LA City Hall Water Department, PwC & FBI - I Thought It Was Detroit

At first I thought this was Detroit.

But, after reading the article, seeing Pricewaterhousecooper, I may be correct.

FBI raids at DWP, L.A. City Hall related to fallout from billing debacle

FBI agents leave the downtown headquarters of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, one of four locations where searches were conducted Monday.

FBI agents fanned across the Los Angeles area on Monday, serving search warrants at multiple government offices, including the Department of Water and Power, as part of an investigation into how the city responded to the disastrous rollout of a new customer billing system.

Wearing suits and navy blue FBI jackets, investigators searched the DWP headquarters on Hope Street and the offices of City Atty. Mike Feuer a few blocks away at City Hall. Search warrants were also served in two other locations — one in Beverly Hills, the other in an office tower that houses multiple city agencies.

An FBI representative would not describe the nature of the investigation. However, Rob Wilcox, Feuer’s spokesman, said the warrants served at the city attorney’s office were connected to the city’s settlement of a class- action lawsuit filed over the inaccurate DWP bills that resulted from the launch of the new billing system in 2013.

FBI agents carry bags of evidence from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power office as part of an investigation into the city's handling of lawsuits filed over the 2013 rollout of a new billing system at the utility.

Wilcox also said the warrants were related to a separate lawsuit filed by the DWP and city against PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global consulting firm that oversaw the launch of the new billing software.

“We have and will continue to cooperate fully with the expectation that the investigation will be completed expeditiously,” Wilcox said in an emailed statement.

The FBI raid was the second to occur at City Hall in less than a year. In November, agents hauled out boxes and bags of materials from two of Councilman Jose Huizar’s offices as well as his Boyle Heights home.

Since then, a search warrant indicated that federal investigators are looking into the activities of several other city officials.

“It looks bad,” said Jaime Regalado, professor emeritus of political science at Cal State Los Angeles. “Nobody wants to believe that their city is going down a dark path. There is a point where the voting public will start to wonder, ‘What else will these investigations turn up?’”

No arrests have been made, a law enforcement source said.

Mayor Eric Garcetti, who selects the DWP’s top executive and chooses the panel that oversees the utility, said in a statement that he has “zero tolerance for any behavior that violates the public trust.”

“My message to city employees is that if you are asked to assist with the investigation, be prepared to help,” Garcetti said. “And if you’ve done anything to cross the line, be prepared to pay the price.”

Garcetti’s statement did not identify the information sought by the FBI.

However, an excerpt of a federal search warrant reviewed by The Times shows that investigators are seeking information about DWP contracts — awarded or proposed — with companies affiliated with New York attorney Paul Paradis, who was retained by Feuer’s office.

Paradis was hired by Feuer to help the city’s legal team as it sued PricewaterhouseCoopers in the wake of the billing debacle. The companies mentioned in the warrant, which was filed last week, include Paradis Law Group, Aventador and Ardent.

The warrant excerpt reviewed by The Times said investigators were seeking information from several locations, including the offices of the DWP’s top executive, General Manager David Wright, and the DWP’s Board of Commissioners, the five-member panel appointed by Garcetti.

Investigators are seeking evidence of a wide array of possible crimes, including bribery, kickbacks, extortion, mail fraud and money laundering, according to the warrant.

Attorneys for Paradis did not respond to multiple requests for comment. An attorney for PricewaterhouseCoopers said he was still reviewing Monday’s events and declined to comment.

Federal agents also searched the Beverly Hills law office of attorney Paul Kiesel, an FBI spokesperson said. Kiesel, along with Paradis, was hired by Feuer’s office to work on the city’s lawsuit against PricewaterhouseCoopers over incorrect utility bills.

Kiesel confirmed in an interview Monday that his office was searched. “I gladly provided access to all the information that was requested,” Kiesel said.

FBI agents showed up at the DWP headquarters at about 9:30 a.m. and left after 5 p.m. with several backpacks and rolling storage carts. Investigators also descended on Figueroa Plaza, a pair of downtown office towers that house several city agencies.

More than 10 agents arrived on the ninth floor, in an area shared by DWP employees and contractors for Ardent, a firm hired by the utility to provide cybersecurity services, according to a person familiar with the proceedings who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The FBI investigators asked the dozens of employees working on the floor to grab their personal belongings and go to the conference room, the person said. Workers for the DWP were sent back to their desks less than an hour after the search began, but Ardent employees were kept in the conference room much longer.

The agents escorted Ardent employees to their desks one at a time, the person said. The employees logged into their computers using biometric information so the FBI could search them, and then were sent home.

The footage of FBI agents striding into the offices of the city’s water and electrical utility could deal a serious political blow to Garcetti, who promised to reform the DWP, an agency frequently criticized over its billing practices and customer service, when he took office in 2013.

