🔒Documents: Sen. Doug McCrory held sway over Blue Hills nonprofit

When the emails began arriving after 10 p.m., most of the recipients could not believe what they were reading. Nearly every employee at the Blue Hills Civic Association was told that the nonprofit, which had served residents in Hartford’s North End for more than six decades, was out of money and that they were immediately out of a job. “Due to unforeseen financial challenges, the board has made the tough decision to reduce our BHCA team. Subsequently, your employment with BHCA is terminated effective today, April 8, 2025,” the message from Blue Hills’ board chairwoman read. “You will not need to return to the office after this date.” Kelvin Lovejoy, a community organizer at Blue Hills, and many of his coworkers assumed the message had to be a scam or a poorly timed April Fools joke, because, as far as they knew, Blue Hills had plenty of money and had actually been growing in recent years. “We were like, this can’t be real,” Lovejoy recalled. They quickly came to realize, however, that the layoff notices were no prank. More than a year later, it’s also become apparent that Blue Hills and its former employees were just the first casualties of a growing political scandal that has cast a shadow over Hartford’s nonprofit community and is now threatening to topple a senior state Democratic lawmaker. The Connecticut Mirror reviewed thousands of internal records from the nonprofit and interviewed seven former Blue Hills employees and contractors in an effort to understand the events that preceded its collapse. That reporting reveals how state Sen. Doug McCrory, who has represented Hartford’s North End for more than two decades, reshaped Blue Hills into an arm of his political office and used the nonprofit to direct state taxpayer money to other organizations, some of which were operated by close acquaintances. Emails, meeting minutes and bank statements show that McCrory forged a relationship with Blue Hills’ executive director that enabled him to influence the spending of millions of dollars between 2022 and early 2025. Those documents also highlight how McCrory used that relationship to burnish his reputation as a politician who could deliver state funding to an impoverished community — by spending money on social events, small business grants and aid to “well-known” members of the community. The message wasn’t always subtle. He once delivered a giant novelty check from Blue Hills to a local nonprofit — at a campaign event that he organized. McCrory’s influence at Blue Hills and some of the larger expenses that he authorized sparked questions from the nonprofit’s auditors and attorneys and raised concerns about “excessive” spending and “potential risks” to the organization. And his involvement at Blue Hills eventually drew the attention of the FBI, which began investigating the Democratic senator more than two years ago. Several months after Blue Hills’ layoffs were announced, the nonprofit and its former executive director, Vicki Gallon-Clark, were both named in subpoenas that were issued as part of that ongoing criminal investigation. A subsequent audit commissioned by state officials also reported that McCrory used Blue Hills to funnel millions of dollars in state funding to other entities, including several businesses owned by Sonserae Cicero, whose relationship with the senator is being scrutinized by the FBI. Blue Hills former employees watched over the past 12 months as details about their former workplace slowly spilled into public view. But many of them said they still don’t fully understand how a 62-year-old institution — a pillar of the north Hartford community — could crumble seemingly overnight. “It’s crazy how the integrity of an institution just got washed down the sink like dirty water from dishes,” Beverley Hines, who led Blue Hills’ Parent Power Initiative, said. “Nobody wants to stand up for the integrity of this place. What made Blue Hills stay in existence for 60 years?” Like Hines, many of the former employees said they are frustrated that the nonprofit was cast aside so easily. But even more, they said, they are concerned about what the loss of Blue Hills will mean for the wider community. For decades, they said, Blue Hills provided a voice to the low-income neighborhoods throughout Hartford’s North End. The nonprofit and its staff helped to rally support to save Weaver High School more than a decade ago. It staffed a permanent office in that school where Blue Hills employees provided tutoring and other support to students. And its youth summer employment program was one of the largest in the city — training and engaging hundreds of teenagers every summer, keeping them off the streets and out of trouble. But much of that legacy vanished last year when Blue Hills locked its doors.

