Leading candidate for Delaware governor fails to report husband's home rental business
In 2018, Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long’s husband went into business with her office’s chief deputy, forming an LLC that purchased nine rowhomes in a small Wilmington suburb that had been targeted as an ideal community for government redevelopment dollars.
In the subsequent years, Hall-Long — now a leading candidate to be Delaware’s next governor — failed to disclose the business to the public, as is required by law.
The company, called TWP and BML, LLC, formed in early 2018 with its registered agent listed as Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover.
Following the formation, the new business purchased the nine rowhomes along three enclosed streets that make up most of the Edgemoor Gardens community.
Public deed records associated with the purchase list the owners of TWP and BML, LLC as Dana Armon Long, who is Hall-Long’s husband; and Tanner Polce, her policy director in the Lieutenant Governor’s office between 2017 and 2020.
With its purchase, the company secured a mortgage of $409,000 for the nine homes. It later refinanced with a larger $744,000 mortgage, according to public records.
It is unclear whether Hall-Long perceived a conflict of interest with Polce’s dual roles — as her subordinate in government and as her husband’s business partner — because she declined an interview for this story.
Polce also did not respond to a request to comment for this story.
Hall-Long’s campaign spokeswoman instead emailed a statement in response to several questions I posed during the past week — a period when her gubanatorial campaign also faced scrutiny over previous political finance reports prepared by Dana Armon Long.
Hall-Long’s statement emphasized that the Democratic lieutenant governor “does not own the LLC, nor has she ever been a member in it.” It also asserted that she “followed common practice and decades of existing precedent in the process of filling out financial disclosures.”
Christina Freundlich, a spokeswoman for Hall Long, declined to elaborate on what “existing precedent” refers to in the context of the statement.
Hall-Long’s statement also did not acknowledge that Delaware law requires public officials to report the “financial interests” of their spouses, regardless of whether they are among the owners.
Moreover, any assertion that state officials are commonly allowed to withhold spousal assets is challenged by a recent report from the Delaware Public Integrity Commission that cited such a case as a prime example of a public disclosure violation.
Hall Long’s statement further noted that her husband’s rowhomes have not received taxpayer grants since his company purchased them.
Lastly, it stated that “Polce is not employed by the Lieutenant Governor's Office and has not been for the past three years.”
The statement does not address the apparent conflict created during the period between 2018 and 2020 when Polce worked as policy director for Hall-Long.
Help for the distressed community
While Hall Long’s team stresses that her husband’s homes did not receive public money, the entire Edgemoor Gardens community has been lifted in recent years by hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants to develop vacant homes, as well as by the construction of a small park.
Such spending reduces crime, increases home values and strengthens communities, said Anas Ben Addi, the former director of Delaware State Housing Authority in a 2020 press release that announced a commitment of $2.8 million to renovate vacant homes in Delaware.
Of that total, $450,000 went to Edgemoor Gardens.
State officials announced the grant one year after awarding another $400,000 for vacant homes in Edgemoor Gardens and one other distressed neighborhood.
Beyond state grants, several owners of rental properties in Edgemoor Gardens also benefit from a flow of federal housing dollars from the Section 8 voucher program.
During the decade before forming the company, Hall-Long’s husband worked as a contractor for New Castle County within the office that inspects and approves homes for the Section 8 program, according to a county spokesperson.
In 2016, WDEL reported that a “confidential source” said Dana Armon Long took the county's “protected list of low-income housing residents and cold-called them – on his own time – urging residents in his district to vote for his wife.”
Despite the allegation, Dana Armon Long continued with the county until 2018 when his company purchased the nine rowhomes. The purchase prompted his supervisor to tell him that he could no longer serve in that position, a county spokesperson said.
In his final two years with New Castle County, Long had worked under County Executive Matt Meyer, who now is running for governor against Hall-Long.
Today, at least one of TWP and BML’s homes appears to be approved for Section 8 renters, according to a recent rental listing for the property. The listing states that the 3-bedroom home rents for $1,195 per month.
County officials declined to state whether all nine homes purchased by Dana Armon Long’s businesses are approved for Section 8 applicants. They said the county does not disclose Section 8 locations, as it can place a stigma on people who live there.
The latest bad publicity
The revelations about the undisclosed rental business come just as Hall-Long faces an audit of her past campaign finance reports that sources say had been prepared by Dana Armon Long.
In late September, just weeks after launching her campaign for governor, Hall-Long announced that she had requested the audit after learning of potential “reporting issues that require attention."
At the time, state election officials declined to reveal whether they would investigate those alleged issues, according to a story from The News Journal.
Days later, her campaign listed a new treasurer on finance reports — a scoop first reported by The News Journal.
Hall Long’s previous treasurer was Allison Murray. In previous years, it was her husband, Dana Armon Long.
The questions surrounding the campaign finances today are the latest bad publicity for Hall-Long that involved her husband.
Two years before the WDEL report about political calls to Section 8 recipients, Dana Armon Long was caught on video walking towards his car with several campaign signs belonging to Hall-Long’s then-political opponent. In the video, a person claims he stole the signs, to which Dana Armon says, “there is no name on these signs.”
Police later charged Dana Armon Long with theft.
In the aftermath, Hall Long released a statement acknowledging that her husband took the signs, and describing him as her high school sweetheart who let his frustrations over campaign attacks “get the better of him.”
The pair of them are a piece of work.