Instead, he and his appointees have found themselves mired in a controversy stemming from the launch of its billing system six years ago. At the time, hundreds of thousands of DWP customers received inaccurate bills, some of them wildly inflated.

Outraged customers sued, culminating in a $67-million legal settlement between the utility and its ratepayers. Separately, the city filed a lawsuit against PricewaterhouseCoopers, seeking financial damages for the botched rollout of the billing system.

As that case progressed, lawyers for PricewaterhouseCoopers alleged they had uncovered an arrangement at City Hall that constituted a massive conflict of interest.

Paradis, hired by Feuer’s office to assist with the city’s case against PricewaterhouseCoopers, had also served at one point as the lawyer for the Van Nuys ratepayer who filed a class-action lawsuit against the DWP, according to testimony in the case.

Paradis also secured lucrative no-bid contracts from the DWP to help the city comply with the terms of the settlement of the class-action lawsuit filed by ratepayers. The utility ultimately approved more than $36 million in contracts with companies connected to Paradis, in part to address problems stemming from the overbilling debacle.

Paradis, through his attorney, has previously denied wrongdoing. During a deposition in the PricewaterhouseCoopers lawsuit, he invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to nearly every question.

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DOJ: Arrests Made in Nationwide College Admissions Scam: Alleged Exam Cheating & Athletic Recruitment Scheme

What people fail to realize about the severity of this college scam is not about the human trafficking, nor is it about the massive amounts of money people made selling university admissions, it is about what happens with the students who graduate.

These students will graduate with degrees, get great jobs, and become experts, sometimes in the same university of which they graduated.

These graduates will then pump their talking points white papers to further the privatization of the U.S. by pushing crap.

Yes, I said it.

U.S. universities will crank out indoctrinated crap that comes from foreign universities like Tel Aviv University.

Yes, U.S. domestic policies are generated by foreign interests, which are not in the best interest of the nation, like USC and its work on Michigan Emergency Manager and Detroit Land Bank Authority.

These are the reasons why "The Poors" do not get into college.

What makes this scheme so nefarious is because the bribes were laundered through child welfare NGOs.

Cocktails & Popcorn: Detroit DHS LARP Busts First Layer Of Major Modern Day Human Trafficking Ops Through Michigan Universities


It seems this drama is just getting started.

Personal tennis instructor for Michelle Obama, her daughters charged in bribery scheme

Defendants include CEOs, actresses, university athletic coaches, and college exam administrators

BOSTON – Dozens of individuals involved in a nationwide conspiracy that facilitated cheating on college entrance exams and the admission of students to elite universities as purported athletic recruits were arrested by federal agents in multiple states this morning and charged in federal court in Boston. Athletic coaches from Yale, Stanford, USC, Wake Forest and Georgetown, among others, are implicated, as well as parents and exam administrators. 

William “Rick” Singer, 58, of Newport Beach, Calif., was charged with racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Singer owned and operated the Edge College & Career Network LLC (“The Key”) – a for-profit college counseling and preparation business – and served as the CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF) – a non-profit corporation that he established as a purported charity.

Between approximately 2011 and February 2019, Singer allegedly conspired with dozens of parents, athletic coaches, a university athletics administrator, and others, to use bribery and other forms of fraud to secure the admission of students to colleges and universities including Yale University, Georgetown University, Stanford University, the University of Southern California, and Wake Forest University, among others. Also charged for their involvement in the scheme are 33 parents and 13 coaches and associates of Singer’s businesses, including two SAT and ACT test administrators.  

Also charged is John Vandemoer, the head sailing coach at Stanford University, Rudolph “Rudy” Meredith, the former head soccer coach at Yale University, and Mark Riddell, a counselor at a private school in Bradenton, Fla. 

The conspiracy involved 1) bribing SAT and ACT exam administrators to allow a test taker, typically Riddell, to secretly take college entrance exams in place of students or to correct the students’ answers after they had taken the exam; 2) bribing university athletic coaches and administrators—including coaches at Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Southern California, and the University of Texas—to facilitate the admission of students to elite universities under the guise of being recruited as athletes; and (3) using the façade of Singer’s charitable organization to conceal the nature and source of the bribes.   

