Pittsburgh LGBT organization changes leaders, pledges audit of finances

The leadership shift began late last year, when Gary Van Horn was charged for impersonating a public officer.

• Chris Potter/WESA
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  Nearly three decades after leaving home for college, Chris Potter now lives four miles from the house he grew up in -- a testament either to the charm of the South Hills or to a simple lack of ambition. In the intervening years, Potter held a variety of jobs, including asbestos abatement engineer and ice-cream truck driver. He has also worked for a number of local media outlets, only some of which then went out of business. After serving as the editor of Pittsburgh City Paper for a decade, he covered politics and government at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He has won some awards during the course of his quarter-century journalistic career, but then even a blind squirrel sometimes digs up an acorn.

 Antonio Licon / WESA

Participants in Pittsburgh Pride walk through downtown in June 2016.

(Pittsburgh) — Gary Van Horn, the longtime head of the city’s highest-profile LGBT organization, resigned this Monday, says Delta Foundation interim board president Jim Sheppard.

Sheppard said Delta’s board asked for his resignation on Friday and that Van Horn verbally agreed to step down Monday morning. Van Horn sent a two-sentence letter of resignation later in the day.

Sheppard also said the board was launching a review of its books.

“We felt that in the best interes of the foundation and of Pittsburgh Pride” – the city’s annual LGBT festival – “to have a complete separation from Mr. Van Horn.”

The leadership shift began late last year, when Van Horn was charged for impersonating a public officer. Those charges stem from his alleged use of emergency vehicle lights and a purported effort to convince police that he was given permission to do so. A preliminary hearing in that case is scheduled for February 12. Delta announced that Van Horn was taking a leave of absence the day the news broke.

Delta Foundation president Gary Van Horn speaking to Pittsburgh City Council on Feb. 8, 2018. (Delta Foundation via Facebook)

Van Horn did not return a call or  text for comment. But his attorney,  Phil DiLucente, said, “Gary loves the Delta Foundation, being a founding member. We believe this is the best process while he’s going through these unfounded charges because we don’t want to bring a bad light on Delta.”

DiLucente stressed that Van Horn stepped down voluntarily after a request by Delta and said, “He is going to be back on the board after he is acquitted of his current charges.” He said any suggestion of financial impropriety was “absurd. It’s a big nothingburger. There was no use that was not for the benefit of Delta Foundation, and preaching the word about the good deeds they do.”

Sheppard said the board was also undertaking a thorough review of the organization’s finances, and that it had retained the law firm of Leech Tishman to review the organization’s books.

Asked whether the board had specific financial concerns, Sheppard said only, “We’re looking into everything and reviewing everything at this point.”

Allegheny County Sheriff Bill Mullen says that Delta owes his department “real close to $12,000” for providing security during the 2018 Pittsburgh Pride event. “They wanted people dedicated to the parade [security] on an overtime basis. We did that, and he didn’t pay us. We sent him a letter, got no response. I called him personally. He said the city of Pittsburgh owed us — he said there was some kind of ordinance. But we found that not to be true.”

DiLucente said he couldn’t speak to Mullen’s claim and said questions about the money should be directed to the current Delta board, since Van Horn was no longer part of it.

In the meantime, Sheppard said the Pride festival itself is still scheduled to take place July 17-19. Delta board member Marty Healy will chair efforts to organize the event while Sheppard leads the foundation itself.

Van Horn has long been a controversial figure. Under his leadership, Delta has become the region’s highest-profile LGBT organization, but it has been sharply criticized for ignoring transgender people and minorities. And while Van Horn reports taking no salary from the organization, Delta’s finances have also come under scrutiny, in part due to concerns that it spends money on its signature event, the Pittsburgh Pride festival, while more urgent needs in the community go wanting.

Meanwhile, there have been demands for a fuller accounting of how Delta allocates spending that has amounted to an average of over $750,000 a year in recent years. Delta does not appear to post annual reports or other financial information online. And some publicly available records lack detail.

Delta’s 990 statements – publicly available financial filings that report activities to the IRS – have also raised questions. In a three-year period, for example, the foundation reports spending $380,405 – over 17 percent of its budget – on programming it describes only as being intended “to increase awareness and understanding of and improve the quality of life of GLBT community in the Pittsburgh region.”

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