What Multi-Service Center?
Published 4:33 am Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Eric Williams/The Orange Leader Recent pictures of the sites where a Multi-Service Center was expected to open in early 2017. The sites remain inactive and are now owned by a bank.
Eric Williams/The Orange Leader Recent pictures of the sites where a Multi-Service Center was expected to open in early 2017. The sites remain inactive and are now owned by a bank.
Eric Williams/The Orange Leader Recent pictures of the sites where a Multi-Service Center was expected to open in early 2017. The sites remain inactive and are now owned by a bank.
Eric Williams/The Orange Leader Recent pictures of the sites where a Multi-Service Center was expected to open in early 2017. The sites remain inactive and are now owned by a bank.
Eric Williams/The Orange Leader Recent pictures of the sites where a Multi-Service Center was expected to open in early 2017. The sites remain inactive and are now owned by a bank.
By Dawn Burleigh
The Orange Leader
WEST ORANGE — Almost two years ago, Dr. James Dunn, executive managing director for the Brazoria County Alternative Academy (BCAA), announced a $30 million project in Orange County.
“In thirty days, we will have the Orange County small business incubator program and the technology center running at our Western Avenue location,” said Dunn in January 2017.
BCAA has purchased two schools buildings in West Orange for a project, which began as an Early Development Center and has grown to become more according to a press release. West Orange Cove Consolidated School District confirmed the two buildings were sold in 2016.
At the time, Mike White, of Scarborough Industries, Inc., said they hoped to have the preliminary architectural plans for the nursing facility and to start construction in 90 days.
Dunn, according to a previously published Orange Leader article, planned to develop a skilled nursing home training facility, twenty side-by-side duplexes for independent senior living, housing for Lamar State College – Orange students and apartments for homeless veterans.
The buildings have remained inactive since.
A search for property owner shows the properties, 900 Newton and 2000 Western, are both owned 100-percent by a bank at this time.
West Orange Code Enforcer Dean Fuller said the bank has not told him their intentions at this time.
“They are weighing their options to sell as is or to demo it,” Fuller said. “They have owned it for a couple of months.”
BCAA’s official website is currently selling Hurricane Harvey Victims Hygiene Kits for evacuees in Brazoria, Matagorda, Harris, Jefferson and Orange Counties in Texas.
“HURRICANE HARVEY VICTIMS HYGIENE KITS
Brazoria County is seeking SPONSORS to PURCHASE these KITS for the VICTIMS in BRAZORIA, JEFFERSON and ORANGE COUNTIES in TEXAS. All purchases are TAX DEDUCTIBLE. BCAA will then issue those KITS to the VICTIMS.”
However, the multifaceted company, according to the website, is here to assist by providing a wide range of employment services.
“BCAA currently provides services to qualified individuals throughout Brazoria County, Texas as well as Harris County, Matagorda County, Galveston County, Waller County, Fort Bend County, Austin County, Montgomery County, Wharton County and Jefferson County. BCAA is also actively expanding its services in other counties in Texas,” according to the website.
Calls to the number were not returned.
Funding for the West Orange projects was reportedly to be through the Houston Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
James Earl Dunn Jr., 38, of Pearland, Texas, has pleaded guilty to one count of submitting fraudulent claims against the government in 2008. Dunn was the owner and operator of Rehab Specialist Inc., which is no longer in operation.
Dunn received contracts from the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS), formerly known as the Texas Rehabilitation Commission, from funds awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to provide vocational rehabilitation training to individuals with mental and physical disabilities. He was indicted in May 2007 accused of submitting fraudulent claims against the government by fraudulently by claiming he was providing employment training and coaching to clients with disabilities when the clients were not receiving such training. Dunn allegedly obtained federal vocational rehabilitation funds in excess of $300,000, through DARS between 2002-2004, according to U.S. Department of Education website.
In 2009, Dunn was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for submitting more than $300,000 in fraudulent claims against the government.
