City Weighs $900K More For Sex Predator

Six nonprofits controlled by Rabbi Daniel Greer have applied yet again for up to $900,000 in government subsidies for declining Edgewood rental properties — while Greer’s sex assault victim accuses him of continued legal maneuvers to avoid paying him a $22 million penalty.

City alders — who last year approved tax credits for Greer — will vote again on the request in coming weeks before it can be sent to the state for final approval.

And the Elicker administration is again prepared to pass along the annual request for aldermanic approval without flagging concerns or checking into how past funds have been spent.

Meanwhile, the man behind the nonprofits, Rabbi Greer, sits in prison serving a 20-year sentence for repeatedly sexually assaulting a former yeshiva student whose $21.7 million judgment he has continued to fight paying.

As government continues to help Greer stay in the real estate business and generate cash flow, Greer-controlled companies are hiring lawyers to prevent his abuse victim from taking over those properties in a bid to collect on court-ordered millions. And Greer hires lawyers to try to overturn his criminal conviction.

The Edgewood properties in question are owned by Greer-created nonprofits called Edgewood Corners Inc, Edgewood Elm Housing Inc, Edgewood Village Inc, F.O.H. Inc, Yedidei Hagan Inc, and Yeshiva of New Haven Inc.

In advance of an April 5 deadline, all six nonprofits submitted applications to New Haven government’s Livable City Initiative (LCI) for approval to receive up to $900,000 in state financial support through the 2021 Connecticut Neighborhood Assistance Act (NAA) Tax Credit Program.

That’s an annual program run by the state Department of Revenue Services (DRS) that gives out tax credits to for-profit companies that make cash contributions to eligible nonprofits like the nonprofits Greer formed. The city approval, through LCI and then the Board of Alders, is step one in the process.

It’s a competitive process. Greer — whose nonprofit organizations own 52 properties in the Edgewood neighborhood — has mastered that process since the 1990s to leverage public dollars to help maintain and improve the many affordable three- and four-family rental homes his companies own in the area bounded by Whalley Avenue, Winthrop Avenue, Edgewood Avenue, and West Park Avenue.

According to LCI Deputy Director Cathy Schroeter, her office will provide the local NAA submissions — including Greer’s — as a communication to the Board of Alders for the local legislature’s April 19 full board meeting.

After that, an aldermanic committee will review and hold a public hearing on all of the city’s NAA submissions.

Committee alders will then pass along to the full board a recommended list of local nonprofits they think should be able to participate in NAA fundraising.

The full Board of Alders then takes a final vote on which local nonprofits should be eligible to participate in the state-managed tax credit program.

Just as they did in 2020, Greer’s companies have asked the city to sign off on their participation in the state tax credit program so that they can offer the credits to donors for a variety of energy efficiency upgrades—including new windows, furnaces, siding, and insulation — at Greer’s Edgewood buildings.

As in 2020, these companies have submitted their local applications while the man who controls them remains behind bars, serving a 20-year state prison sentence (suspended after 12) after being found guilty in criminal court two years ago of repeatedly sexually assaulting Eliyahu Mirlis when the latter was a teenage student at Greer’s Norton Street yeshiva. (Greer is currently appealing the case.)

And just as in 2020, these companies are looking for $900,000 in state aid while also fighting a separate, ongoing federal lawsuit by Mirlis that accuses Greer’s nonprofits of conspiring to help Greer the individual dodge his court-mandated payments to his former student.

Who’s Watching?

Many of the facts remain the same as when the Independent last reported in September 2020 on Greer’s companies’ annual state tax-credit quest.

Meanwhile these new NAA applications and a host of recent federal court filings — including a 12-page declaration by Greer himself from prison — raise questions critical to the future of dozens of low-income rental properties in Edgewood.

The process also raises questions about whether city and state government perform any oversight or demand accountability for millions of dollars of tax credits they approve each year with the stated goal of strengthening neighborhoods.

The answers to these questions will ultimately impact the lives of tenants who live in Greer’s rental properties, the employees who work for his nonprofits, and the upkeep of the residential neighborhood as a whole.

Will the city continue to support Greer’s bid for public financial subsidies, even as his companies have been accused of fraud?