1. College Entrance Exam Cheating Scheme

According to the charging documents, Singer facilitated cheating on the SAT and ACT exams for his clients by instructing them to seek extended time for their children on college entrance exams, which included having the children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain the required medical documentation. Once the extended time was granted, Singer allegedly instructed the clients to change the location of the exams to one of two test centers: a public high school in Houston, Texas, or a private college preparatory school in West Hollywood, Calif. At those test centers, Singer had established relationships with test administrators Niki Williams and Igor Dvorskiy, respectively, who accepted bribes of as much as $10,000 per test in order to facilitate the cheating scheme. Specifically, Williams and Dvorskiy allowed a third individual, typically Riddell, to take the exams in place of the students, to give the students the correct answers during the exams, or to correct the students’ answers after they completed the exams. Singer typically paid Ridell $10,000 for each student’s test. Singer’s clients paid him between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, with the payments structured as purported donations to the KWF charity. In many instances, the students taking the exams were unaware that their parents had arranged for the cheating.

2. College Recruitment Scheme

It is further alleged that throughout the conspiracy, parents paid Singer approximately $25 million to bribe coaches and university administrators to designate their children as purported athletic recruits, thereby facilitating the children’s’ admission to those universities. Singer allegedly described the scheme to his customers as a “side door,” in which the parents paid Singer under the guise of charitable donations to KWF. In turn, Singer funneled those payments to programs controlled by the athletic coaches, who then designated the children as recruited athletes – regardless of their athletic experience and abilities. Singer also made bribe payments to most of the coaches personally.

For example, during a call with one parent, Singer stated: “Okay, so, who we are…what we do is we help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school…My families want a guarantee. So, if you said to me ‘here’s our grades, here’s our scores, here’s our ability, and we want to go to X school’ and you give me one or two schools, and then I’ll go after those schools and try to get a guarantee done.” 

As part of the scheme, Singer directed employees of The Key and the KWF to create falsified athletic “profiles” for students, which were then submitted to the universities in support of the students’ applications. The profiles included fake honors that the students purportedly received and elite teams that they purportedly played on.  In some instances, parents supplied Singer with staged photos of their children engaged in athletic activity – such as using a rowing machine or purportedly playing water polo.

3. Tax Fraud Conspiracy

Beginning around 2013, Singer allegedly agreed with certain clients to disguise bribe payments as charitable contributions to the KWF, thereby enabling clients to deduct the bribes from their federal income taxes. Specifically, Singer allegedly instructed clients to make payments to the KWF in return for facilitating their children’s admission to a chosen university. Singer used a portion of that money to bribe university athletic coaches to designate the children as student athletes. Thereafter, Masera or another KWF employee mailed letters from the KWF to the clients expressing thanks for their purported charitable contributions. The letter stated: “Your generosity will allow us to move forward with our plans to provide educational and self-enrichment programs to disadvantaged youth,” and falsely indicated that “no good or services were exchanged” for the donations. Many clients then filed personal tax returns that falsely reported the payment to the KWF as charitable donations.

The charge of racketeering conspiracy provides for a sentence of no greater than 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater and restitution. The charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of not more than $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the money laundering. The charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States provides for a sentence of no greater than five years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charge of obstruction of justice provides for a sentence of no greater than 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, and of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services wire fraud, provide for a sentence of no greater than 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of 250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Kristina O’Connell, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston, made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric S. Rosen, Justin D. O’Connell, Leslie Wright, and Kristen A. Kearney of Lelling’s Securities and Financial Fraud Unit are prosecuting the case.

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Appendix

1. William Rick Singer, 58, of Newport Beach, Calif., owner of the Edge College & Career Network and CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation, was charged in an Information with racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of justice.  He is scheduled to plead guilty in Boston before U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel on March 12, 2019, at 2:30 p.m.;
2. Mark Riddell, 36, of Palmetto, Fla., was charged in an Information with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud as well as conspiracy to commit money laundering;
3. Rudolph “Rudy” Meredith, 51, of Madison, Conn., the former head women’s soccer coach at Yale University, was charged in an Information with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services wire fraud as well as honest services wire fraud;  
4. John Vandemoer, 41, of Stanford, Calif., the former sailing coach at Stanford University, was charged in an Information with racketeering conspiracy and is expected to plead guilty in Boston before U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel on March 12, 2019, at 3:00 p.m.;
5. David Sidoo, 59, of Vancouver, Canada, was charged in an indictment with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Sidoo was arrested on Friday, March 8th in San Jose, Calif., and appeared in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California yesterday. A date for his initial appearance in federal court in Boston has not yet been scheduled.  