Inside the Blue Hills office

In recent years, records show, there were two distinct sides to Blue Hills operations. On the one side were Blue Hills’ staff members, who continued to mentor high school students, run the local senior center and manage more than 400 kids through their summer jobs program. And on the other were McCrory and Gallon-Clark, who privately decided how to subgrant millions of dollars in state funding to other entities. It was that second less-visible side of the operation that ultimately contributed to Blue Hills’ downfall last year, after a $300,000 payment — one of many subgrants authorized by McCrory — was stolen and Connecticut officials decided to freeze all of the nonprofit’s funding. Most of the former employees said they were completely unaware of McCrory’s involvement at the nonprofit, outside of him advocating for the organization at the state Capitol. They would see McCrory at Blue Hills’ office on occasion, they said, but that wasn’t unexpected for a state lawmaker who grew up in the area and had spent more than 20 years representing the community in the state legislature. Other staffers, however, said there were signs in recent years that McCrory was making executive and board-level decisions at Blue Hills, despite having no official role there. Ralph Knighton, a former economic development consultant for Blue Hills, said there seemed to be some type of agreement between Gallon-Clark and McCrory. Gallon-Clark, he said, gave McCrory a free hand to direct millions of dollars through Blue Hills, and, in return, McCrory ensured the nonprofit consistently received enough public funding to maintain and grow its own operations. The forensic audit released earlier this year showed that, between 2023 and 2025, McCrory helped to award more than $11 million to Blue Hills through legislative earmarks, but the nonprofit only kept roughly $2.3 million. The rest was sent to other organizations and individuals based on McCrory’s instructions. In hindsight, Knighton said, McCrory was clearly influencing Gallon-Clark, who assumed the senator was acting in Blue Hills’ best interests. “She saw it as an opportunity to get funding” for the organization, Knighton said of Gallon-Clark. “She was naive,” he added. “She’s a church girl. She don’t know nothing about the damn streets.” In a statement written by her attorney in response to questions from the Connecticut Mirror, Gallon-Clark expressed regret over how she handled the $300,000 that was stolen in late 2024 and said she was disappointed by the collapse of Blue Hills. But she and her attorney declined to address her relationship with McCrory. “After working for so many years at the Blue Hills Civic Association … it saddens her to see not only her efforts but all the efforts by BHCA and its employees questioned,” wrote Richard Brown, her attorney. “Ms. Gallon Clark is asking the community to continue to stand behind BHCA to allow it to continue serving the community in a very positive way, as it has for over 60 years,” Brown added.

A ‘conduit’

McCrory, who is running for reelection this year, did not respond to multiple phone calls and emails for this story. But in a recent television interview, McCrory denied that he was ever involved in the day-to-day operations at Blue Hills, and he argued that his relationship with the nonprofit was no different than any other politician who advocates for organizations in their community. “I don’t monitor what goes on at Blue Hills. It’s not my job. I’m not into the day-to-day operations of that organization,” McCrory said during the March 15 televised interview on WTNH. Internal documents from Blue Hills, however, show the influence McCrory exercised over the state taxpayer money that arrived in Blue Hills’ bank accounts between 2022 and 2025. Those records, which have been turned over to auditors and the FBI, include instances in which Gallon-Clark acknowledged McCrory’s influence over the funding. In one email from early 2024, for instance, Gallon-Clark described Blue Hills as a “conduit” through which McCrory could “funnel more funding” into the community. Documents show Gallon-Clark also assembled lists of the various organizations that McCrory was considering subgranting money to. “PER CONVERSATIONS WITH SENATOR MCCRORY,” one of those lists was titled. Emails from Blue Hills show Gallon-Clark and McCrory were in regular contact. And when the $300,000 was stolen from Blue Hills, Gallon-Clark told McCrory about the missing money weeks before state officials and the nonprofit’s board of directors were alerted. The six members of Blue Hills’ board, including state Rep. Joshua Hall, D-Hartford, did not respond to phone calls for this story.