Jesper Nielsen founded Croyle-Nielsen Therapeutic Associates with his wife, Amy, in 2013. The growing firm provides mental health services as well as services for adults with intellectual disabilities. C-NTA is investing in downtown Johnstown by purchasing and renovating the former Atrium building. He posted the following endorsement to social media.
Since John DeBartola is now engaging in defamation against me to try to score political points, it is time for me to speak out! We had been searching a long time for a great space to create a beautiful place of healing for people to come and receive outpatient mental health services and to create to place where adults with disabilities can feel cared for and loved. We settled on the empty former Atrium Manor nursing home that had been closed down and was being auctioned off in bankruptcy court. We found out that the building had asbestos in it and we obviously would not let people in there without getting that removed first. We were made aware that the EPA offered funds to ensure that dangerous asbestos could be removed, so buildings with asbestos in them that were empty could be made safe and reused. We had heard about the JRA and we approached them about this problem. I didn’t know anyone at the JRA personally before approaching them about the asbestos issue. I had served on the Goodwill board with Sherri Rae years back, but didn’t really know her at the time.
The Atrium was a big project and we were really hesitant to take it on, but decided that we would take the chance and invest our own hard earned money into the space because we believe in Johnstown! We went to bankruptcy court and bid against another interested buyer and won the bid for the building, NOT for $50,000 (that was the starting bid, which DeBartola would know if he cared about facts) but we won it for $250,000, which is more than most vacant buildings downtown has sold for, but we were ok with that because we believe in Johnstown and wanted to be part of the solution! We learned that it would cost another $2,000,000 to renovate the building. Wow, that was more money than we had ever invested in anything and a lot more money than we had ever had. But we believed! We were so happy that we would be able to make this dream of creating a beautiful space come true and even though it was scary to be putting that kind of money into a project. We built our company from the ground and I still remember struggling to pay our employees in the beginning and going without a pay check for myself or my wife for very long periods, spending all of our savings to pay our bills and buying our clothes at Goodwill to try to make our dream come true. We had very little, lived in an old mining house we bought for $35,000 and drove very old cars investing everything into our business because we don’t come from money but had to make our own way, working hard, going after our dream of building a place that we could be proud of. We took the next huge leap of faith to bring the old Atrium building back to life at considerable personal risk because we wanted to be part of the solution and invest in the community. We wanted to invest in our people.
We were so happy, although nervous. And then the online attacks started, out of the blue! I was dumbfounded! Here was this guy (DeBartola) I didn’t know and who didn’t know me, attacking me on social media, claiming that I was basically handed the building in a backroom deal for $50,000 calling me an elite…!?!?! What??? I couldn’t believe it! We were risking so much personally to make a vision come true for our team, our clients and the community and now I was getting personally attacked with lies and misrepresentations about the nature of the situation and my own personal character. Why??? I really struggled with it feeling so hurt and angry. We were just trying to create something good, investing in the city, putting an empty building that we won at auction back into taxation and bringing a lot of jobs to the city, and now we were being treated like this by some guy with no idea about the truth of the situation and no interest in it either, just so he apparently could feel important himself. I thought, surely someone would set the record straight, but there was only more lies and smears. I thought briefly about just walking away from it if that is how we’d get treated for trying to do our part in lifting the community. But I quickly thought HELL NO, I am NOT going to let some two bit keyboard coward destroy something good we were doing. So, I ignored the lies and kept working hard to make our dream a reality. We got approved for a big loan to do this, personally guaranteeing it, because we believe in Johnstown. We believe in this community!
And that, John DeBartola is why I am supporting Sylvia King for mayor! Because when you had a chance to celebrate someone taking a big personal risk to invest in Johnstown, to lead, you chose to misrepresent the situation to stroke your own ego. To pretend that you are some kind of crusader of truth when all you are doing is telling lies to damage people you don’t even know to get your social media followers foaming at the mouth. You don’t care about the truth, you only care about stepping on others to try to make yourself look like a big man. Well, you are a liar, I have the receipts! And now you are at it again, posting another smear online trying to drag my name through the mud for your own benefit. Well, it stops here! You don’t know me and you have never built anything or know what it is like to do so at great personal risk. You are not qualified to be anywhere near an elected position and you don’t know what it means to lead and to lift people up. You only tear down and step on others. I feel sad for you. It must be a sad life you live.
And THAT, John DeBartola, is why I support Sylvia King! She understands struggle and what it means to build something meaningful! She knows how to lift others up and what it means to have community. So while you are busy trying to spin this as some example of the “elite” conspiring against the community all you’re doing is just making the real reason we support Sylvia King known: Sylvia is a true leader and you are not! You are just a delusional little man huffing and puffing behind your keyboard, inventing lies to smear people in this community who are actually trying to build it up.
SYLVIA KING FOR MAYOR!!!!