The following defendants were charged in an indictment with racketeering conspiracy:

6. Igor Dvorskiy, 52, of Sherman Oaks, Calif., director of a private elementary and high school in Los Angeles and a test administrator for the College Board and ACT;
7. Gordon Ernst, 52, of Chevy Chase, Md., former head coach of men and women’s tennis at Georgetown University;
8. William Ferguson, 48, of Winston-Salem, N.C., former women’s volleyball coach at Wake Forest University;
9. Martin Fox, 62, of Houston, Texas, president of a private tennis academy in Houston;
10. Donna Heinel, 57, of Long Beach, Calif., the senior associate athletic director at the University of Southern California;
11. Laura Janke, 36, of North Hollywood, Calif., former assistant coach of women’s soccer at the University of Southern California;
12. Ali Khoroshahin, 49, of Fountain Valley, Calif., former head coach of women’s soccer at the University of Southern California;
13. Steven Masera, 69, of Folsom, Calif., accountant and financial officer for the Edge College & Career Network and the Key Worldwide Foundation;
14. Jorge Salcedo, 46, of Los Angeles, Calif., former head coach of men’s soccer at the University of California at Los Angeles;
15. Mikaela Sanford, 32, of Folsom, Calif., employee of the Edge College & Career Network and the Key Worldwide Foundation;
16. Jovan Vavic, 57, of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., former water polo coach at the University of Southern California; and
17. Niki Williams, 44, of Houston, Texas, assistant teacher at a Houston high school and test administrator for the College Board and ACT.

The following defendant was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud:

18. Michael Center, 54, of Austin Texas, head coach of men’s tennis at the University of Texas at Austin

The following defendants were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud:

19. Gregory Abbott, 68, of New York, N.Y., the founder and chairman of a food and beverage packaging company;
20. Marcia Abbott, 59, of New York, N.Y.;
21. Gamal Abdelaziz, 62, of Las Vegas, Nev., the former senior executive of a resort and casino operator in Macau, China;
22. Diane Blake, 55, of San Francisco, Calif., an executive at a retail merchandising firm;
23. Todd Blake, 53, of San Francisco, Calif., an entrepreneur and investor;
24. Jane Buckingham, 50, of Beverly Hills, Calif., the CEO of a boutique marketing company;
25. Gordon Caplan, 52, of Greenwich, Conn., co-chairman of an international law firm based in New York City;
26. I-Hin “Joey” Chen, 64, of Newport Beach, Calif., operates a provider of warehousing and related services for the shipping industry;
27. Amy Colburn, 59, of Palo Alto, Calif.;
28. Gregory Colburn, 61, of Palo Alto, Calif.;
29. Robert Flaxman, 62, of Laguna Beach, Calif., founder and CEO of real estate development firm;
30. Mossimo Giannulli, 55, of Los Angeles, Calif., fashion designer;
31. Elizabeth Henriquez, 56, of Atherton, Calif.;
32. Manuel Henriquez, 55, of Atherton, Calif., founder, chairman and CEO of a publicly traded specialty finance company;
33. Douglas Hodge, 61, of Laguna Beach, Calif., former CEO of investment management company;
34. Felicity Huffman, 56, of Los Angeles, Calif., an actress;
35. Agustin Huneeus Jr., 53, of San Francisco, Calif., owner of wine vineyards;
36. Bruce Isackson, 61, of Hillsborough, Calif., president of a real estate development firm;
37. Davina Isackson, 55, of Hillsborough, Calif.;
38. Michelle Janavs, 48, of Newport Coast, Calif., former executive of a large food manufacturer; 
39. Elisabeth Kimmel, 54, of Las Vegas, Nev., owner and president of a media company;
40. Marjorie Klapper, 50, of Menlo Park, Calif., co-owner of jewelry business;
41. Lori Loughlin, 54, of Los Angeles, Calif., an actress;
42. Toby MacFarlane, 56, of Del Mar, Calif., former senior executive at a title insurance company;
43. William McGlashan Jr., 55, of Mill Valley, Calif., senior executive at a global equity firm;
44. Marci Palatella, 63, of Healdsburg, Calif., CEO of a liquor distribution company;
45. Peter Jan Sartorio, 53, of Menlo Park, Calif., packaged food entrepreneur;
46. Stephen Semprevivo, 53, of Los Angeles, Calif., executive at privately held provider of outsourced sales teams;
47. Devin Sloane, 53, of Los Angeles, Calif., founder and CEO of provider of drinking and wastewater systems;
48. John Wilson, 59, of Hyannis Port, Mass., founder and CEO of private equity and real estate development firm;
49. Homayoun Zadeh, 57, of Calabasas, Calif., an associate professor of dentistry; and
50. Robert Zangrillo, 52, of Miami, Fla., founder and CEO of private investment firm.

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It Seems Michigan Richard Baird Really Likes Public Private Trust Funds

The more the Michigan Governor's Cabinet operations are uncloaked, the more I am inclined to reaffirm my position that Snyder was falsely advised, if he was even advised on what was going on.




Here is a list of Rich Baird's privatization activities in Michigan:

The search and appointment of Kevyn Orr, Emergency Manager for the Detroit Bankruptcy.

