the millions, appropriated for specific use and funded by we the people to make lives better of those stricken by the disaster.
But what happens when even THAT is subject to abuse? That’s the question we’re seeking to answer in the first of the multi-part series for your Read the Lead, “Investigation into proper use of post-tornado funds focus of series of articles”:
The damage left by the February 29, 2012 Leap Day Tornado in Harrisburg
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HARRISBURG – A couple of months ago, Disclosure’s Harrisburg correspondent attended a Harrisburg City Council meeting where some unexplained bill requests lead to a world of unanswered questions, and conspicuously vague responses to queries.
Those payments, the correspondent found out later, were payments out of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity grants that Harrisburg received for disaster relief funds after the devastating tornado that tore the city apart on February 29, 2012. That information did not come easily, even though it was a part of a public meeting.
When asked about the payments, Commissioner Dale Fowler told our correspondent that he could not say for sure what the payments were, as he was only delivering them on behalf of Commissioner John McPeek. In the end, Disclosure submitted a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request in order to obtain the invoices of the payments.
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