Lester Lewis-Powder wanted his five minutes.
Lewis-Powder is the executive director of Let’s Celebrate, a non-profit organization started in 1981 by several Jersey City clergymen to deal with the growing problem of hunger and homelessness.
Since 1997, the group has held a city contract to deliver hot meals to nearly 1,000 senior citizens each day. But 11 days ago, the city suddenly shut the organization’s kitchen, saying it will rebid the city’s senior citizen meal delivery to another vendor and citing state health inspections as the reason.
The city immediately began delivering the frozen meals to seniors once a day, instead of making separate deliveries for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The city said this is more efficient, and that seniors are happy with it.
Besides Meals on Wheels, Let’s Celebrate had been operating the Square Meal Soup Kitchen at the St. John’s Reform Church on Fairview Ave., but some of the food was prepared in advance at their city-owned kitchen on Cornelison Avenue, which was the one locked by the city on Aug. 10.
The evening of Aug. 10, at a City Council meeting, Lewis-Powder used his allotted five minutes of public speaking time, and more, to ask for the council’s help in taking some of the services back over.
But the city said that because of the violations discovered by the state, they will not reinstate Let’s Celebrate as the vendor.
“If [Lewis-Powder] had spent as much energy fixing his problems as in smearing the city’s efforts, he wouldn’t be in the situation he is in now,” said city mayoral spokesman Stan Eason.Change was coming
Officials from the city’s Department of Health and Human Services cited state reports of violations at the kitchen on July 21, 26, and 27.
According to copies of the state reports, the inspectors found that food temperatures on the trucks allegedly were not properly monitored; that there were sanitation code violations in the kitchen, and that there allegedly was improper delivery and handling of meals at the two sites. The state also made a recommendation that Let’s Celebrate be removed as the contractor.
But in a subsequent report, the state gave Let’s Celebrate until Aug. 3 to abate the violations. However, Eason and Let’s Celebrate staffers both concede that there was no subsequent inspection.
The city began, on Aug. 11, delivering meals to senior citizens at seven “congregant” sites across Jersey City where seniors reside and/or gather everyday. Delivery also continued to homebound seniors via at least seven city vehicles.
In an Aug. 11 letter from Larry Eccleston, executive director of the city’s Office of Aging/Senior Affairs in the Dept. of Health and Human Services, he informed seniors who are served by the Meals on Wheels Program that the new operation has certain advantages, including cutting down on deliveries being late, since they are all delivered at once.
The city had been exchanging memos between the state’s inspection days and the date of the lockout, discussing a contingency plan should they shut Let’s Celebrate’s operations.
Mayor Jerramiah Healy said this past Tuesday that he received reports from the city’s senior centers stating that many of the seniors are satisfied with the new service. He said that this interim version of the senior meal program will continue until November, when the city will solicit bids from vendors.
He also said he will not reinstate Let’s Celebrate as the vendor. Temporary contracts
The frozen meals are now being supplied by a food service company, Whitson Food Service, based in Long Island, which supplies meals to the Bergen County Meals on Wheels Program. Also, the city Dept. of Health and Human Services has entered into a 90-day emergency contract with several “catering sources” in Jersey City to deliver hot lunches.
City spokesman Stan Eason confirmed that several restaurants are being solicited to provide hot meals, including Renato’s on Central Avenue and Andy’s Supermarket on Ocean Avenue.
But Lewis-Powder said the action was the result of a longtime power struggle between his group and the city.
Let’s Celebrate is funded by the federal government, with 90 percent coming from the county and 10 percent from the city. The city, through the Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for the payment of the Let’s Celebrate staff.
Lewis-Powder said he believes city Health and Human Services officials are responsible for the visits by state monitors and inspectors that led to the lockout.
Lewis-Powder also claimed that not only are the frozen meals being delivered in vehicles that are not properly equipped to keep foods refrigerated, but that some of the deliveries are being done badly. Layoffs
Lewis-Powder had to make tough decisions last week and will be doing so in the weeks to come, since Meals on Wheels represented much of their business.
“I laid off 12 people on Monday and will have to lay off another five people [this coming] Monday,” he said.
The kitchen is not back open, although the group maintains that they will still run the soup kitchen program at the church, albeit with limited staff.
Lewis-Powder said that by the end of August, he will be left with a core of five employees working for Let’s Celebrate. Council expresses support
After Lewis-Powder was finished speaking Aug. 10, the council passed a resolution expressing support for Let’s Celebrate, with vocal support from city councilpersons Viola Richardson and Steve Lipski.
Lewis-Powder said he has requested a meeting with Healy on the matter, but has not heard from him as of the end of last week.
The city has asked Let’s Celebrate for three delivery vehicles that had been purchased with grant money from the federal government, so the city can use them for meal delivery. But Lewis-Powder is contesting the city’s request as well as other requests, saying, “it is asking me to give over what it took eight years to build.”
He also is considering legal options, but said he would rather not engage in a lawsuit with the city.
State Assemblyman Louis Manzo, a former Jersey City health inspector, is also looking into this situation.
Manzo has submitted an eight-page report to Mayor Healy that, according to a source, harshly critiques the treatment of Let’s Celebrate.
Manzo could not be reached for comment before article went to press. Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com Sidebar What led up to the lockout?
When the locks were changed on the doors leading to the kitchen area at 201 Cornelison Ave., it was a situation that was weeks and possibly years in the making.
When Lester Lewis-Powder addressed the City Council on Aug. 10, he said the past four years of work have been rife with conflict with the city’s Department of the Health and Human Services.
Lewis-Powder said the city had taken over case management of seniors in 2001, leading to three experienced employees dismissed and replaced with six allegedly inexperienced ones.
He also said that Let’s Celebrate was subject to contract renewals six times over four years; was not reimbursed for services rendered in 2004, and that employees were approached by city officials in January 2005 to leave.
This past June 21, a meeting was held at City Hall took place with Lewis-Powder, Mayor Jerramiah Healy, the mayor’s chief of staff Carl Czaplicki, local radio personality Pat O’Melia, and Sergio Lamboy and Larry Eccleston of Health and Human Services. The meeting was on the issue of the city looking to bid out the preparation part of the senior meals program to a new vendor, separately from delivery, with the belief that the city would save $350,000.
Lewis-Powder says that he showed the mayor that the city only contributes $150,000 to Let’s Celebrate.
The mayor at the meeting directed Human Services officials to bid the delivery and preparation process together, which led to them informing Let’s Celebrate that their contract would be extended from Aug. 1 until Dec. 31.
On July 13, the City Council passed a resolution continuing the contract until Dec. 31.
However, a clause was placed in the resolution giving the city the right to cancel the agreement without cause with only 24 hours written notice to Let’s Celebrate. Short notice
The following events transpired afterwards: July 21 – The NJ Division of Aging and Community Services Nutrition Monitoring Team visited Let’s Celebrate kitchen and storage area at 201 Cornelison Ave., along with its food transportation trucks (“hotshots”) and two senior congregant sites. They found that food temperatures on the trucks were not properly monitored; there were sanitation code violations in the kitchen, and that there was alleged improper delivery and handling of meals at the two sites.
Overall recommendations by the team included canceling food distribution from Let’s Celebrate. July 26 – The recommendations were shared on site with Larry Eccleston and Harry Melendez of Human Services and Bruce Thomas of the Hudson County Office of Aging.
On July 26, Eccleston and Melendez spoke to Patricia A. Polansky, Assistant Commissioner for the NJ Dept. of Health and Human Services, to inform her that they would immediately prepare a contingency plan for the Senior Nutrition Program in response to the recommendations outlined by the Nutrition Monitoring Team.
State health inspector Helena Oh accompanied by Paula Newman of the Nutrition Monitoring Team and began the first of two days of inspections that culminated in a report listing numerous violations, including live flies in food preparation areas, and Let’s Celebrate’s failure to renew their wholesale food/cosmetic license that expired on May 31.
But Oh issued a notice of abatement that theoretically would have allowed Let’s Celebrate to remedy the violations before Aug. 3. July 29 – Carol Ann Wilson, director of the Hudson County Health and Human Services Department, sent a letter to Tina Wolverton of the state’s Division of Aging and Community Services, addressing Wolverton’s concerns regarding a 30-day notification clause in the Let’s Celebration contract. Wilson responded by saying that since the city’s contract would expire in August anyway, Jersey City would get a “natural opportunity to declare an emergency” over a ” ‘health safety issue’ due to the findings of your recent monitoring visit.”
Various other memos transpired regarding a plan to halt Let’s Celebrate’s contract. Aug. 4 and 5 – City Health and Human Services Director Sergio Lamboy sent letters to Lewis-Powder requesting his cooperation with the transition and informing him that the offfical date of the new Senior Nutrition Program would be Aug. 11. – RK