Mesa superintendent asks prosectors to investigate decade-old lease with clinic

MESA, AZ (AZFamily) — An East Valley superintendent contacted state prosecutors and the FBI after he says the district discovered irregularities with a lease over a decade ago.

Dr. Chad Wilson, superintendent of East Valley Institute of Technology, said the lease could have caused the institute to lose millions of dollars in rent.

The lease, signed in 2011, gave the non-profit Adelante Healthcare permission to build up to a 50,000-square-foot community health clinic on EVIT’s Mesa campus in exchange for $2,780 a month. The lease keeps the rent unchanged for 40 years.

“We’re stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we think there’s something that isn’t in the best interest of taxpayers here,” Dr. Wilson said. “I’m hopeful that, whether it’s the [Arizona] Auditor General, the [Arizona] Attorney General, the FBI, that they will help find out more to the story.”

However, the lease amount wasn’t the only red flag staff said they had discovered.

EVIT’s previous superintendent signed the contract, but Wilson said the district has no record of the school board ever approving the deal. He said there’s also no record of the deal going to a vote of the people, something Dr. Wilson said state law required at that time for leases over five years.

A spokesperson for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office said it cannot comment on potential investigations.

Dr. Wilson said the lease revenue could have funded high school programming, expanded facilities or provided additional resources for instructors.

The boards and leadership teams at both EVIT and Adelante have changed since the 2011 agreement.

In a statement, Adelante said it “intends to take all necessary steps to clarify this recent news and the issues raised.” The nonprofit said it “is committed to being a good steward of community-serving resources.”

Dr. Wilson said he “never concluded there was anything nefarious” on the part of Adelante.

Arizona’s Family contacted the previous superintendent who signed the agreement, Dr. Sally Downey. She insisted every contract she signed had approval from the school board and said this deal was structured with students in mind. Downey suggested the new leadership of EVIT was simply trying to revisit the contract in a bid to extract more money.

Records show Adelante built its health center on previously vacant land next to EVIT’s Health Sciences building. Dr. Downey said the goal of attracting Adelante to build on the property was to give EVIT students a place to do hands-on training and internships, calling it “a beautiful partnership.”

In recent years, that partnership has yielded few internships, in Dr. Wilson’s view. Over the last three years, only five EVIT students have done internships at Adelante, he said.

“We want to do what’s right for our taxpayers. We want to do what’s right for our students, but we also want to be fair to [Adelante]. And so at some point, we’ll have to sit down and have a conversation about what we should have been owed, what was a fair market value, and how we move forward,” Dr. Wilson said.

Statement from Gary Campbell, Corporate Communications Manager of Adelante Healthcare:

Adelante Healthcare, Inc. is a Federally Qualified Health Center dedicated to serving our communities, especially vulnerable populations in medically underserved areas. For over a decade, Adelante Healthcare has had a relationship with the East Valley Institute of Technology and is privileged to serve the 15,209 patients in the Mesa community in which our clinic is located, as well as the future medical professionals educated on the EVIT campus.

Two hours before a Thursday, September 19 Special Meeting of the EVIT Governing Board, Adelante attended a call with EVIT Superintendent Dr. Chad Wilson, informing us of potential irregularities in the process of EVIT’s execution of 2011 and 2012 leases.

Since neither the current leadership nor the board of Adelante Healthcare nor EVIT were parties to that contract negotiation or execution, Adelante intends to take all necessary steps to clarify this recent news and the issues raised. As such, Adelante is currently in the process of gathering and reviewing historical documentation with respect to our ongoing relationship with EVIT and the property developer/landlord of our Mesa clinic.

Adelante has remained in compliance with the then-executed contract and the various subsequent assignments and amendments and will continue to do so as EVIT conducts further diligence regarding its statutory requirements.

Adelante is committed to being a good steward of community-serving resources and looks forward to supporting all interested parties in their prompt resolution of this matter.

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