October 1, 2005
Washington Blade
ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG

Shortly after the Appleseed Center released its blistering report on the problems at D.C.'s HIV/AIDS Administration, a new director was chosen to head the agency, former AIDS Action Executive Director Marsha Martin.

The Appleseed report, released in August, found what many local AIDS service providers have long claimed: The District is in the midst of an HIV crisis that the city has failed to adequately address.

Earlier this week, Martin served on a panel at a forum to discuss the Appleseed report and the District's response. Appleseed also announced it would be conducting a six-month report card to determine what progress the District has made.

While Martin did not provide many specifics for how D.C. would tackle its epidemic, officials from local AIDS service providers said they were pleased she attended.

Finally a conversation is being had with the right people at the table,said Anne Wiseman, a member of Metro Teen AIDS who attended the event. They're not operating in a vacuum.

Martin wasn't the only new face brought in to fix the scandal-plagued agency. In mid-September, Gunther Freehill joined HAA as the bureau chief for grants and contracts management, according to Health Department spokesperson Leila Abrar.

Freehill brings experience in HIV/AIDS advocacy work. Prior to joining the D.C. office, he worked in the Office of AIDS Programs & Policy in Los Angeles and has been a board member of AIDS Action.

He was very supportive any time we had an event, said Lauren Metoyer of California's Black AIDS Institute, of which Freehill is a board member. When there was work to be done he was there. He jumps into it and does the work.

But while Freehill worked as public affairs director for the Office of AIDS Programs & Policy in Los Angeles, the office faced accusations of misconduct, centering primarily on the former office director, Charles Henry.

Henry recently stepped down as director after a county audit found that he asked colleagues and several AIDS service providers to make donations to a candidate's mayoral campaign, the Los Angeles Times reported in June.

Geneviève M. Clavreul, a California AIDS activist and former commission member, told the Blade that some local AIDS activists accused Henry of having conflicts of interest because he worked at the AIDS office and served on the HIV Commission. The HIV Commission was in charge of deciding how money for AIDS services was spent. In 2002, the Board of Supervisors suggested that Office of AIDS employees not be voting members of the commission.

In 2002, activists and county supervisors also demanded a full accounting of how the office's budget of about $80 million was spent to make sure it was distributed equitably.

Los Angeles officials investigated the Office of AIDS Policy & Planning to determine whether any members had conflicts of interest. The report, released in December 2002, detailed conflict of interest statutes but did not discuss specific commission members, according to local media.

The D.C. Department of Health could not be reached for comment by Blade deadline.