Pay attention to all those trust funds and real estate.

Flint Homecoming

Senior Advisor and Transformation Manager
Office of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder

Richard L. Baird was appointed Senior Advisor and Transformation Leader to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in October of 2013. Prior to that, he was the CEO of MI Partners, LLC, a Michigan-based consulting company contracted by the Snyder administration since January, 2011.

Baird works with the Governor and his leadership team to reinvent and transform Michigan. Baird has played key roles to address financial solvency, organizational redesign and performance, talent assessment, financially distressed city turnaround strategies, public safety and infrastructure, economic/workforce development and education reform.

Baird served as co-leader (with U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox) of the mediation team which led to the creation of the Great Lakes Water Authority and also assisted Judge Gerald Rosen in the successful resolution of creditor disputes under the Detroit bankruptcy. He created the Office of Good Government for the State of Michigan, designed the Governor’s Council on Law Enforcement and Reinvention (CLEAR), and has been actively involved in pension redesign, enhancing opportunities for the disabled, ex-offender rehabilitation, and tax payer reform.

More recently (since January, 2016), Baird has served as the Team Leader for “Mission Flint” which coordinates the State’s partnership with the City of Flint and the related nearly $300 million appropriation to address problems arising from the water crisis and assist with economic/workforce development, medical and education initiatives.

In 2010, Baird retired from PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP as global and U.S. leader of people and change management. From 2003–2008, he was global managing partner – people, responsible for human resources and learning & education for PwC’s 150,000 partners and staff in 150 countries, while serving on the 14-partner global leadership team. From 19997 to 2000, Baird was President of Compass.com, a couple sold to TMP Worldwide (Monster.com) in 2000.

Baird has been referenced in various professional publications for his work in talent management, including The Wall Street Journal, Global HR News, Newsweek, Economist, and Chicago Tribune.

Baird serves as Treasurer of the Michigan Education Excellence Foundation, and is a member of the board for the Grow Michigan Investment Fund. He joined the board for the American Center for Mobility in May, 2017. He is a life member of the board of trustees for United Methodist Homes and Services and a past member of the AIESEC U.S. board of directors and global advisory steering committee. An avid conservationist, he also served on the board of the Great Lakes Protection Fund.

https://www.unitedmethodisthomes.org/services/

https://aiesec.org/about-us

Word Mark	DETROIT SCHOLARSHIP FUND
Goods and Services	IC 036. US 100 101 102. G & S: Charitable fundraising; Charitable fundraising services, namely, raising funds for college education costs; Providing educational scholarships; Providing college scholarships; Financial administration of scholarship programs. FIRST USE: 20130430. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20130430
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code	(4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number	86597230
Filing Date	April 14, 2015
Current Basis	1A
Original Filing Basis	1A
Date Amended to Current Register	October 30, 2015
Registration Number	4915636
Registration Date	March 8, 2016
Owner	(REGISTRANT) Michigan Education Excellence Foundation non-profit corporation MICHIGAN P.O. Box 10030 Lansing MICHIGAN 48901
Attorney of Record	Eric T. Fingerhut
Disclaimer	NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "SCHOLARSHIP FUND" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark	SERVICE MARK
Register	SUPPLEMENTAL
Live/Dead Indicator	LIVE

Word Mark	MICHIGAN EDUCATION EXCELLENCE FOUNDATION
Goods and Services	IC 036. US 100 101 102. G & S: Accepting and administering monetary charitable contributions; charitable fundraising; charitable fundraising services, namely, raising funds for college education costs; financial administration of scholarship programs; charitable fundraising for education projects in the State of Michigan. FIRST USE: 20120827. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20120827
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code	(4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number	85429727
Filing Date	September 22, 2011
Current Basis	1A
Original Filing Basis	1B
Date Amended to Current Register	February 21, 2013
Registration Number	4319072
Registration Date	April 9, 2013
Owner	(REGISTRANT) Michigan Education Excellence Foundation non-profit corporation MICHIGAN P.O. Box 10030 Lansing MICHIGAN 48901
Attorney of Record	Michelle R. Osinski
Disclaimer	NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "FOUNDATION" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark	SERVICE MARK
Register	SUPPLEMENTAL
Live/Dead Indicator	LIVE

https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2016/453/076/2016-453076410-0eb4e396-9.pdf


Baird received his bachelor’s degree from Albion College and was a trustee for 12 years, including five as chair. He received an honorary Ph.D. from Albion College and from Eastern Michigan University.

Snyder aide Rich Baird comes out from behind the curtain

Governor's right-hand man served as emissary, deal-maker, talent scout

Rich Baird, senior adviser to Gov. Rick Snyder, has worked throughout Snyder’s tenure as a de facto deputy governor of the state, whether it was dealing with the Flint water crisis or weekly meetings with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

Rich Baird's skin is a lot thicker these days after eight years as a student of government.

