A $525 lunch in Philly and more revealed in new emails about state officials' alleged misconduct.
PHILADELPHIA – Now it can be told: the restaurant tab for the two high-ranked Rhode Island state employees who ventured to Philadelphia in March for lunch and a tour with a state contractor came to $525 for the party of four.
Their fare that day included a $28 "Gnocchi Sarde," a $30 "Spaghetti Vongole," a $35 "Agrodolce Chicken" and a $45 "Whole Fish,'' along with swordfish ($20), Crudo ($18) and a blood orange salad ($16). Plus two Diet Cokes ($10).
The per-person charge for the four who sat down to that lunch: $131.
The bill included a $200 "private space hire" charge – and an $86 service charge – at Irwin's, a high-end Sicilian restaurant in South Philly which does not open for lunch, but did so on this occasion.
Fallout of the Philly trip – resignations, investigations
It is unknown who ate what that Friday in March that James Thorsen, then director of the state Department of Administration, and David Patten, then-head of the state's property management division, went to Philly to see an award-winning project by Scout Ltd., the urban design firm the McKee administration hired last June to come up with a re-use plan for the Cranston Street Armory.
Patten has since resigned. Thorsen is now working for the U.S. Treasury.
More on this scandal: Scout speaks out on Philly scandal, says RI officials acted 'bizarre' even before trip
And what was known before now has already sparked investigations by the Rhode Island Ethics Commission and the state police.
When told the restaurant was not open for lunch, Patten allegedly told a Scout executive: "'Well you can call in a favor if you want $55M in funding.' We arranged for a private lunch, which has never happened in the history of the project," Scout advised the governor's office."
That came out in an email from Scout that the attorney general ordered the McKee administration to make public, which decried Patten's "offensive" behavior and Thorsen's inaction. At some point after their return from Philadelphia, Thorsen said he personally paid their $250 of the lunch bill.
What wasn't seen until last Friday, when the McKee administration responded to a Journal records request, was a copy of the receipt for the March 10 lunch at Irwin's.
Lunch bill just one of many newly released documents. Here's what's in them
The administration was responding to a request for correspondence to and from key figures in the administration and Scout while the fate – and the funding – of the proposed $56-million Cranston Street Armory revival hung in the balance. The hopes and dreams of a neighborhood in the West End of Providence are also at stake.
There are no shockers in the trove of newly released emails.
But there is a trail that documents the drip-by-drip erosion of the optimism surrounding this latest in a series of efforts to put the cavernous and largely empty armory to new uses, as has been done with similar structures across the globe.
And there is an oblique reference to another now-famous lunch at the Capital Grille on Jan. 19 between the governor, his one-time fundraising chairman, Jerry Sahagian, and the same two Scout executives – Lindsey Scannapieco, the managing partner, and Everett Abitbol, development director, who contributed $500 each to McKee that day.
More on this scandal: Now Philadelphia is asking for stuff from RI. Here's what we can offer.
An email from Patten at 6:58 that night laid out the agenda for the next meeting with the governor and his team. It began:
"Key takeaways from lunch meeting on Thursday the 19th ... Key messages (revised financing strategy, plan between today and June 30, 2024, etc?) ... Communication strategy (with city, statewide, businesses, philanthropic foundations, etc.)."
Relationships between Scout and Smith Hill seemed rosy
Before the now-infamous Philadelphia visit, the messages from Smith Hill are upbeat.
On Feb. 23, Patten wrote the two Scout executives: "GREAT conversation with the governor and about a dozen other leaders late today."
"As I mentioned to you already, we are going to have a consultant review the term sheet and financial model. I amdriving this effort largely at the direction of Jim Thorsen ... I expect it will take 4-6 weeks," Patten continued. "We will then reconvene with you and decide on next steps, which (I think) will be an FY24 budget amendment."
"I think we are ten yards away from the end zone to make a touchdown (I’m referring to the Chiefs … sorry). LOL," he wrote.
More upbeat messages flowed back and forth, while the Scout team and its contacts in the Department of Administration (Patten, primarily) and the governor's office (Christopher Farrell) talked terms for extending the firm's pre-development services contract, with Scout continuing to get a $25,000 "holding fee."
Simply put: The original agreement with Scout Urban Ltd., "which included a $25,000 monthly fee to safeguard Scout’s engagement with the project, ran from July through November 2022. The amended purchase agreement allows the state to extend the engagement period through June 2024," according to administration spokeswoman Laura Hart.
Other emails document Scout's repeated attempts to get actually get paid the $25,000 monthly fee which, at one point, was in arrears by more than $100,000.
In the wake of the Philadelphia debacle, tones changed
On March 22; Abitbol wrote Thorsen: "In response to your March 13th request, attached is an invoice for the private lunch held at Irwin's during your tour ... Also attached are a number of outstanding invoices dating back to November 1st 2022. We need these to be paid immediately."
"While this is not my typical role and same for you, our requests for the invoices to be paid have resulted in 5 months of unpaid invoices and as of April 1st will exceed $155,000 in open invoices."
Thorsen responded in this March 27 email to Scannapieco and Abitbol:
"I was hoping to catch you and Everett up on a few things that have happened since we last spoke."
"Dave Patten has been on sick leave since our trip to Philadelphia," Thorsen wrote. "We held a community meeting with the West Broadway Neighborhood Association to discuss plans to revert the building away from the [homeless] warming station and future plans for redevelopment."
"We hired JLL Consulting for help with due diligence, who will be here for a site visit tomorrow ... I announced that I will be leaving DOA, effective April 28 ... Most importantly, a check for to Scout’s fees is expected to be cut in tomorrow’s check run."
The Scout team had questions. Who would be their new contact(s) at the Department of Administration? What job had JLL been given?
A day later, in response to their request for elaboration, Scout got the rundown on what JLL Consulting had been hired to do, including:
A review of the "developer's proposal, including but not limited to: program plan, phasing plan, conceptual designs/renderings" and "any preliminary contractual documents between the State of Rhode Island and the developer, including but not limited to: term sheet, ground lease, development agreement, operating agreement, etc."
Also: an analysis of "the reasonableness of key assumptions of the developer’s proposed development plan and financial pro forma."
"They are performing this on an expedited basis and we are pushing to get this done over the next several weeks," Thorsen wrote on that day more than three months ago.
The JLL report is not yet public, but since the public release of the Scout email and a more recent Journal story on Scout's view of events, McKee has publicly soured on Scout's proposal for the armory.
He told reporters last week:
"As far as that project goes, we're not going to agree to a project that's not in the best interest of the taxpayers. And [from] what I've seen right now in the condition of that project, it's not in the best interest of the taxpayers."
But "we're more than open to continue ... discussion of how to use, have that property be used in a way that's a benefit to the community, and we'll continue to have those conversations."
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Newly released emails in Philly scandal reveal $525 lunch tab at Irwin's
