August, 2024
Lawrence’s embattled homeless coordinator, Kelly Birchall Frazier was caught by city officials trying to steer $200,000 in Federal ARPA grant (American Rescue Plan Act) money to her own non-profit while her city department oversees and/or administers those grants, and while she was already being paid by the city to provide services to the homeless.
Valley Patriot publisher Tom Duggan has been investigating Frazier since learning last June that she applied for the federal funds for her own non-profit called IVCS (International Veterans Care Services) which oddly enough is not “international.”
Documents obtained by The Valley Patriot show that not only did Frazier attempt to funnel $200,000 in federal ARPA money to her own non-profit IVCS through her public job in Lawrence, (at the expense of other non-profits) – but according to her own application she also attempted to and/or succeeded in obtaining $52,000 in state aid to her IVCS non-profit.
FRAZIER ARPA GRANT APPLICATION (1)
What’s more, Lawrence State Rep. Francisco Paulino fought for IVCS to get a $1M appropriation in this year’s state housing bond bill. That $1 Million appropriation for IVCS was rejected by the state senate and taken out of the state’s bonding request. The Frazier’s are campaigning for Paulino’s reelection.
IVCS HAS NOT FILED
FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES
According to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, non-profits in Massachusetts that receive and or spend more than $50,000 are mandated to file what are called 990 Financial Disclosure forms in order to solicit funds.
The Valley Patriot spoke to two different people in the AG’s office who stated emphatically that IVCS had not filed any disclosures going back to 2019 when it was formed.
Non-profits need to file these disclosures so that the public knows exactly who is getting paid by the organization, how much money they raise, who donated the money, and what the donated money is spent on.
According to Frazier’s own grant application to the City of Lawrence in 2023, she listed a $52,000 grant award by the state, which would mean the non-profit is mandated to file the disclosures.
To date she has not filed.
IVCS APPLICATION INITIALLY APPROVED
Frazier’s non-profit application for funds was initially approved and the request was then to the mayor’s office where it was also approved. *
After Mayor DePena signed off on the allocation, it went to the Lawrence City Council for a vote which passed, along with a batch of other non-profits slated to get the federal funds.
But, according to federal law, city councils must vote twice (at two separate meetings) on the disbursement of all federal funds that come though the city before funds can be disbursed.
ANOTHER CITY EMPLOYEE REJECTED
On July 18, 2023, the Lawrence City Council met to vote a second time on the disbursement of ARPA grants for local non-profits.
During that public meeting, Mayor DePena’s special assistant, Octavien Spanner told the council that two non-profits slated to receive federal money were run by city employees and constituted “a conflict of interest” or at the very least “the appearance of a conflict.”
The first was a non-profit with bogus paperwork submitted by Mayor DePena’s campaign manager Belgica “Lynette” Perez who was hired to be the city’s domestic violence coordinator at the police department.
Her “non-profit” was listed as an organization to help victims of domestic violence, which some say was an attempt at double-dipping. She also listed the wife of City Councilor Gregory DelRosario as a board member without even asking or informing her, and her non-profit wasn’t even legal until after she applied for the money.
The Valley Patriot reported on that story last August.
FRAZIER GRANT
APPLICATION REJECTED
The second non-profit taken off the list by Octavien Spanner was Kelly Birchall Frazier’s non-profit IVCS.
“There were two organizations where two city employees were involved with those organizations (applying for federal money),” Mayor DePena’s special assistant Octavian Spanner told the Lawrence City Council on July 18th.
“The staff at the Office of Planning and Community Development called to our attention that there may be conflict-of-interest issues, or at the very least a suspicion of conflict of interest concerning the two city employees.”
According to records (minutes) of that July 18th meeting, Kelly Frazier’s IVCS non-profit was the second of the two organizations that Spanner was referring to at the public meeting.
“We brought it to the attention of the City Attorney, and the City Attorney indicated that the best way to deal with the issue was to ask those two individuals (Perez and Frazier) to contact the (state) Ethics Commission and request an answer to the questions of conflict of interest, and return with an answer,” Spanner continued.
Spanner said that Perez’s application was rejected and added, “We did receive a response [on the] second applicant (Kelly Frazier) that submitted and received a letter as well from the Ethics Commission, and so their application was also rejected.”
2nd BITE AT THE APPLE
Even after being called out by the mayor’s office and rejected for federal funding for her own non-profit – while Frazier is the homeless coordinator – Kelly Birchall Frazier wasn’t done trying to funnel federal dollars to her own IVCS organization.
