Hare added that on the agency’s web site, and shared multiple times with the newspaper, is a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the federal authority that regulates Head Start and Early Head Start programs at the CAO. It gave both early-education programs a clean bill of health following an inspection dated Feb. 6, 2019.

The report, from the HHS’s Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start in Washington, shows the CAO’s programs are not only operating fully and properly. It also affirms that past, routine issues faced by many similar programs nationwide, were corrected.

“Based on the information gathered during our review, we have closed the previously identified findings. Accordingly, no corrective action is required at this time,” said a letter about the review, signed by Dr. Deborah Bergeron, director at the federal Office of Head Start.

This clearance came after a newspaper article asserted that the CAO’s Head Start programs were somehow deficient. The paper reported that one part of the grade for the Head Start in Niagara Falls rated 2.1 out of seven. But the paper said nothing else about nine other grades of the program, all of which were passing or better.

Bellavia asked Hare about many of the allegations against him and Hare explained what had really happened in each case. Said Bellavia:

“You have the chairman of the CAO of Western New York, who’s being accused of the most vague, without any bite, no merit whatsoever these allegations in The Buffalo News. [Yet] nobody has given Nate Hare a chance to get a microphone and say, ‘defend yourself.’ This is a man who dedicated himself to the community.”

Bellavia asked Hare about supposed FBI and Department of Justice “investigations” reported by the News and then ridiculed those reports as unfair. Hare said no federal officials, outside the regular agency relationships with its regulators, have come to the CAO. Bellavia said it was improper for the newspaper to suggest there was an investigation where mere preliminary questioning of third parties may, or may not, have occurred.