Lynch’s wife tied to agencies he won grants for

[unhappycamper]

BY THE NUMBERS
Margaret Lynch is now paid between $50,000 and $55,000 a year for her work at the South Boston center.


Lynch’s wife tied to agencies he won grants for
By Marino Eccher
Globe Correspondent / November 10, 2009

US Representative Stephen F. Lynch has engineered four federal grants for a community health center and another three grants for a nearby substance abuse program, organizations for which his wife, Margaret, is an employee or board member.

Lynch arranged the passage of $760,430 in federal earmarks for the South Boston Community Health Center. Margaret Lynch is the center’s director of marketing and development. Earmarks totaling $881,018 were appropriated for the Gavin Foundation, a residential substance abuse program. Lynch’s wife was named to the foundation’s unpaid board just after it received its first earmark in 2003.

The earmarks for the two organizations totaled $1.64 million. For both organizations, the funding was for substance abuse services. Lynch could cite no instance in which he has obtained earmarked funds for any other substance abuse treatment facility in his district, which includes much of the southern part of Boston and 19 other cities and towns.

For the coming fiscal year, Lynch is seeking $190,000 more for the health center and an additional $350,000 for the Gavin Foundation, according to Lynch’s official US House website. This year, for the first time, members of Congress are required to disclose requests for earmarks, which are congressionally mandated expenditures that House and Senate members have long used to fund favored projects in their districts.

In an interview, Lynch said there has been no favoritism involved in the funding, and that his wife has received no financial benefit from the earmarks. He also provided the Globe with a copy of a letter he sought in 2007 from the House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct, five years after the health center’s first earmark. The letter concluded that Margaret Lynch had no financial interest in the earmark. Meaghan Maher, a spokeswoman for Lynch, said he had received similar clearance verbally before 2007, the first year in which House members were required to disclose in writing potential financial interests in earmarks.


Rest of article about my war-mongering congress critter at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/10/lynchs_wife_tied_to_agencies_he_won_grants_for/