Sep 25, 2002 By Paul Sunyak 5 min read

Fayette County Commissioner Sean M. Cavanagh said Tuesday that he has no connection to a big provider agency for the county Mental Health/Mental Retardation Program, as alleged in a disparaging letter flashed around by MH/MR board chairman Martin Griglak. Sternly disavowing any relationship to Fayette Resources Inc. and the implication that he is cashing in on shady business dealings, Cavanagh fingered Griglak for spreading mistruths in a “heinous letter” shown to at least two other MH/MR board members and to program director Lisa Ferris-Kusniar.

“It says that I am in some secret real estate deal with Fayette Resources, which isn’t true,” said Cavanagh. “I have not ever been engaged in any deal with Fayette Resources.” He added that it was “inappropriate” and “very intolerable” for Griglak to engage in such behavior.

Although the situation came to a head during an executive session at last Wednesday’s MH/MR board meeting, where Cavanagh confronted Griglak, it remained in the background until Tuesday’s agenda meeting.

Cavanagh said he went public with the letter in order to clear the air prior to the commissioners’ vote to modify last year’s $4.6 million contract with Fayette Resources. He said he has no connections to that private nonprofit corporation, despite the anonymous letter’s heavy insinuations otherwise.

During last week’s executive session of the MH/MR board, where Cavanagh serves as the commission’s representative, he said that Griglak admitted showing the letter to board members Tom George and Carmella Hardy, and to Ferris-Kusniar.

Noting that both the letter and Griglak’s actions were in “very bad taste,” Cavanagh specifically mentioned Griglak’s close connection to Commission Chairman Vincent A. Vicites and hinted strongly at a possible political motive.

“That’s your boy. That’s your man. This is your main political advisor,” Cavanagh told Vicites, referring to Griglak.

Vicites countered that Griglak was only a “friend,” and added that he thought it awful that Cavanagh was making veiled allegations against Griglak when he wasn’t present to defend himself.

“Martin Griglak’s an honorable person,” said Vicites. “It’s a shame that you’re attacking him at this meeting … You shouldn’t be doing this to people. (Griglak) told me that you made copies (of the letter) and were passing them out.” Vicites urged the press to contact Griglak for his side of the story, to present a more balanced account.

Commissioner Ronald M. Nehls, who sat passively during the verbal pingpong match between his peers, spoke up only to warn that his patience had worn thin and his departure from the meeting was imminent unless things moved on.

“I’m not going to sit here much longer,” said Nehls, who added that he had plans to film the sight lines at the Great Meadows Amphitheater, which the county is trying to lease to Fayette Films LLC.

Contacted after the meeting, Ferris-Kusniar said she obtained a copy of the letter from a confidential source after Griglak showed it to her during a meeting between herself, Griglak and George.

“At that time I told Mr. Griglak all of the accusations in that letter were totally false,” said Ferris-Kusniar. While admitting that Fayette Resources is the biggest of the “four or five” in-county residential service providers used by MH/MR, Ferris-Kusniar said her agency does not unilaterally select which homes are used by clients, which was another of the letter’s allegations.

Ferris-Kusniar said that a MH/MR caseworker sits down with a family and does a detailed needs assessment for each person needing mental retardation residential services. Interested and qualified providers then send back a narrative and a budget for that prospective client, she said.

Based on that information, the family plays a key role in deciding which provider will be used, said Ferris-Kusniar, who added that Fayette Resources is a big provider because of its willingness to take difficult care cases.

“They’re the biggest residential provider we have in the county, mainly because they submit the proposals that the families like and they take on the most challenging people,” said Ferris-Kusniar. “They’ll take on difficult people, people that others won’t take on.”

Although the letter alleges that Cavanagh is profiting because a house he owns at 30 College Ave. in South Union Township is rented through Fayette Resources, Ferris-Kusniar said that’s not true. Cavanagh said his grandmother lives in part of the house and he rents the other part to a trucker.

The letter alleges that several properties owned by the Gulino and Carolla families are rented through Fayette Resources, but Ferris-Kusniar said that only one property – owned by Frank Carolla Jr. on McClellandtown Road – was actually rented by Fayette Resources.

“That’s the only one on this entire list,” she said.

The letter intimated that Cavanagh had business dealings with both families, which he said isn’t true. He said the letter simply “bashes Italian people, it bashes me, it bashes the director (Kusniar).”

Cavanagh said the lone genealogical truth in the letter is that his brother Michael is married to a Gulino.