Crime Prevention Grant Controversy
The head of the Indy Parks foundation says she doesn’t believe there’s a conflict of interest between one of the Foundation’s grant recipients and an agency that help develops metrics to give out grant dollars, even though the head of that agency sits on the board of this year’s largest award winner.
The Dove Recovery House received a $160,000 crime prevention grant from the Parks Foundation. One of the members who sits on that board is Lena Hackett of Community Solutions. Community Solutions assisted the Parks Foundation in developing metrics and developing scoring rubrics for the grants. For some, that has raised a red flag.
However, Parks Foundation President Cindy Porteous tells Indy Politics that Community Solutions did not evaluate any proposals and did not help determine who received a grant. She says the decisions to award the grants were made by volunteers who are appointed by the Mayor’s office, City-County Council and Parks Foundation.
Porteous also says Hackett did have to disclose a conflict of interest statement. Shortly after the grants were awarded the questions of conflicts of interest began to surface because City-Council President Maggie Lewis works for the Dove House and it received the largest grant of any organization.
Porteuos told the Indianapolis Star that politics had nothing to do with the decision and Lewis abstained from voting on the crime prevention grant funding as to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
