We were pleasantly surprised to see that Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts has finally seen the light and realizes that yes, there was corruption going on at the county under the Supervisors and in the construction of the Taj Mahal court tower. Contractors were giving employees kickbacks in exchange for favorable treatment getting contracts to work on the court tower. 11 employees have now been fired or suspended. We've known all along there was something funny about a $347 million court tower being build in the middle of a recession, paid for immediately with CASH from us taxpayers, not bonding, with some of the priciest materials on the market - travertine, porcelain, wooden floors, penthouse quarters for the judges with private robing rooms. We wonder how far up the chain the corruption goes. County Supervisor Don "The Don" Stapley spent $70,000 received in campaign contributions for a race where he had no opponent on personal luxury items for himself and his family, including three family vacations, massages, and $4000 in expensive stereo equipment. Would not surprise us if he received some pretty sweet kickbacks.
Some excerpts from Roberts' article, entitled County is proving corruption to be true:
After reading the report on how things work in the county's Facilities Management Department, I'm thinking maybe Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his sidekick, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, were on to something with all their talk of county corruption.
Eleven county employees have now been put on paid leave, the result of an internal investigation that started when one of the workers began having second thoughts about taking freebies after seeing so many of his concert-going colleagues in the skybox of a company that makes millions off its county contracts.
Meanwhile, Assistant City Manager Kenny Harris, who oversees Facilities, was fired this week. Though Harris was reportedly fired over an unrelated matter, the investigation found that he played in several golf tournaments as the guest of county vendors, including both the project manager and the builder of the county's $340 million court tower -- a construction project that he was supervising. Yeah, that would be the court-tower construction project that Arpaio and Thomas were nosing around. The investigative report outlines a culture in which freebies were routinely handed out to county employees who thought nothing of settling themselves into the luxury suites of the companies whose contracts they played a role in overseeing. The king of the freebies was Dick Carr, who manages county construction projects. According to the report, Carr was treated to roughly 20 concerts over three years and a $4,000 trip in which he was helicoptered in to British Columbia, courtesy of a vendor. No doubt he was the biggest catch of the trip.
What they should do is simply outlaw all gifts to public employees. Period. Nobody would be happier than the lobbyists, who tell me they are routinely hit up for freebies. At the Capitol and, apparently, at the county. Where just a few months ago, we were scoffing at the idea of corruption.
Arizona Republic article
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