Will a federal judge order these companies to pay Mirlis for wrongdoing committed by the individual who controls them? Or will that judge agree with Greer’s companies’ assertions that have been operating properly, and are interested only in the revitalization of the Edgewood neighborhood?

And is these companies’ very participation in the state tax credit program, long a financial boon for Greer’s businesses, now a moot point? For the first time in many years last year, Greer’s nonprofits did not bring in a single dollar of tax-credit-eligible contributions—even though the city and state had both signed off on their ability to benefit from the program (reserving credits for the Greer nonprofits rather than other nonprofits working to improve their communities).

That marks a significant drop from the $475,999.84 in tax credit-qualifying private donations that Greer’s companies received through the NAA program in 2019.

City Trusts Applicants, Doesn’t Check

“The City’s obligation is limited to reviewing the proposals to make sure that the required documentation is complete, and the statutory process is met,” Schroeter told the Independent by email when asked if the ongoing fraud-related federal lawsuit affects LCI’s processing of NAA proposals.

“If so, the City forwards the applications to DRS for further processing. The City has no role in assessing the eligibility of any applicant, for any reason. That function is undertaken solely by DRS.”

That response tracks with Schroeter’s comments when asked a similar question last year about Greer’s companies’ participation in the 2020 NAA program.

“The City of New Haven does not audit the DRS tax program,” she told the Independent in September 2020. ​“The City’s role is administrative with regard to gathering of proposals as these are funds donated via corporations.”

Health and Human Services Committee Chair and Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen, Jr., meanwhile, declined to comment when asked for his take on Greer’s companies’ NAA applications this year.

“I cannot offer comment on items that have not been assigned to the Health and Human Services Committee,” he told the Independent by email.

In 2020, Brackeen’s committee voted to approve the Greer companies’ applications. The committee chair later told the Independent he did not realize that these six companies were controlled by Greer.

“We only react and respond to the recommendations of the mayor’s office,” Brackeen said in September 2020. ​“Had we been presented with all of the facts and information at the time, the outcome would have been totally different.”

“Obviously we do not support in any way, shape or form the actions of this heinous individual,” he continued in that September 2020 interview. ​“We have a strong disdain as a committee to the heinous acts of this individual.”

Representatives from Greer’s local nonprofits did not respond to requests for comment by the publication time of this article.

What About The State?

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request last fall after the Independent’s first article on this issue ran on Sept. 10, then-Acting DRS Commissioner John Biello told the Independent that the state department that oversees the NAA program did not have any records or reports on hand regarding how Greer’s companies spent their NAA-supported donations between 2017 and 2020.

Even if DRS did retain such records, he said, it would not share those records with the public, because they qualify as Freedom of Information Act-exempt taxpayer return information.

“With that said,” Biello added in an email sent to the Independent on Sept. 30 of last year, ​“it is important to note that the Department’s Audit and Compliance Division has a robust audit program, which includes the examination of all credits administered by the Department (including NAA credits).”

On Oct. 15 of last year, DRS spokesperson Jim Polites pointed again to the department’s audit division when asked for whether or not the state has done any kind of review of whether or not Greer’s companies have actually spent NAA-approved donations on promised NAA-supported projects in recent years.

“The Audit & Compliance division is responsible for ensuring state taxes administered by DRS are reported accurately and in compliance with Connecticut tax laws,” he wrote by email. ​“One component of this work includes examination of corporation business tax credits.

“The Neighborhood Assistance Act (NAA) provides for a tax credit to business firms that make cash investments in locally-approved, qualifying proposals. DRS administers NAA limits in accordance with state statute, including the $5 million program cap and allowable credit and contribution limits for donors and program recipients.”

$900K Sought For ​“Energy Efficiency”

Greer’s nonprofits’ NAA applications to the city this year are nearly identical to those submitted by these six companies in 2020.

Each of the six applications asks for up to $150,000 in NAA funding, the maximum allowed through the state tax credit program.

And each states that the respective company would use those funds on energy conservation projects, thereby allowing donors to that company to benefit from state tax credits worth 100 percent of their contributions.

Click here, here, here, here, here and here to read the 2021 NAA applications in full.

All six nonprofits describe their respective planned energy efficiency upgrade projects in much the same way.

“The focus currently is on upgrading energy efficiency, installation of new lighting fixtures, new furnaces, and energy efficient windows and glass panes, as we continue to renew this facility to meet state-of-the-art energy conservation standards,” Yeshiva of New Haven Inc’s application reads in reference to its school building at 765 Elm St.

