Being Alive’s North County current contract has been repealed amid accusations of mismanagement by their San Diego headquarters, and a $44,000 cash injection has been earmarked for the next contract holder.

According to staff and fellow HIV/AIDS service providers, Being Alive headquarters’ poor handling of a location change in January has fractured the crucial HIV/AIDS services provided by their North County branch.

The unpopular move from Pier View Way in Oceanside to Greenbrier Drive, off Oceanside Boulevard, was decided by Being Alive San Diego in December 2004. The office move on Jan. 31 resulted in a two-week lapse in service, said Being Alive North County’s former director, Dennis Finnell.

Being Alive North County offers a centralized base for consumers to access vital HIV/AIDS resources from multiple providers. The center’s reach stretches from Del Mar to Camp Pendleton and from the coast to Ramona. The area is poorly served by public transport.

On May 10, condition changes to the North County Coordinated Service Center contract was confirmed by the San Diego County HIV, STD and Hepatitis Branch, formerly called the Office of AIDS Coordination, and the funding almost doubled from $50,000 to $94,000.

“There were questions about the whole category [of coordinated service centers] and the planning council decided to do a more thorough overhaul,” said Karen Waters-Montijo, assistant medical service administrator of the HIV, STD and Hepatitis Branch. “They are trying to bring the amount [of funding] to be more proportionate to the number of AIDS cases, which is how North County was given an increase.”

She added, “There will be a request for proposals in the early summer, probably June, and anyone will have the opportunity to submit a proposal. We’ll continue with the [present] service until a new contract can be awarded … [probably] by September.”

The increased funding, $33,700 of which was from a minority AIDS grant, has created contractual obligations that require the provider to have the North County coordinated services center open 40 hours per week minimum, have direct links with primary care services and conduct outreach to minority populations, particularly Latinos. The minority AIDS grant is the reason the contract must go to tender, rather than next year, when Being Alive’s county contract would expire.

Shannon Wagner, executive director of Being Alive San Diego, said that despite lingering “hard feelings” from consumers and former Being Alive North County staff, Being Alive San Diego is likely to bid for the revised contract.

“No one can run a center for $50,000, so no one had applied for it before,” Wagner said of the new contract. “Now [that] they’ve made it around $90,000, there’ll probably be a lot more interest. I think it’s very sad that while we provided this service for so many years at 40 hours a week, with zero funding from county until two years ago, we didn’t receive that kind of support. We weren’t able to co-locate with any other organizations.”

Since Being Alive North County’s move to new premises, client attendance has plummeted from 147 regulars to only 20 last month, and the center’s opening times were cut to just 20 hours per week.

Finnell said only a marginal number of the programs that were provided previously are still in operation, with reports in arrears and office equipment still unconnected. Wagner discounts these claims.

Finnell brought a formal grievance against the San Diego headquarters on Feb. 15, calling for Wagner’s resignation.

In a letter dated April 6, Being Alive’s board of directors invited Finnell to attend a hearing on April 25 but stated “there was nothing in the materials you provided to justify or even consider the actions requested in your grievance.”

Finnell subsequently decided to resign his position, ending an 11-year working relationship with the organization.

“Everything we had put together over years and years of work has been flushed down the tube,” Finnell said. “In the last few years, I think they’ve lost who they are. Their unique program up here has been cut in half … [when] North County is so undeserved, and their services are duplications of other agencies available in San Diego [city].”

Wagner said, “He is no longer an employee, so any information coming from him isn’t from Being Alive, and he is not to be discussing it due to disclosure and confidentiality agreements.”

Molly Henry, executive director of Fraternity House, said mutual clients have expressed resentment that input they had given about any changes to Being Alive North County services were sidelined.

“It’s been a combination of things,” Henry said, “the neighborhood, the location, the feeling of being disaffected, of powerlessness, of feeling like their input wasn’t taken into consideration, and I don’t know if Being Alive can get past that.”

She added, “It’s been incredibly frustrating and sad to watch this happening, and in some ways it feels very much like what’s happening to the AIDS community in general.”

Alicia Nunez-Liriano, director of HIV programming at North County Health Services, agreed. “A lot of consumers were unhappy with the [new] location [of Being Alive North County] so we have seen a drop in the number of people coming in … The move had a lot to do with that.”

Wagner countered that, “We are absolutely trying to calm down the pain that this move created. If we didn’t have to move we wouldn’t have, but it came down to finances, to the hard-line decisions. Do I wish the board hadn’t come to this conclusion while I was in this seat? Sure. Then, I wouldn’t have to take this heat, [but] it just wasn’t doable anymore.”

Wagner conceded that communication about the move with staff, clients and collaborating organizations should have been better, but that the reponsibility of communicating that information lay with Finnell, who was the North County director at the time. She insisted a client-needs focus group would asses how to improve services from here on, and thorough consultations with North County staff and consumers would ensue before any future moves.