GUILFORD—Residents in Guilford held their own informational meeting on an approved methadone clinic, on Friday, February 9th.
Among those in attendance was Ben Rayner, a [now-former] reporter for the Guilford Courier, who said he was ‘not here as a reporter, but a resident, taxpayer, and property owner.’ Rayner wore a shirt that read, “FUCK RACISM” and vehemently accused the meeting’s organizer of being a ‘liar’ and ‘a fraud’.
FOIA requests revealed that Rayner was contacted by First Selectman Matt Hoey, who asked him to write on the methadone clinic.
See the 2-minute video excerpt.
UPDATE: 2/14 — according to Timothy Dwyer, President & Publisher of The Day Publishing Co., which owns Shore Publishing, Mr. Rayner is no longer an employee of Shore Publishing.
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Sally,
Thanks for covering this unbelievable story. Ben Rayner is the reporter for the Guilford Courier. As such he should be neutral in his reporting. For two months I have been copying him on all my correspondence with Guilford Town officials and have been asking him to do an article, or series of articles on the APT methadone clinic coming to Guilford. He was invited by me to come to the town meeting on Friday 2/9/24 to cover the event but chose instead to call me a liar and everyone in the room a racist.
On 8/28/23, in an email I was able to obtain through an FOI request, Guilford First Selectman Matt Hoey sent an introductory letter to APT CEO Lynn Madden and Ben Rayner saying, “Lynn meet Ben Rayner reporter for the Guilford Courier Ben meet Lynn Madden” and arranged for a zoom meeting on 9/7/24 so that Ben could get the requisite information from Lynn about APT. On 9/12/23, the Guilford Courier published a puff piece about the APT Foundation which completely ignored the experience New Haven residents have had with APT clinics in their neighborhoods or the fraudulent overbilling by APT of Connecticut Medicare which resulted in their having to repay $880,000 in 2017.
Your viewers can watch the entire meeting on 2/9/24 by going to http://www.youtube.com and searching for Guilford Methadone.
Thanks for all you are doing to expose the madness.
Dave Holman