“Renovations include new siding, electrical and heating upgrades, as required,” reads Yedidei Hagan Inc’s application about the affordable rental properties it owns in the Edgewood neighborhood.

“Intensive energy conservation techniques, particularly insulation, repair of siding, thermopane replacement windows, replacement of furnaces and use of star energy products which achieve substantial savings for low-income families,” reads F.O.H. Inc’s application about its own rental properties in the area.

Nearly all of the applications also cite the ongoing pandemic as the primary reason for why these planned energy efficiency upgrades were not made in 2020.

“Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020 and other issues, this Program could not be funded nor implemented last year,” reads the separate applications submitted by Edgewood Corners Inc, Edgewood Elm Housing Inc, Edgewood Village Inc, F.O.H. Inc, and Yedidei Hagan Inc.

And each describes their respective operations as critical to the revitalization of Edgewood as a whole.

“The Edgewood Park area has good housing stock that is being rescued from blight and decay,” the Yedidei Hagan Inc application reads. ​“Maintenance of the housing stock is a key factor for stabilization of this neighborhood, while still enabling low-income families to live here.”

“The Edgewood Park neighborhood has potentially good housing which must be restored,” adds the Edgewood Elm Housing Inc application. ​“This program is part of an ongoing effort to stabilize and rejuvenate this neighborhood.”

Mediation Falls Apart

Late last week, meanwhile, Mirlis’s federal lawsuit against five of Greer’s local nonprofits got a push forward — by Greer’s companies themselves — after virtually no public action in the case since last August.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in 2019, Mirlis accuses Edgewood Corners Inc, Edgewood Elm Housing Inc, Edgewood Village Inc, F.O.H. Inc, and Yedidei Hagan Inc. of serving as a legal shield for Greer from having to pay $22 million and counting to the former student whom he sexually abused. (The civil judgment increases with time due to interest on unpaid debt, according to the suit.)

On Aug. 25 last year, federal Judge Charles Haight, Jr. sided with Mirlis and granted a temporary restraining order that ​“enjoined” the five nonprofits from ​“transferring or encumbering” any of their current real estate holdings or personal property, other than to pay their employees, with the exception of Greer himself. The judge acted so after finding in favor of Mirlis’s accusations of fraud given Greer’s control over those five companies.

According to the federal court docket, over the subsequent roughly eight months, the two sides met repeatedly outside of court to try to strike a settlement through mediation.

“Since the August 2020 conference, the parties engaged in extensive efforts initially directed at the scheduling of briefing and a further hearing in connection with the motion for a preliminary injunction and those efforts led to mediation overtures, a topic previously also noted to the parties by the Court,” Mirlis and Greer’s companies’ attorneys wrote to the court on Feb. 1. ​“Multiple discussions ensued regarding the scope and extent of the proposed mediation, the addition of parties involved in other litigation not presently before this Court, the location of the mediation due to the pandemic, and the selection of a mediator.”

The two sides ultimately selected a Connecticut attorney ​“with experience mediating the relevant issues.”

On March 5, they filed another letter with the court, stating that they had held two in-person mediation sessions with a third scheduled for later in March, and asking the judge for an extension to his previously ordered April 9 status report deadline.

Then, last Thursday, April 8, Greer’s companies’ lawyers filed five documents with the court that appear to indicate that the settlement and mediation efforts have fallen apart.

One of those newly filed documents is a motion for summary judgment — that is, a call by the defendants for the judge to immediately rule in their favor.

“Defendants’ reverse veil piercing claims fail under both the instrumentality and identity tests,” wrote Greer’s companies’ attorneys, Richard Colbert, Joshua Cohen, and Michael Schoeneberger of the local firm Day Pitney.

“Accordingly, Defendants are entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. … Defendants request the Court enter summary judgment in their favor on both counts of the Complaint.”

In a supplemental memorandum, the three attorneys detail their argument as to why the five accused nonprofits have operated legally and ethically. They state these companies’ payment of salary and benefits to Greer and his wife for their leadership roles in the organizations are not evidence of any wrongdoing, and have no connection to the civil and criminal judgments against Greer the individual.

