Wichita hands control of Facts Not Fear ICT campaign, $2.4M grant to KU med school

The Wichita City Council terminated a contract with a Facts Not Fear ICT project administrator on Tuesday, a move that cut out two contractors whose involvement in the federal grant program raised ethical questions when it was awarded in 2021.

The city also plans to order an external audit of the $4 million grant award amid concerns raised by past and current City Council members.

Community Connections Consulting Services began administering the grant in August 2021. Since then, it has spent $1.6 million. The Facts Not Fear ICT project has promoted events where approximately 675 people received COVID-19 vaccinations.

Assistant City Manager Donte Martin said the decision to end the contract — which was set to expire in June — had nothing to do with those concerns. He called it “a mutual agreement” between the city and Community Connections Consulting Services, a company founded by the city’s former Opportunity Zones officer Angeline Johnson while she was a fellow working in the city manager’s office.

The city will instead give the remaining $2.4 million and control of the Facts Not Fear ICT campaign to the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, which Martin said has better relationships with federally qualified health care facilities.

“It’s not a reflection on the performance of C3S,” Martin said in an interview with The Eagle. “It’s an opportunity to take a project that is performing well and hopefully make improvements that allow it to perform better.”

By canceling the contract with C3S, the City Council also terminated the marketing agreement with Mamarazzi Communications, a company owned by Ti’Juana Hardwell, who has close personal ties to council member Brandon Johnson and his wife, Danielle Johnson.

The original purpose of the $4 million “Advancing Health Literacy to Enhance Equitable Community Responses to COVID-19” grant — part of President Biden’s national pandemic response — was to encourage COVID-19 vaccination and testing among under-served populations, especially in racial and ethnic minority populations. The program was set to expire June 30, but Martin said the city will likely apply for and receive a 12-month extension.

The University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita plans to focus on mental health, partner violence, healthy foods, substance abuse and COVID-19, Dr. Elizabeth Ablah told the council. Its goals are to improve health literacy, community engagement, patient-provider communication and COVID-19 outcomes.

“It has wide-ranging impacts for a lot of communities and really for the city of Wichita,” Ablah said.

An October 2021 Eagle investigation found previously undisclosed connections between the grant recipients and public officials who applied for and approved it on behalf of the city, raising questions about conflicts of interest and a possible breach of the city’s ethics ordinance by then-Vice Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Angeline Johnson had listed Danielle Johnson as an associate on her company website when the city approved the contract, although Danielle Johnson said she never worked for nor received money from C3S. Hardwell, a longtime friend of Danielle Johnson, was the bridesmaid in the Johnsons’ wedding and listed Danielle Johnson as a reference in her resume in the grant application.

Angeline Johnson and Hardwell did not speak at the council meeting. Brandon Johnson, who sought advice from the city attorney before voting on the grant in 2021, did not participate in discussion and recused himself from a vote.

“Due to an actual conflict of interest this time, I’ll be abstaining from today’s vote,” Johnson said.

After the meeting, Johnson did not want to say specifically what conflict of interest he was citing when he recused himself from the vote.

Johnson did not respond to additional ethical concerns raised by former council member and potential mayoral candidate Jared Cerullo, who addressed the council for the first time since he left office last year.

“I was proud to support this grant when it passed in 2021, but if I would have known about many of the relationships involved, I very likely would not have voted for this grant,” Cerullo said.

“It seems to be that $2 million spent and getting only 675 people extra vaccinated is a terrible return on investment,” Cerullo said.

Martin said in an interview with The Eagle that the Facts Not Fear ICT program can’t be measured in vaccinations alone.

“The grant is more than vaccinations and testing,” he said. “The purpose of the grant is, in addition to vaccines and testing, advancing health literacy.”

More conflicts?

Cerullo said he has identified two other potential conflicts of interest: Johnson’s appointee to the Wichita Ethics Advisory Board, C. Edward Watson II, performed legal services for C3S and Angeline Johnson; and Malcolm Carter, a Facts Not Fear ICT community facilitator for the African American community, has simultaneously worked for C3S, The Community Voice and Audacy Inc., which received thousands of dollars in federal money from C3S for advertisements.

“I had originally planned to ask if Watson’s relationship with C3S — the awardee of this grant previously — would disqualify him from being a member of that board. But now, it appears that someone must have gotten a hint because he resigned last week,” Cerullo said. “How is that not a conflict of interest, and why would Mr. Watson even be selected for the ethics advisory board to begin with?”

Watson did not respond to written questions. Martin confirmed to The Eagle that Watson did work for C3S under the federal grant program. His law firm, Foulston Siefkin, received $10,410 in federal grant money from C3S, Martin said, which is allowed under federal law.

“Mr. Watson has resigned from the Ethics Advisory Board and not related to this grant, completely unrelated,” Martin said.

Carter would not comment. Martin confirmed Audacy received grant money for advertising but said he did not immediately know how much money. Martin would not say whether he thinks it is a conflict.

“A single audit will be conducted of all C3S activities related to the grant,” he said. “So if there were conflicts, improprieties related to procurement, it would be addressed to be reviewed during the single audit.”

Cerullo, who has said he plans to run for mayor, was not alone in questioning the grant program.

City Council member Jeff Blubaugh asked how the city was tracking $90,000 in gift cards given out as incentives for attending Facts Not Fear ICT events.

“Based on previous conversations that we’ve had, and questions that I’ve heard, I know there was concern about potential for abuse,” Martin said.

