Montgomery County appears to have a transparency issue with how it discloses its vendor information to the general public or those seeking more details from the data and county spending source(s) housed at spending.data.montgomerycountymd.gov.
As Mr. Reardon “Sully” Sullivan (a former candidate for Montgomery County Executive) has documented, “as all organizations must do, the Montgomery County government maintains a register of all the checks [and payments] they write to vendors, individuals and other business associates.”
But…
Mr. Sullivan notes that “A quick look at the persons and groups that have received checks from the County will show over 25,000 checks totaling almost $160 million dollars were written to anonymous, numbered vendors with no name.”
This kind of “anonymity” for select vendors or grantees of MoCo government largesse is bad form for a local government that claims transparency, but even the vendors Montgomery County does disclose information about via its public-facing “checkbook” leave a lot to be desired by anyone upset with recent tax hikes or questioning where their hard-earned tax dollars are going and for what ends.
Case in point: something called “Energy Audits and Green Solutions, LLC” got a huge WIRE payment in April of 2020. The invoice date was entered as 04/06/2020 and the payment date was 04/8/2020. It was described as a $3.31 million payment for “medical equipment” per the County’s own checkbook / vendor spend data (both screen grabs are un-changed from the County’s original data set, available for public review):
We looked up “Energy Audits and Green Solutions” and it is clear something exists or existed, but there is no active website up for the vendor as of December, 2023. There does appear to be an active phone number. This screen grab (below) showcases what the domain ‘energyauditsandgreensolutions.com’ looked like back in mid-March, 2019. There is language referencing “lighting” and LED products, but nothing claiming this was a medical equipment vendor that served local cities or governments. There aren’t any employees or managers shown, quoted or depicted on this old (now defunct) site, nor any real trace-able information provided about EAGS on the “About EAGS” link.
Additional research showcases that something under this name does exist and matches the zip code of the vendor provided in the Montgomery County “checkbook” data set. Located in Bowie, MD, Energy Audits and Green Solutions, LLC appears to have a single member, Deborah Harrington (screen shots are from Buzzfile.com as of December, 2023):
Articles of Incorporation documents for Energy Audits and Green Solutions, LLC are sparse, but show it was set up as the following, back in January 2011:
In April of 2023, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASME, held a gala called “Reinventing the Future: Equity in Engineering. Sustainability for the World.” A Deborah Harrington was on the host committee and noted as the Founder and CEO of Energy Audits and Green Solutions, LLC. Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller spoke at this gala.
It should be noted that Deborah Harrington is a big-time donor to Maryland Democrats (almost exclusively). In December of 2021, there was a $3,000 donation made to Aruna Miller by a Deborah Harrington of Bowie, MD. No employer detail was provided:
There was another $1,000 given to Aruna Miller that December as well. Here is a similar screen cap from OpenSecrets.org detailing all the donations made to Maryland Democrats in just the past year, noting the employer was Energy Audits and Green Solutions:
It also appears close to $1,650 was given to Wes Moore’s campaign in 2022 and $3,500 was then given to the Moore campaign in 2021 by a Deborah Harrington of Maryland. This would bring the total (over two years), given to the Wes Moore and Aruna Miller campaigns, to nearly $10,000. This is all on top of dozens of other donations to MD State House and Federal Congressional candidates made by this individual.
What exactly did the MoCo taxpayer get from Energy Audits and Green Solutions, back in April, 2020? It seems clear that local politicians like Aruna Miller got something (campaign cash)… but what exactly did MoCo residents receive for that $3.31 million?
More to come.
