Connect with us

Local

Comings & Goings

Longtime Fox 5 anchor Will Thomas lands at Sotheby’s

Published

on

Sam McClure, Will Thomas, gay news, Washington Blade

The ‘Comings & Goings’ column chronicles important life changes of Blade readers.

The Comings and Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].

Sam McClure, gay news, Washington Blade

Sam McClure (Photo courtesy of McClure)

Congratulations to Sam McClure who is the new director at the LGBT Health Resource Center of Chase Brexton Health Care. The Center’s mission is to provide health information and resources to Baltimore’s LGBT community. Patrick Mutch, president and CEO said of McClure, “We were impressed by Sam’s dedication to the LGBT community, and her understanding of the current challenges its members face in accessing welcoming health care and other essential resources. We welcome her to the Chase Brexton team and know she will carry on the important work that our LGBT Health Resource Center does each day.”

Upon taking her new job McClure said, “Wellness means more than access to medical treatment when it’s needed. It’s also about individuals having the ability to live well and sustain themselves and their families. LGBTQ people can face barriers when trying to do this and some of them are multiplied and magnified by a shortage of informed and affirming health care providers. Chase Brexton’s LGBT Health Resource Center is leading from this intersection of needs. I’m looking forward to leading the center’s efforts to improve healthcare access and outcomes for all LGBTQ people.” Among her first priorities will be meeting local LGBTQ community leaders in Baltimore and building on the center’s existing relationships and partnerships.

In her previous role, she was senior vice president of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, where she led affiliate relations, external affairs, public policy and advocacy, and supplier diversity teams, as well as serving as part of the organization’s executive leadership team.

McClure is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, commentator, panelist, and a subject matter expert on LGBTQ Economic Development. An award-winning strategist, she created the LGBT Business Builder initiative (a collaboration between the NGLCC and the U.S. Small Business Administration) and built local collaboration models in 13 cities. The program won a Bright Idea Award from Harvard University.

Congratulations also to Will Thomas who is joining TTR Sotheby’s International Realty. Prior to working in real estate full-time, Thomas was an Emmy Award-winning journalist and anchor on Fox 5. At Fox he helped re-launch the weeknight 11 o’clock newscast as co-anchor and developed a three anchor format for evening newscasts. He created signature on-air segments including “Will You Eat There” that focused on the D.C. region’s restaurant scene.

Thomas began his career after graduation having won first place in the national William Randolph Hearst competition during his last semester in school. He first worked at the ABC affiliate in Albuquerque, N.M., and then became an anchor-reporter at the CBS station in Austin, Texas. He was then wooed by Fox stations in Los Angeles and D.C. and, as we know, he chose D.C. When Thomas came to D.C., the station was making moves to hire younger people to infuse more energy into the newscasts. He soon received anchoring opportunities and within a couple of years became the weekend evening anchor.

Thomas said, “After a 20-year run at Fox 5, choosing to leave the station was a very difficult decision but one I did for family reasons.” He added, “I first moved to the nation’s capital thinking it would be a stopover in my career but fell in love with the Washington metropolitan area and its people.”

Thomas noted, “I am not saying goodbye to broadcasting altogether. I have created a digital studio in the District to file reports on luxury real estate including my own client listings, topical news about real estate, finance, design, lifestyle and philanthropy. I will invite my colleagues to appear to talk about some of Sotheby’s other prestigious listings.”

Will Thomas (Photo courtesy of Thomas)

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

District of Columbia

D.C. Council member proposes change for Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs

Parker also seeks increased funding for LGBTQ programs in FY 2025 budget

Published

on

D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only LGBTQ member, has asked his fellow Council members to support a proposal to change the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs to become a “stand-alone entity outside the Executive Office of the Mayor to allow for greater transparency and accountability that reflects its evolution over the years.”

In an April 30 letter to each of his 12 fellow Council members, Parker said he plans to introduce an amendment to the city’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Support Act to make this change for the LGBTQ Affairs Office.

His letter also calls for adding to the city’s FY 2025 budget two specific funding proposals that local LGBTQ activists submitted to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser that the mayor did not include in her budget proposal submitted to the Council. One calls for $1.5 million to fund the completion of the build out and renovation for the D.C. Center for the LGBTQ Community’s new building in the city’s Shaw neighborhood and $300,000 in subsequent years to support the LGBTQ Center’s operations.

Parker’s second budget proposal calls for what he said was about $450,000 to fund 20 additional dedicated LGBTQ housing vouchers as part of the city’s existing program to provide emergency housing support for LGBTQ residents and other residents facing homelessness.

“The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs currently manages about 90 vouchers across various programs and needs,” Parker said in his letter to fellow Council members. “Adding an additional 20 vouchers will cost roughly $450,000,” he wrote, adding that dedicated vouchers “play a crucial role in ensuring LGBTQ+ residents of the District can navigate the complex process of securing housing placements.”

In her proposed FY ’25 budget, Bowser calls for a 7.6 percent increase in funding for the Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which amounts to an increase of $132,000, bringing the office’s total funding to $1.7 million.

“To be clear, I support the strong work and current leadership of the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs,” Parker says in his letter to fellow Council members. “This push for change is in recognition of the office’s notable achievements and the significant demands being placed on it, which require a greater level of accountability.”

