A probe into the hiring five years ago of former Republican mayoral contender Ken Johnson's real estate business by the BDA to help with the relocation of the Bugryn family has cleared officials of any wrongdoing.
City Personnel Director Diane Ferguson, in a 3-page report issued today, concluded that Jonathan Rosenthal, the city's economic development director, and others did not issue the contract to A Buyer's Market for personal gain "or for any other improper reason."
The report appears to put to bed an issue raised by former Mayor William Stortz on his last full business day in office in November.
I'll have more later. Meanwhile, you can read the report for yourself here:
Click here to see a PDF of the investigation by city Personnel Director Diane Ferguson
Click here to see former Mayor William Stortz's Nov. 8th memo raising questions about the contract
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
10 comments:
STEVE, You can verify this with Couture....
This is disturbing. Couture took Nelli Filipetti around to look at apartments to move into. He drove her around, walked through a couple with her and even contacted landlords to find an appropriate place for her. He's the one that found the apartment she moved into down by ESPN. He contacted the landlord and had it shown to both of them because he wanted to make sure it was appropriate living conditions.
So why did Johnson get paid for it?
The Personnel Director "investigating" this issue: Gimme a break!
I did not see any indication where the questions that were asked, such as approvals, contracts/agreements insurance etc were addressed by the Personnel Director. Nor did I read where the "contract" was signed, or even who has it. (Does it exist?) Approved by our lawyers?
Seems like a whitewash to me.
How many other situations like this have occurred?
STEVE, You can verify this with Couture....<---- WHAT !?!?!?!?
ROFLMAO ...... you might as well ask clinton if he turned down syria when they had osama bin laden in captivity ...
Couture booted that poor old lady out of her life-long homestead and enjoyed it . Satan has a special seat waiting for him ....
Couture had to clean up Frank's dirty work. It wasn't his fault. And he did do everything he could to see that the remaining sisters found appropriate housing. One sister bought a house with her son behind Shaws and the other lives in an apartment. Couture did go with her to find a good place. Actually, I think I remember Jackie writing about it.
I see Franks heavy hand again.
The issue took place when he was mayor, and apparently he looked the other way OR Rosenthal did not inform him of the details.
Of course now, he is going to help sweep this under the rug so as not to reflect on him.
Simple question: were city guidelines adhered to or not
Rousseau said "this situation doesn't happen very often"
IT SHOULD NOT HAPPEN AT ALL!!!!!
Where are the checks and balances?
I neglected to answer the first poster here. I know from both talking with both Filipetti and Couture in the past that Couture found her a place to live that she was content with, given that she had no choice except to move.
That's completely true.
For what it's worth, I know firsthand how troubled Couture was about the whole Bugryn mess. He was anything but gleeful.
But it also occurred well after Ken Johnson's contract to help the family was over. And I also heard from various members of the Bugryn family at the time that Johnson did a good job and they were happy with his efforts to help, though of course they had no desire to move at all.
That's no doubt why the initial $4,999 contract ballooned into three more $5,000 contracts with Johnson - because he knew the family and they trusted him to provide assistance. Obviously, nobody else fit the bill at that point.
As for the last poster, I should say that the city has at least some checks and balances. It has a purchasing agent, a comptroller's office that reviews bills, attorneys, a Board of Finance that watches spending pretty carefully, politicians who may or may not pay much attention, boards that oversee some departments (including the BDA, which is certainly relevant here) and outside auditors that review the books annually, though they wouldn't normally examine relatively small payments such as this one.
Given the high profile of this case, and even this contract (since it was mentioned in the Press at least six times), I don't think, as some of you do, that it was anything secretive or nefarious. It might have been handled better, but I don't see that anyone benefited unjustly or that there's any particular cause for alarm.
The work was done, clearly, and the payout appears reasonable on its face for the work that Johnson did. After five years, I'm not surprised that documentation is kind of slim for this whole thing, but it's pretty obvious that officials weren't trying to hide anything or Johnson wouldn't have been talking to reporters or put on the witness stand to help the city's court case.
If anyone's truly interested in knowing more, go ask to see the court files on the Bugryn housing case. I'm sure there's more there, perhaps even a transcript of his testimony.
But I don't see this as worth the hours it would take for me to explore it in the kind of depth some of you believe it deserves. I would be happy, however, to see anything anyone finds that might call into question what I think happened.
It's not like I'm big buddies with Johnson or Rosenthal. Johnson's not even speaking with me because he's so mad about a story that appeared about his real estate business shortly before the election. And Rosenthal isn't too thrilled that he's still being tossed around like a human punching bag despite Stortz's departure. I get some of the fallout for that from him, too, probably fairly.
To me the big thing is the $4,999 expense, clearly designed to fall under the radar. I think Rosenthal knew exactly what he was doing. That is not an accident. Maybe it became clear afterward that more time and money would be required and it was not possible to keep it quiet any longer, but it is clear that initially this was intended to be kept in the dark.
Has anyone seen a copy of the contract?
Could Collins put it on this blog?
Would be interesting.
I guess that the approved contract doesn't exist.
Why am I not surprised??
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