In August, just weeks after being rejected, records and emails obtained by the Valley Patriot show that Frazier applied a second time for the same amount ($200,000) for the same project, using the same information and simply submitting the documents that were previously rejected.
“She did not, however, provide a letter from the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission clearing her of the conflict-of-interest issue,” Spanner said of the second application.
When another member of the mayor’s staff told her she was not going to be considered for the grant without an ethics letter clearing her of the conflict-of-interest issues, her organization sent an email to the city withdrawing the funding request.
IVCS PRESIDENT DEBO BROWN
A CONVICTED FELON FOR INSURANCE FRAUD
Despite not being “international,” Frazier’s non-profit “International Veterans Care Services” lists on their corporate filings at the Secretary of State’s Office that Kelly Birchall Frazier is the CEO of IVCS, but also that her husband Donald Frazier as the president.
“There’s a nepotism issue here as well,” the mayor’s aid told the Valley Patriot last year.
“She’s the CEO, her husband is the president, I think everyone sees what’s going on here.”
Kelly and her husband Donald Frazier live in Salem NH, Donald goes by the “street name” of “Debo Brown” and was convicted of insurance fraud in a scheme where he and his wife Kelly Birchall Frazier staged car accidents in Lawrence.
Police arrested Kelly Birchall Frazier but because she cooperated with police she was not charged.
“Debo Brown,” (Donald) however, refused to cooperate and after his conviction was given a gift by the judge in that case who waived jail time as long as he didn’t violate the terms of probation and didn’t commit any more crimes.
But shortly after that generous sentence, Debo violated his probation and was forced to serve at least a year in prison.
POPPIN’ AND CRACKIN’
Despite living in a white neighborhood in Salem N.H., both Debo and Kelly Frazier often speak of “life in da hood” and are routinely seen attending and speaking at public meetings in Lawrence. They even do podcasts on Lawrence city issues as if they were actually Lawrence residents with a stake in the city’s future.
Until recently Donald (Debo Brown) Frazier was a Lawrence city employee working for the DPW and has been rumored to return to the city payroll in the street department.
His friends in city hall are still trying to get him back on the public dole like his wife, as he is currently unemployed.
SLAMMING THE MAYOR
When word spread last year that Kelley was trying to use her city position to get money for her own non-profit, she took to Facebook and denied it claiming people were, “putting lies on me” and pointed to the fact that she received no funds in that year’s fiscal budget – as if her failure to obtain the money was proof she never applied for it.
Frazier posted on social media using ‘ghetto talk’ to attack her boss, Mayor Brian DePena, whom she had previously shamed on Facebook for being in the Dominican Republic during a snowstorm.
In her post to “da homies”, Frazier pretended she was quitting her city job (which she never did) and taunted those who have long claimed she was using her public position to steer public funding to her own non-profit.
This, despite the fact that she told Valley Patriot publisher Tom Duggan that she only wanted the job in city hall so she could get a building for her IVCS, promising that “TMF will never get a building in Lawrence as long as I’m the homeless coordinator.”
TMF is a non-profit that feeds the homeless.
BOYIEEEEEEEE
“My question is where is the building and the funds that was supposedly given to my organization?” Frazier asked in a Facebook post after her attempt to get the federal money was thwarted by the mayor’s office.
“Lies is what it was. But y’all ran with it. LMAO. And the only ones I feel bad for is the homies, this administration don’t care … yeah I said what I said. No one puts me to be silenced.”
“Well, if she had succeeded in obtaining these federal funds,” one city councilor said “it would have been at the expense of other non-profits who applied, just to benefit someone who campaigned for the mayor and works in the office that disburses those funds. That’s just not fair to other non-profits and it looks terrible all around.”
“Even if this whole thing was legit, how do you justify that to the voters? How do you defend giving $200,000 to someone who works in that office, at the expense of others who have no political influence?”
Frazier initially denied applying for the funds, but then claimed she didn’t personally apply, and that someone else in her organization applied for her.
Then she claimed that because she doesn’t get paid from her non-profit, there was no conflict of interest. This, despite the fact that her husband Debo Brown is still president of the organization.
“Bottom line, this is federal money and you do not fool around with the Feds,” Octavien Spanner was heard telling a city councilor after the July 18th meeting.
“She didn’t produce a letter from the Ethics Commission clearing her to receive the funds and so she’s not getting the funds. Period.”
The Valley Patriot has forwarded Frazier’s applications and emails from her city job to the Inspector General’s Office, the Attorney General, and FBI. ◊
RELATED STORIES
*(EDITORS NOTE: in the print edition of the paper Awilda Pimentel was mistakenly identified as the person who approved Frazier’s grant request)
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