Martin said of the $90,000 in gift cards, about $10,000 went to individuals who received multiple gift cards. The average gift award to people who received multiple gift cards was $80, Martin said.

Blubaugh also sought a response from the city manager’s office about the 2021 Eagle investigation that showed the city used outdated and misleading data about the “catastrophic” effects of COVID-19 in its racial and ethnic minority communities. The city intern who filled out the application, Sarah Milligan, left the city to work for C3S on the federal grant program, The Eagle previously reported.

“I am aware of the concerns that were raised, I believe in September or October of 2021, both regarding the accuracy and errors contained in the grant application and also the procurement process,” Martin said.

Martin said he had a meeting in 2021 with the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health to address those issues with the application, talking “in detail about the error that was made in terms of the data and, once again, there was no intent to mislead.”

Martin, in his interview with The Eagle, also confirmed that the city did not approve a major expense announced by Angeline Johnson and Hardwell at a Facts Not Fear ICT kickoff meeting in November 2022.

Johnson and Hardwell announced, as part of the Facts Not Fear ICT campaign, that it would spend $500,000 on “Community Initiatives.” They printed a large check and posed for photos with it. A photo of it was posted on the Facts Not Fear ICT website as of Tuesday afternoon.

But the check didn’t represent an actual expense by the Facts Not Fear campaign.

“It wasn’t allocated, awarded or spent,” Martin said. “At the time, the Facts Not Fear team was exploring establishing a community initiatives fund. The city of Wichita did not approve the establishment or authorize the fund, so the funds were never expended and a community initiatives fund was never established.”

Angeline Johnson, in an email, said her company supports the city’s decision to change who administers the grant.

“C3S exists to identify and provide opportunities for positively impacting communities through impassioned thought paired with emboldened actions,” she wrote. “As a firm, our engagement in any community is undergirded by both commitment and dedication to doing ‘THE WORK’ necessary to make a true difference in people’s lives. C3S has and will continue to maintain that focus absent of any and all objectives that serve to detract from our team and partners actually engaging in doing ‘THE WORK’ in support of individuals and families here in Wichita.

“As a committed community partner, C3S was honored to serve as the initial Project Administrator for Facts Not Fear ICT. Our team is pleased to have partnered with the City of Wichita to advance efforts to address the disparate impact of COVID-19 in the lives of Wichitans.”

Little, small steps

Multiple Facts Not Fear ICT program team members showed up at City Hall Tuesday to defend the program.

C3S hired four community facilitators to connect with racial and ethnic minorities to promote healthy response to COVID-19 and other health-related information. Much of the grant money went to promotional materials and advertisements promoting events hosted by other organizations, including Sedgwick County Health Department, Hunter Health and others.

Catalina Garcia, Hispanic/Latino community facilitator for C3S, said the Facts Not Fear ICT campaign helped Spanish speakers access vital COVID-19 and other health information.

“When you talk to people about vaccinations, sometimes they’re resisting,” Garcia said. “But if they see a familiar face, and they see themselves understood, and they can ask questions in their language. This trust that we are building as community facilitators in our community is very important.”

“I will say that we are working with the low-income ones,” Garcia said. “And some of these people are so — they need information. Sometimes they don’t know the difference between stress, anxiety and depression. They think they all are the same. They are not. It is important for them to know what is the difference.”

Tashina Buffalohead, a C3S community facilitator for Native Americans, said she hosted a resource fair in April that included a vaccine clinic.

“We did an Easter egg hunt, which was really fun, with the community members,” Buffalohead said.

She also told the council that Facts Not Fear ICT gave out gift cards as incentives for vaccinations and for attending mental health sessions.

“I know you guys have been hearing all this talk about money, and all this other stuff, but I want you to see the other part about us teaching people,” Buffalohead said. “If you can come somewhere for free, you know, and get a lesson, and then walk out with a gift card to get food for your kids, I mean, you know, that’s something. So I just wanted to come up here and tell you the other side of the story about how we can make a difference in our communities — and they can leave with something. So Facts Not Fear has done things, you know. We have. We have made strides, you know, even if it’s individual, you know, little, small steps. So I just wanted to come up here and tell you the bright side of things from our perspectives.”

Other uses?

Blubaugh said data he has received from Sedgwick County does not show disparities in COVID-19 infections based on race or ethnicity. He suggested Facts Not Fear ICT instead shift its attention to preventing fentanyl overdoses, which he said are on the uptick in Wichita.

“Most certainly that is part of our plan,” Ablah, of University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, said. But she said disparities in COVID-19 infections continue to exist for American Indian or Alaska Natives in Wichita compared to white people.

“So I definitely would disagree with you on the point that we do not have disparities with respect to COVID in our community,” Ablah said. “We do, and we still do. However, I agree fully that substance abuse is a problem in our community, and we have multiple reasons as it continues to grow in numbers over these last years, it is important for us to be aggressive.”

Celeste Racette, mayoral candidate and founder of Save Century II, questioned whether the money would be better spent on a social service organization such as the Wichita Family Crisis Center.

“When I see $2 million left over from a grant, and I see this overwhelming need, with a group that’s already established, is already working on stressors, on domestic violence, on drug abuse within the community, I would say let’s not recreate the wheel,” Racette said. “I approve this council item, cut the grant off, but I see where the funds can be better spent.”

This story was originally published March 7, 2023 at 3:20 PM.