“That a portion of the rental monies raised was also used to pay the necessary expenses of the Defendant real estate entities, including salaries and retirement benefits of Greer who spent the majority of his life creating the Yeshiva and managing the 50+ rental properties is perfectly appropriate,” they wrote. ​“People who work get paid and most also receive retirement benefits from the company for which they work, in this case Edgewood Elm.”

Later in the memo, they underscore what they describe as Greer’s appropriate and legal receipt of money from his nonprofits while Mirlis remains unpaid.

“The above salary and retirement payments are not evidence of the money laundering, sheltering assets, or supportive of any of the other theories that Plaintiff has conjured to support his reverse veil-piercing claims,” they wrote. ​“Rather, the modest and consistent compensation paid to the Greers is fully consistent with the overarching purpose of the affordable housing structure to develop New Haven’s Edgewood Park neighborhood and support the Yeshiva.

“It is also noteworthy that the practice of paying Greer’s salary started in January 2002 (Sarah’s 10 years earlier in 1992), which was before any alleged abuse ever took place and over 13 years before claims of alleged abuse were ever raised by Plaintiff. The payment of salaries and retirement benefits was therefore undeniably not in response to any of Plaintiff’s alleged claims or the Judgment.”

And they state that Greer is entitled to legal representation as paid for by Edgewood Elm thanks to the nonprofit’s bylaws.

“While Edgewood Elm may have an issue with having to pay Greer’s legal fees, Plaintiff has no standing to object to such practice as the assets being used to pay such legal fees belong to Edgewood Elm, are not subject to the Judgment and do not include any secreted assets belonging to Greer or the Yeshiva, against whom Plaintiff has the Judgment. Similarly, Plaintiff has no standing to object to Edgewood Elm donating funds to pay the Yeshiva’s legal fees. Unless and until Plaintiff can show that the funds being used by Edgewood Elm actually once belonged to Greer or the Yeshiva (which he cannot show), or that Edgewood Elm is not a legitimate entity (which he also cannot show), how Edgewood Elm spends its funds are none of Plaintiff’s business.”

The foundation of the attorneys’ claims that these nonprofits have done nothing wrong and should not have to pay for judgments issued against Greer the individual is yet another document recently filed with the court — a so-called ​“declaration” by Rabbi Greer himself.

In the first 12 pages of that 171-page document, which includes certificates of incorporation and by-laws and other corporate filings by Greer’s various local nonprofits, the imprisoned local landlord makes his case for why the companies he still controls should be cleared of any accusations of fraud.

The first-person write up also offers a detailed and intimate account of the role that these companies have played in the Edgewood neighborhood over the past five decades — at least, as told from the perspective of the man who brought them into being.

Greer On Greer: Tax Credits Key To Reviving Edgewood

In that declaration, which can be read in full here, Greer writes about how he first came to New Haven to attend Yale Law School in the early 1960s.

After graduating from law school in 1964, he worked at a Wall Street law firm, and then quickly got a job in the administration of then-New York City Mayor John Lindsay.

He served as an examining attorney in New York’s Department of Investigations, then as that department’s general counsel, later as the first deputy commissioner for ports and terminals, and finally as the director of the Firearms Control Board.

“My career in New York City politics came to a close in 1972 when I unsuccessfully ran against incumbent Richard Gottfried for the Democratic
nomination for the State Assembly for an upper west side Manhattan district,” he wrote.

In 1971, he married Sarah Bergman, a Jewish day school teacher. The two have five children and 30 grandchildren.

After spending time working in Israel, where he received his rabbinic ordination, Greer and Sarah moved to New Haven in 1976 to establish an Orthodox Jewish day school ​“as the greater New Haven area then lacked a quality one.”

Over the years, they expanded that day school into the Yeshiva of New Haven, with both an elementary and high schools for boys and girls.

He established the yeshiva as a Connecticut nonprofit in 1977 ​“to educate and promote the Jewish and general education for its students and for the larger community.”

Greer wrote that the class sizes at the yeshiva were only four to five students each. He touted his own children’s higher education achievements — four went to Yale, one went to Brown University — as evidence of the school’s ​“status as a top-tier learning institution.”

