County health officials earlier this month asked staffers to read a Voice of San Diego story about an internal county investigation into an ex-county contractor embroiled in a criminal scandal and reflect on its lessons.
Emails obtained after a public-records act request reveal that the interim director of county Public Health Services told county managers to circulate the story documenting the internal probe’s call for bolstered county oversight and flagging issues with the Harm Reduction Coalition of San Diego.
“Please share this with your teams who manage contracts – programmatic and fiscal/contracts,” Adrienne Collins Yancey wrote in a March 9 email. “This is a long read, however we should all take note and glean what we can to ensure we are conduct (sic) a proper and thorough oversight of (Public Health Services) contracts.”
Voice published the story on March 9 after threatening a lawsuit to force the release of a county investigation into the Harm Reduction Coalition of San Diego. County leaders initially claimed they would not release the report because it was protected by attorney-client privilege. Voice threatened to test that argument in court. The county ultimately released the document in early March.
Voice’s story on that review noted that within a few weeks of the internal probe kicking off last year, an unidentified county official and the organization’s CEO separately reached out to District Attorney Summer Stephan’s office.
A county spokesperson also said that county’s early findings led it to cancel its two contracts with the Harm Reduction Coalition, which held multi-million dollar deals to distribute an overdose reversal drug and to test illicit drugs for fentanyl. Then, months after the county review was completed, former Harm Reduction Coalition COO Amy Knox was charged with multiple felony counts for allegedly misappropriating at least $210,000 in public funds she used to pay for everything from plastic surgeries to personal San Diego Gas & Electric bills.
The county review dated Oct. 12 concluded there were several “opportunities for improving internal controls within County of San Diego operations.”
Among its findings: The Harm Reduction Coalition took months to notify the county of a non-fatal October 2024 overdose at the nonprofit’s office, took a county-funded vehicle to Mexico, inappropriately co-mingled personal and business expenses and allowed its chief operating officer to manage her own subcontract.
Voice’s story on the report and its findings – and a top county health official’s directive to managers to share it – spurred calls for reflection from county managers.
After Collins Yancey’s initial March 9 email urging others to share the story, multiple county officials including the county’s assistant medical services administrator, children’s services chief, laboratory director and tuberculosis and refugee health medical director forwarded the story to their teams.
“A long read but we lived through this when we were suddenly asked to take this operation over,” Assistant Medical Services Administrator Rob Sills wrote in a March 10 email. “We need to question everything that seems just a bit off and use each other as sounding boards for our operational decisions. Just like we have been doing for years.”
“See below…likely, more scrutiny and oversight as a result,” Public Health Services Laboratory Director Jeremy Corrigan wrote the same day. “I’m not worried about our team, and appreciate everyone’s due diligence.”