Remember my suggestion earlier this week, to keep an eye on the Broward County Schools construction scandal?
(...)
Seems the South Florida school system was "...ripped off to the tune of more than three-quarters of a million dollars by two contractors that performed unnecessary work or submitted inflated bills for repairs made to portable classrooms damaged by Hurricane Wilma."
Well, Bob Norman over at The Daily Pulp has had his eyes all over this story for some time.
Allow me to direct Froggers his way for in depth coverage on both the situation and the entire cast of characters, including Florida's most involved lobbyist, Ron Book.
Snuggle up to your laptop and get ready for a great read.
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Auditor to AshBritt hurricane firm: Give School Board Back the $765,000 You Ripped Off!
(June 30, 2009)
Deputy School Superintendent Is "Appalled" By Employees
(April 19, 2009)
The Broward School Board awards a million dollars in work to an unlicensed company
(April 14, 2009)
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It turns out that C&B, which is short for Crochet & Borel, was very busy in Broward during the weeks after Wilma. And the real drama for the company came not at the courthouse but at the Broward County School Board building across the street, where C&B received a million dollars for roofing work it never should have done.
A couple of weeks after the devastating storm hit, School Board records reveal, Deputy Superintendent Michael Garretson authorized the work after a meeting with C&B representatives and their well-known lobbyist.
The rushed nature of the award — there were no bids and no contract — might be forgiven because of the destruction wrought by Wilma. The problem was that C&B was neither prequalified as a contractor for the board nor licensed or insured to do any roofing work in Florida.
In other words, the entire job fell outside the law. But that didn't stop C&B from trying to charge the district at least twice for the services, according to board records.
Some might call that gouging. The School Board, which has a long history of corruption in its construction department, calls it business as usual.
"I've never seen it this bad," one official in the School Board construction department told me when I asked about the C&B case. "The construction department has become a shell game, if you ask me. It's not what you do around here; it's who you know. And that's the only reason they went with C&B, because somebody knew somebody."
C&B's "somebody" was big-time lobbyist Ron Book, who is definitely a good man to have on your side when you're looking to snare some taxpayers' money. Perhaps the most influential lobbyist in South Florida, Book represented the company in the meeting with Garretson, construction contracts director Denis Hermann, and project manager Joe DeLillo.