The former PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP executive's faithful service as the right-hand man for outgoing Gov. Rick Snyder has been a ride through the making of laws, Detroit's landmark bankruptcy, some well-intended ideas gone awry and the tsunami of turmoil that engulfed his hometown of Flint — and nearly took the Snyder administration with it.

Whenever there was a controversy or a fire to put out during Snyder's unconventional tenure as Michigan's chief executive, Baird was typically on the scene, serving as an emissary, a deal-maker, the talent scout and, in the eyes of some people, a de facto deputy governor of Michigan.

For the past six years, Rich Baird's trail has run from the governor's office and courtrooms to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's office and Flint City Hall. And for most of that time, he has spurned attention from journalists who have been curious about his wide-ranging assignments from the governor.

Rich Baird has seemingly been everywhere:

• He recruited the top minds to Snyder's team, convincing Jones Day bankruptcy attorney Kevyn Orr to camp out in Detroit for a nearly two-year bankruptcy reorganization project that defied political gravity.
• He set up Snyder's now-defunct Education Achievement Authority school reform entity — and later was involved in dismantling the EAA after it became entangled in mismanagement and corruption.
• In 2016, Baird planted himself in Flint during the height of the city's lead-tainted water crisis, living in rooms he rented off Craigslist and serving as the governor's personal representative at a time when hatred for Snyder was at a fevered pitch.
• He has served as Snyder's ambassador to the Manoogian Mansion, holding meetings every Thursday morning with Duggan for the past five years and forging an early peace treaty in 2013 between the emergency manager and a newly elected mayor who vowed to dispose of the EM.
• During and after the bankruptcy, Baird mediated negotiations with stakeholders, including creation of the Great Lakes Water Authority, a regional entity that spun off suburban water and sewer operations from the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department.
• In the four years since Detroit emerged from bankruptcy, Baird has continued to be the go-to troubleshooter for state-city issues, serving as a self-described "field commander" in Detroit's failed bid for Amazon's second headquarters.
• Baird played a central role in striking key deals for construction of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, including securing funds for Detroit to relocate Delray residents who live near the planned bridge plaza.

"He's the person we turn to when we're stuck," Duggan said of Baird. "The fact that he's down (in Detroit) every day, he understands what we're trying to do and why, it has made him very effective as an honest broker with a lot of different major deals."

Baird's broad role in the Snyder administration "created a vacuum, a mystery around him" that was widely misunderstood, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley said.

"It's hard for this town to understand that there's this person that you've never heard of that has a lot of influence. What's going on there?" Calley said in an interview.

Before Snyder took the oath of office on Jan. 1, 2010, incoming Chief of Staff Dennis Muchmore gave Baird the ubiquitous title of "transformation manager."

"What's transformation manager mean?" Baird asked Muchmore.

"Absolutely nothing," Muchmore replied.

"Or it could mean absolutely everything," Baird said.

The latter turned out to be true.

"Rich Baird has been one of the most important, impactful and effective members of this administration," Calley said.

The recruiter

Baird, 62, retired from PricewaterhouseCoopers on June 30, 2010, after three decades at PwC and one of the accounting giant's predecessors, Coopers & Lybrand, where he hired Snyder in 1982 to work in the firm's Detroit office. Snyder has been Baird's colleague, a client when he ran Gateway Computers, confidante and friend ever since.

Baird volunteered for Snyder's gubernatorial campaign. In the transition, Snyder tapped Baird to lead the recruitment of state agency directors and top aides — a natural fit for the guy who was PwC's global managing partner for human resources.

Two positions proved to be the most difficult to fill: the Department of Corrections director and the state budget director. The corrections director job would be filled a month into Snyder's tenure with the appointment of then-Jackson County Sheriff Dan Heyns.

For the budget director job, Baird was not satisfied after interviewing nearly two dozen in-state candidates.

"I did not come away with the sense that any of them really understood what it was going to take to not only deal with the budget and fill what we knew was a deficit, but also knowing how the governor was going to approach policy and budgeting," Baird said.

On a Saturday afternoon in November of 2010, Baird called former Gov. John Engler for advice on out-of-state candidates for the job.

Engler, who was then CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, came back to Baird with a list of five well-regarded state budget officers across the country. At the top of the list was Utah's budget director, John Nixon, then the president of the National Association of State Budget Officers.

"(Engler) said, 'You won't get this guy, but you should start with him and talk to him about the other candidates — because he knows all of them,'" Baird said.

Baird sent Nixon an email — and within an hour Utah's budget guru called the Michigan headhunter on a Saturday night.