“After establishing the Yeshiva,” Greer continues, ​“Sarah and I quickly realized that to properly develop the school, the neighborhood in which it was located — infiltrated by drugs, prostitution, and dilapidated housing-would need an extreme makeover. Parents would surely not allow their children to attend the Yeshiva if the Edgewood Park neighborhood in New Haven was not safe and conducive to learning.

“We therefore went about establishing the Defendants. In addition to purchasing and improving affordable homes, we cleaned streets, paved sidewalks, installed safety signs, fenced and landscaped yards and open areas, and planted over 500 trees in the Edgewood Park neighborhood.”

Greer goes on to describe the creation of and mission behind each of his related local nonprofits.

Yedidei Hagan was founded in 1984 to raise money for the Yeshiva and for holding religious services and programs. That nonprofit currently owns six affordable three- and four-family homes in the Edgewood neighborhood.

Edgewood Elm Housing was founded in 1989 as the property management company for all of the properties owned by Yedidei Hagan and, later, Edgewood Village, Edgewood Corners, and F.O.H. Greer wrote that that management company has employed between five and seven employees at any given time over the decades, ​“including me.”

Edgewood Village was founded in 1994, Edgewood Corners in 1996, and F.O.H. in 1999.

According to its bylaws, Greer writes, Edgewood Corners’s mission is to ​“engage in … the relief of poverty, elimination of prejudice, the reduction of neighborhood tensions, and the reversal of community deterioration through all necessary and appropriate activities, including…the acquisition, rehabilitation, ownership or management…of commercial buildings in economically depressed or threatened areas and the rental at below market rates of such buildings….”

F.O.H. and Edgewood Elm, meanwhile, were created to ​“engage in…facilitating, encouraging, and sponsoring the construction, rehabilitation, ownership and management of housing for low and moderate income families through all necessary and appropriate activities, including but not limited to, the direct construction, rehabilitation, ownership or management of such housing or the making of loans and grants available to nonprofit corporations undertaking such housing.”

Greer writes that Edgewood Village owns 25 affordable homes in the Edgewood area, F.O.H. owns 19, and Edgewood Corner owns two properties — a commercial building at the corner of Norton and Whalley, and a separate parcel parking lot.

Greer explicitly mentions the Connecticut Neighborhood Assistance Act Program as critical to the decade- long operations of first Yedidei Hagan, and then Edgewood Village and F.O.H.

“Yedidei Hagan fulfilled its purpose of conducting programs and collecting, soliciting and distributing contributions for the Gan, Inc. (now known as the Yeshiva) by, among other things, working with the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (“CHFA”) and the Connecticut Neighborhood Assistance Act Program (“CNAA”) to attain tax credits for its investors, and then used the investments to purchase affordable housing in New Haven’s Edgewood Park neighborhood,” he writes. ​“The homes were often wholly refurbished, then rented, and well-maintained. The excess profits from those rentals were ultimately used to financially support and expand the Yeshiva.”

Creating More Companies = More Gov’t Tax Credits

Greer goes on to underscore just how important of a role the NAA tax credit program has played in why he created multiple nonprofits to perform similar work of buying, refurbishing, and renting affordable homes in Edgewood.

“Importantly, there are two fundamental reasons why these three additional and distinct non-profit real estate holding companies (Edgewood Village, Edgewood Comers & F.O.H.) were created,” Greer writes.

“First, they were created to contend with zoning laws requiring merger of non-conforming, abutting lots by the same owner, which creates zoning approval, development and expense issues for both lots.

“Second, CHFA and CNAA cap the amount of tax credits that any given applicant can seek at a time for affordable housing development purposes. Thus, by establishing the additional non-profits to also purchase, rehabilitate, and well-maintain affordable homes, these real estate holding companies were able to simultaneously obtain more tax credits for their investors, and thus more investments and more buying power to accelerate their community redevelopment project.”

Greer writes that each nonprofit was established through a valid certificate of incorporation, is operated pursuant to written bylaws, is properly registered with the state, has its own checking account, and has distinct officers and directors ​“until the Judgment was made public in or about 2017, when the directors began resigning.”

He acknowledges that he and his wife eventually started taking salaries and retirement benefits from the various companies — with Sarah starting in 1992, and Daniel starting in 2002.

But, he asserted, that is not evidence of these companies doing anything wrong in relation to the 2017 civil judgment and 2019 criminal judgment against him as an individual.

