Tag: Wayne County Corruption Lives On

Who is this paleface Irish turd trying to fool?  Try remembering July 27, 2004

If approved by U.S. District Judge Paul Borman, McCann, of Livonia, faces six to 12 months in prison and up to a $20,000 fine.

McCann was indicted in November on charges of improperly using a federal grant to pay two interns to secretly build a database of Democratic Party donors. They performed an estimated 758 hours of political work while on the county's payroll in 2001, the county contended.

In November 2002, the FBI and Michigan State Police seized thousands of documents from McNamara's county office and the campaign office of McCann's former boss, then-Wayne County Prosecutor Michael Duggan, in a raid. Duggan is now head of the Detroit Medical Center.

State Treasury officials may soon assume greater oversight of Wayne County's teetering finances.

State Treasurer Andy Dillon met with county officials this week and laid out a carrot-and-stick plan: If the county wants to continue using the state to float some $90 million in bonds each year, all county departments must agree to issue monthly spending reports to the state and County Commission.

The plan works like an allowance. If officials go over budget, the County Commission could deduct the overages from budgets the next month -- or take control of their finances, Sheriff Benny Napoleon said.

"I think that's illegal," said Napoleon, who met Thursday with Dillon.

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Based upon what Sheriff Napoleon will tie his name to, and what 68% of Detroit voters sent to Lansing, what possibly could go wrong?   And, when it comes to former Speaker Dillon, feigning to rein in corruption of his crony Wayne County Democratic Party friends, let's give him a big Handy...

What do Mitt and Bob have in common?

Detroit - Mitt's presidential ambitions may meet their Waterloo in the Big Mitten and if they do, Mitt might have Bob to thank.

That's because Romney and Bob Ficano, the Wayne County executive who is caught in the crosshairs of an FBI corruption probe, have a certain friend in common -- John Rakolta. Rakolta is a prominent Detroit developer whose  company, Walbridge, won a $300 million contract last summer to build the new Wayne County jail.

In turns out Rakolta is Romney's co-national finance chairman.

The Rakolta connection couldn't come at a worse time for Romney, whose commanding lead in his boyhood state of Michigan has shriveled to a statistical tie with Rick Santorum.

The feds are investigating a pattern of pay-to-play in the jail deal and have subpoenaed the county's records in connection with Walbridge. As it happens, Rakolta has been a contributor to the Democrat Ficano, a member of Ficano's finance host committee, and a $25,000 contributor to a non-profit business group know as Edge Opportunities that paid Turkia Mullin to lobby the county development czar.

Rest here

The first casualty of Wayne County's severance scandal was already off the payroll when Executive Robert Ficano "terminated" him, documents obtained by the Detroit News show.

Ficano announced on Oct. 14 that he was firing former personnel director Tim Taylor for his role in a $200,000 severance to Turkia Mullin, the county's ex-economic development director.

But Taylor's employment agreement as a consultant making $56.28 an hour expired the day before, according to his personnel file that The Detroit News obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

That makes Ficano's claims of punishing those responsible "disingenuous," said Commissioner Laura Cox, R-Livonia.

"That's baloney. It's ridiculous to terminate somebody whose contract had expired," Cox said. "It's misleading taxpayers to say he is taking action, when he is taking no action."

Could the questions that now surround the Wayne County Business Development Corporation be a factor?  Who really knows for sure where this whole mess will lead.