Nixon, a devout Mormon with six children who were ages two to 14 at the time, wasn't interested in uprooting for the Midwest.

But cajoling is Baird's specialty.

"I said, 'It seems to me that you've retired in place. How exciting could it be? Why don't you at least come out and talk to us? We'll make you part of the biggest comeback in the history of the country,'" Baird said. "And he laughed."

Nixon relented, flying to Detroit to meet with Baird and the top members of Snyder's cabinet — Calley, Muchmore, Treasurer Andy Dillon and Strategy Director Bill Rustem. He also met with members of Snyder's transition team: Business Leaders for Michigan CEO Doug Rothwell and Meijer Inc. Vice Chairman Mark Murray, a former state budget director and treasurer under Engler.

When Nixon came back the following weekend with his wife to meet with Snyder, Baird called in a favor from Honigman corporate attorney G. Scott Romney, son of former Gov. George Romney and a fellow Mormon and Republican.

Baird asked Romney if he'd take the Nixons to his Mormon church. "The Romney name is like gold in Utah," Baird said.

On New Year's Eve 2010, Nixon flew to Michigan and set to work on a grueling mission: Produce a two-year budget in six weeks that eliminates a $1.5 billion budget deficit and lets the state slash business taxes.

"Rich is a compelling guy. I realized they had built a first-class team. And I thought, this is something I want to be part of," said Nixon, who returned to Utah in 2014 to become chief administrative officer of the University of Utah.

'Great idea' gone bad

Baird never intended to be part of Snyder's administration.

Initially, Snyder asked Baird to work as a consultant for six months to help put together a new government.

Baird says he "resisted" becoming an employee of the State of Michigan.

"I'm not a bureaucrat," Baird recalled telling the governor. "I don't want to stay on."

"He said, 'Well, I'll pay you out of the NERD Fund,' which we thought was a great idea at the time," Baird added.

And that's how Baird got on the radar of reporters like me.

For most of Snyder's first three years, Baird was paid $100,000 annually from the New Energy to Reinvent and Diversify (NERD) Fund, a not-for-profit organization that could accept limitless donations without having to disclose the donors.

The arrangement raised the specter of whether special interest groups with a policy or legislative agenda were funding the salary of an influential member of the governor's inner circle.

"It wasn't special interests that gave to the NERD Fund — it was Democrats, a whole bunch of them," Baird said.

But Democrats had a field day, raising transparency questions about the secrecy of the fund and the source of Baird's pay while being listed as a state employee with an office across the hall from the governor's suite.

To this day, the identity of the donors who contributed $2.2 million to the NERD Fund remains a secret. In October 2013, Snyder shuttered the NERD Fund, put Baird on the state payroll — at $140,000 a year — and started a new nonprofit organization that has voluntarily disclosed its donors and expenses.

But Baird insists his NERD Fund employment arrangement was devoid of conflicts.

"If I'm a tool of the special interest, then somebody should be shot because I made exactly one-twentieth of what I made in my old life at PricewaterhouseCoopers," Baird said.

'Hated being called a tax cheat'

Even after Snyder tried to tamp down the NERD Fund controversy, Baird remained a frequent target of Democrats and the governor's political enemies.

In August of 2014, the critics pounced after MIRS news service discovered Baird was claiming tax principal homestead exemptions on a $500,000 home in Clinton County's Bath Township and his longtime residence in suburban Chicago. Tax laws limit the property tax break to just one home.

Baird also was still driving around a vehicle with an Illinois license plate, even after he had changed his voter registration to Michigan and got elected a precinct delegate to help re-nominate Calley for lieutenant governor at a GOP state convention — and vote for Snyder that fall.

That move, Baird said, triggered a call from his accountant, who flagged the fact that Michigan — under Snyder — was now taxing pension income for individuals born after 1946.

"She said, 'Are you crazy? You've got to move your pension away from Illinois and to Michigan — and you're going to get taxed on the pension,'" Baird recalled. "I said, 'I know. I was at the scene of that crime.'"

'EAA was not a failure'

Baird's activities stretched well beyond recruitment and the confines of governing inside the Lansing bubble.

Snyder made turning around Detroit and its long-failing schools a top priority. For the city's schools, a succession of state emergency managers was not working, and Snyder wanted to try something new.

The governor tasked Baird with helping to create a new entity that would take over 15 persistently failing schools in Detroit in an effort funded in large part by billionaire Detroit native Eli Broad to demonstrate a different style of education with longer school days, year-round instruction and no grade levels.

The result was the Education Achievement Authority, which was organized as an intergovernmental agreement between Eastern Michigan University and Detroit Public Schools, which was run by an emergency manager at the time.