Parker told the Blade in an April 30 telephone interview that he believes Japer Bowles, the current director of the Office of L|GBTQ Affairs is doing an excellent job in operating the office, but he believes the office would be able to do more for the LGBTQ community under the change he is proposing.

“Making it a stand-alone office versus it being clustered within the Community Affairs division of the mayor’s office, it will get more attention,” Parker told the Blade. “The leadership will have greater flexibility to advocate for the interest of LGBTQ residents, And we will be able to conduct greater oversight of the office,” he said, referring to the Council’s oversight process.

Parker noted that other community constituent offices in the mayor’s office, including the Office of Latino Affairs and the Office of Veterans Affairs are stand-alone offices that he hopes to bring about for the LGBTQ Affairs Office. He said Council member Brianne Nadeau, who chairs the Council committee that has oversight for the LGBTQ Affairs Office, has expressed support for his proposal.

Also expressing support for Parker’s proposal to make the LGBTQ Affairs Office a stand-alone office is the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission Rainbow Caucus. Vincent Slatt, the caucus’s chairperson, submitted testimony last week before the D.C. Council Committee on Public Works and Operations, which is chaired by Nadeau, calling for making the LGBTQ Affairs Office a stand-alone office outside the Executive Office of the Mayor.

Slatt also stated in his testimony that the office has a “chronic staffing shortage” and recommended that at least three additional staff members be assigned to the office.

Daniel Gleick, the mayor’s press secretary, told the Blade the mayor’s office is reviewing Parker’s budget proposals, including the proposed change for the Office of LGBTQ Affairs.

Continue Reading

Rehoboth Beach

Former CAMP Rehoboth official sentenced to nine months in prison

Salvator Seeley pleaded guilty to felony theft charge for embezzlement

Published

on

Salvator Seeley (Photo courtesy CAMP Rehoboth)

Salvator “Sal” Seeley, who served as an official with the Rehoboth Beach, Del., CAMP Rehoboth LGBTQ community center for 20 years, was sentenced on April 5 by a Sussex County Superior Court judge to nine months in prison and to pay $176,000 in restitution to the organization.

The sentencing took place about five weeks after Seeley pleaded guilty to a charge of Theft in Excess of $50,000 for allegedly embezzling funds from CAMP Rehoboth, a spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Justice told the Washington Blade.

Seeley’s guilty plea came shortly after a grand jury, at the request of prosecutors, indicted him on the felony theft charge following an investigation that found he had embezzled at least $176,000 from the nonprofit LGBTQ organization.

“Salvatore C. Seeley, between the 27th day of February 2019 and the 7th day of September 2021, in the County of Sussex, State of Delaware, did take property belonging to CAMP Rehoboth, Inc., consisting of United States currency and other miscellaneous property valued at more than $50,000, intending to appropriate the same,” the indictment states.

“The State recommended a sentence of two years of incarceration based on the large-scale theft and the impact to the non-profit organization,” Delaware Department of Justice spokesperson Caroline Harrison told the Blade in a statement.

“The defense cited Seeley’s lack of a record and gambling addiction in arguing for a probationary sentence,” the statement says. “Seeley was sentenced in Superior Court to a nine-month prison term and to pay a total of $176,000 in restitution for the stolen funds,” Harrison says in the statement.

Neither Seeley nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment.

At the time of Seeley’s indictment in February, CAMP Rehoboth released a statement saying it first discovered “financial irregularities” within the organization on Sept. 7, 2021, “and took immediate action and notified state authorities.” The statement says this resulted in the investigation of Seeley by the state Department of Justice as well as an internal investigation by CAMP Rehoboth to review its “financial control policies” that led to an updating of those policies.

“As we have communicated from day one, CAMP Rehoboth has fully cooperated with law enforcement,” the statement continues. “At its request, we did not speak publicly about the investigation while it was ongoing for fear it would jeopardize its integrity,” according to the statement. “This was extremely difficult given our commitment to transparency with the community about day-to-day operations during the recent leadership transition.”

The statement was referring to Kim Leisey, who began her job as CAMP Rehoboth’s new executive director in July of 2023, while the Seeley investigation had yet to be completed, following the organization’s process of searching for a new director. It says Seeley left his job as Health and Wellness Director of CAMP Rehoboth in September of 2021 after working for the organization for more than 20 years.

“Mr. Seeley’s actions are a deep betrayal to not only CAMP Rehoboth but also the entire community we serve,” the statement says.

Continue Reading

Maryland

Christian Siriano to serve as grand marshal of Annapolis Pride Parade

Fashion designer is an Annapolis native

Published

on

Christian Siriano, an Annapolis native, won the fourth season of “Project Runway,” and has become one of the reality show’s most successful and visible stars. (© Leandro Justen/Leandro Justen)

BY JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV | He’s conquered fashion week. His designs have slayed the red carpet during award season. And now Christian Siriano is coming home.

The Annapolis native will serve as grand marshal and keynote speaker June 1 for the annual Annapolis Pride Parade and Festival, which is a major coup as the event enters its fourth year.

The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular