Maine’s Racial Equity Commission has emerged among the most frequent abusers of the sloppy no-bid contract system recently scrutinized in State Auditor Matt Dunlap’s 2024 annual report.
According to copies of Project Justification Forms (PJFs) related to the no-bid contracts obtained by the Maine Wire, the so-called “Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous, and Tribal Populations” has doled out five- and six-figure sums — often to friendly groups and consultants — despite having produced very little actual work in its five years of existence.
The commission was initially aimed at renaming places in Maine that had been deemed offensive by liberals, but so far it has only succeeded at providing jobs for Democratic party loyalists and lucrative, taxpayer-funded grants to politically connected non-governmental organizations.
In one glaring example of the commission’s total disregard for conflicts of interest, or the appearance of conflicts of interest, its Acting Operations Director signed off on thinly justified no-bid contracts for groups connected to House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland), the co-chair of the equity commission.
According to the PJF, Equity Commission employee Hunter Cropsey authorized a $12,000 payment in February 2024 to Cross Cultural Community Services (CCCS) in Portland, ME, a 501(c)3 organization run by Talbot Ross’s sister.
CCCM is headquartered at the Equality Community Center in Portland alongside left-wing groups like Equality Maine, Democracy Maine, and MaineTransNet, and was co-founded by Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D-South Portland) and Talbot Ross’s sister, Regina Phillips.
In another contract authorized by Cropsey, the commission paid $5,350 to Morgan Pottle Urquhart’s “Sunrise Strategies, LLC” for communications help. Pottle-Urquhart would go on to become a full-time employee for the commission in 2024 as a communications coordinator, according to state records.
During his time at the commission, Cropsey also authorized multiple no-bid contracts to Pivot Point, Inc, a Portland-based consulting firm that appears to have one employee, its owner, Carol Kelly.
The records show that Cropsey handed Kelly $30,000 in taxpayer funding via an April 17, 2023 no-bid contract for planning and development consulting.
In justifying the non-competitive nature of the contract, Cropsey said that Kelly was selected because she’d previously worked “pro bono” for the commission.
“The Provider stepped up at a time of immediate need and committed an enormous amount of time to support production of a report requested by the legislature, at no cost,” Cropsey said.
“Furthermore,” Cropsey explained, “the spirit in which the Provider operates and executes its work is in alignment with the values and expected outcomes of the Department, and, because of the nature of the subject matter, set itself apart as an entity with the necessary cultural competency needed to conduct work related to racial disparities and eliminating them.”
Among the largest of the no-bid contracts Cropsey signed off on was a $200,000 May 2023 award to Lake Research Partners of Washington, DC for polling and focus groups.
In the PJF, Cropsey indicated that this work was both an emergency and that Lake Research Partners was a unique vendor — that is, it was the only vendor that could possibly “Conduct one on one conversations, focus groups, and public polling to develop baseline data about the Maine public’s awareness, understandings, beliefs, and attitudes regarding the Permanent Commission’s focus areas.”
Although Lake Research Partner’s unique capabilities in Maine are a bit of a mystery, the firm is well-known as a Democratic Party consulting shop, with roots stretching back to the Clinton-Gore campaign.
Lake Research Partner’s has also worked extensively with the Democratic National Committee, the AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.
In another example of the incestuous community of equity consultants, Cropsey approved a May 2023 payment of $35,000 to “Chance to Advance,” which also went by the name “Darfur Youth of Tomorrow.”
The now-defunct LLC was registered under the name of Ekhlas Ahmed, at the address of a Windham home owned by Ahmed.
Ahmed was uniquely qualified to receive the single source, unique vendor payment due to her prior experience planning public events in Maine.
Ahmed would go on to become the policy adviser of the Office of New Americans (ONA) a few years later, where she is now the fledgling migrant resettlement office’s sole employee after the resignation of ONA Director Tarlan Ahmadov.
Chance to Advance was administratively dissolved in Nov. 2024 when Ahmed failed to file her annual report.
Perhaps Cropsey’s most mysterious no-bid authorization was a $64,400 contract covering January 16 to June 30, 2023 to a firm called “Public History and Education Consulting, LLC.”
That LLC no longer exists and utilized a registered agent service to conceal its owner; however, Secretary of State records obtained by the Maine Wire show the firms owner as Morgan Dibble.
Dibble, like other beneficiaries of the equity commissions no-bid contracts, would go on to a new venture, Atlantic Black Box, a non-profit which received even more lucrative taxpayer-funded contracts.
Cropsey himself is no longer at the equity commission. After a brief stint handing out tax-payer cash through a non-competitive process, Cropsey became the “Senior Manager – Programs & Community Engagement” for the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, a nonprofit organization that receives more than half of its funding from taxpayer sources — including from Cropsey’s former employer.
At the Equity Commission’s recent April 8 meeting of their finance and operations committee, it was revealed that the commission has entered a $25,000 “partnership” with the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, where Cropsey now works.
“This partnership represents a unique opportunity for the Permanent Commission to strengthen coalition relationships and for the state government to better understand which ethnic community-based organizations (ECBOs) are active in Maine, the communities they serve, and the services they provide,” a description of the partnership from the meeting’s agenda reads.
At the same meeting, the commission announced that they had given out nine $4,500 “Health & Wellness Mini-Awards” totaling $36,000, including one award to the Portland-based Gateway Community Services Maine.
The Maine Wire recently extensively reported on Gateway’s executive director, Somali-American Abdullahi Ali, who boasted in an interview with Kenyan media of his efforts to raise funds for a paramilitary force in Somalia he had hoped to lead if he had won the presidential election of Jubaland, Somalia.
State Rep. Deqa Dhalac, now holding an important role on the Maine Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, served as assistant executive director at Gateway with Ali at the same time DHHS’ Program Integrity unit was attempting to recoup nearly $800,000 in improperly billed MaineCare claims from the NGO.
Both Dhalac and Ali accompanied the now-resigned Office of New Americans Director Tarlan Ahmadov on a controversial junket to Azerbaijan, paid for by the government of Azerbaijan.
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