“My wife and l never commingled our personal assets with any assets of the Defendants,” Greer writes. ​“When funds were donated by the Defendants to the Yeshiva, it was for one of the original and legitimate purposes of the affordable housing arrangement as well as to support the Yeshiva. All such donations were properly accounted for by the respective Defendants.”

“At no time did my wife or I ever transfer our personal assets to the Yeshiva or Defendants for any purpose, including to avoid Plaintiff’s judgment,” Greer concludes. ​“At no time did the Yeshiva transfer any of its assets to any of the Defendants for any purpose, including to avoid Plaintiff s judgment.”

Mirlis, Greer, and Greer’s companies must now wait to see if Judge Haight agrees with the latter’s recent assertions of innocence and corporate propriety — or if he decides to keep the case open, and potentially bring it to trial.

Recent Drop In Maintenance? ​“Definitely”

As the fate of that federal lawsuit and of Greer’s nonprofits’ latest NAA applications remains undecided, his companies’ tenants appear to be suffering from a recent decline in property maintenance.

In interviews on the tree-lined Elm Street block where Greer’s red-brick, ivy-covered yeshiva stands alongside three- and four-family homes painted a near identical shade of olive green with red trim, several current tenants and one former housepainter who used to work for one of Greer’s companies spoke to what they see as a lack of residential upkeep.

“Ever since the rabbi went to jail, things sort of went downhill,” said Mark Moore, who said he worked for one of Greer’s companies for roughly six months in 2018.

As someone who still paints houses and does landscaping in the Edgewood neighborhood, has he seen a drop in maintenance at Greer’s companies’ rental homes?

“Definitely,” Moore replied. He said a friend of his who lives on the block told him that ​“nobody comes around anymore” to check in on the condition of the property.

After Greer went to jail, Moore said, tenants started leaving his rental properties in droves, leaving behind many empty apartments.

Moore said he ultimately quit his job after a workplace dispute with Greer himself, whom he described as a difficult personality.

He said he doesn’t like to see anyone suffer. But when it comes to Greer going to prison for what he did to one of his former students, Moore said, ​“I kind of see it as an eye for an eye.”

Two tenants, who both asked to remain anonymous so as avoid retaliation, said they too have noticed deferred maintenance since moving into their Greer company-owned Elm Street apartment a year ago.

The landlord didn’t fix a broken window for months, one tenant said. Their toilet seat did not properly fit on the toilet, another nuisance that wasn’t fixed for months. Up until recently, a call to maintenance wouldn’t result in a call back until a week later.

“It’s a nice enough place to live,” one tenant said, looking at around at the quiet residential block. ​“But it is ridiculous seeing how much they clearly don’t care about the place.”

Joe Galante, another renter at a different Elm Street home owned by one of Greer’s companies, had nothing but kind words to say about the maintenance team that works for his landlord. The problem is, he said, there are so few workers on call, and so many properties to cover. So, try as the maintenance crew may, they never respond promptly.

When asked about the state of repair of his apartment, Galante listed a few issues with the old home. ​“Parts of the floor are caving in. The bathrooms aren’t that great. The lock broke the other day.”

Even more of a concern to him than the maintenance of the property, however, is the safety of the neighborhood, he said.

After moving into the Elm Street apartment last December, he and his wife have been robbed twice, once at gunpoint. He said that as soon their lease is up, they’ll be moving — probably to Stamford. Galante, a music teacher who works primarily in Queens, has been teaching remotely during the pandemic as he earns his teaching certification to work in Connecticut.

“Rent is not that expensive,” Galante said about the building’s cost versus its upkeep. ​“So you kind of take the good with the bad.”

A third tenant was pulling out of his Elm Street driveway to pick up his laundry when he rolled down his driver’s side window and the Independent asked him about maintenance at his Greer company-owned home.

He laughed. ​“It could use some,” he said, before pulling out of the driveway and heading on his way.

Kourtney Perkins, meanwhile, was walking with her young son down Elm Street towards Norton when this Independent asked her about the Greer company-owned properties.

She said she lives nearby and walks through the neighborhood frequently. In recent years, she said, she’s felt like the olive-and-red-colored houses have been looking worse for wear.

She pointed to a wooden fence that appeared to be collapsing onto a car parked in front of it (pictured above).

“I feel like this all has been deteriorating recently.”