That move, Baird said, triggered a call from his accountant, who flagged the fact that Michigan — under Snyder — was now taxing pension income for individuals born after 1946.

"She said, 'Are you crazy? You've got to move your pension away from Illinois and to Michigan — and you're going to get taxed on the pension,'" Baird recalled. "I said, 'I know. I was at the scene of that crime.'"

'EAA was not a failure'

Baird's activities stretched well beyond recruitment and the confines of governing inside the Lansing bubble.

Snyder made turning around Detroit and its long-failing schools a top priority. For the city's schools, a succession of state emergency managers was not working, and Snyder wanted to try something new.

The governor tasked Baird with helping to create a new entity that would take over 15 persistently failing schools in Detroit in an effort funded in large part by billionaire Detroit native Eli Broad to demonstrate a different style of education with longer school days, year-round instruction and no grade levels.

The result was the Education Achievement Authority, which was organized as an intergovernmental agreement between Eastern Michigan University and Detroit Public Schools, which was run by an emergency manager at the time.

From the outset, the EAA was troubled.

The school reform entity struggled to meet payroll and manage expenses in the absence of authority to borrow money like normal school districts do.

John Covington, the former Kansas City schools superintendent who was hired to be the EAA's chancellor, was "a good blueprinting guy ... but not an operations guy," Baird said.

Baird said Covington's insistence that the EAA be a closed shop for the American Federation of Teachers triggered an unnecessary "war" with the union and legislative Democrats, who dredged up thousands of pages of emails that revealed the early dysfunction and stumbles of Snyder's school reform project.

"I ultimately rolled over on that," Baird said. "I'm really sorry I did, because over the years, I've worked with the (AFT), and we've been able to find common ground."

In 2013, as Snyder was seeking legislation to expand the EAA to 50 failing schools across the state, Baird said he experienced an "epiphany" that the EAA was faltering when a highly skilled information technology director quit after one week on the job.

"I called her and I said, 'What's going on?' And she said, 'There's so many things that are wrong, I can't fix them and I'm not going to fool anybody into thinking I can,'" Baird said.

Baird asked David Behen, the state's chief information officer at the time, to audit the books of the EAA. "He did a thorough investigation — as good as anything a PwC or a Deloitte would have done," Baird said.

The audit revealed duplicate IT contracts and a "consistent lack of controls" that allowed vendors to get paid without contracts. That caused Baird to turn to a former PwC partner, Tom Golden, who co-authored a guide to forensic accounting.

Golden's investigation led to an FBI and state police probe that rooted out a corruption scheme involving an EAA principal who was driving a Maserati and pocketing tens of thousands of dollars in bribes from a vendor. A dozen principals in DPS were eventually charged for taking bribes from vendors in a pay-to-play scheme that had been going on in Detroit schools for years.

The corruption scandal, Covington's mismanagement and controversial frequent travel to conferences coupled with declining enrollment and rampant staff turnover eventually caused the Snyder administration to fold the EAA schools back into DPS in 2016.

"It clearly didn't work," said David Hecker, president of the AFT Michigan. "But I'll give Gov. Snyder credit for realizing it didn't work."

Baird insists the "EAA was not a failure."

"If we had done some things differently, I'm convinced the EAA would have been the trigger to create some real revolutionary change in school districts across the state," Baird said. "It was always designed to be Stage One of a statewide focus."

Defending the EM law

For eight years, Snyder wore his "relentless positive action" mantra on his sleeve, while Baird worked to enforce it.

On the Thursday after Detroit's November 2013 mayoral election, Baird brokered the first meeting between Mayor-elect Mike Duggan and Kevyn Orr, who had been running the city for nearly eight months as emergency manager.

Baird hand-wrote a pledge for the two men: Both agreed to keep their disagreements private "and the only time that we're going to publicly talk about the other person is when we have something good to say."

"I made them sign it," said Baird, who declined to show me a copy of this peace accord.

At that meeting, Duggan and Orr agreed to share power for the next year — Orr would manage the bankruptcy and supervise police chief James Craig, while Duggan would run city departments.

Baird cautioned Orr on how the arrangement could play out.

"You've heard about if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk," Baird recalled telling Orr. "Mike Duggan will want the barn, the dairy farm, the production facility and the supply chain — it won't stop with the milk."

Since Orr left town at the end of the bankruptcy four years ago this month, Baird has remained Snyder's point man in Detroit, holding court with the mayor every Thursday morning. Duggan even gave Baird his own mayor's office ID badge that lets him bypass security.

"I think Rich Baird has been as big a part of the progress Detroit has made in the last eight years as any other person, including Kevyn Orr, Mike Duggan and Rick Snyder," Calley said. "Rich Baird has been that impactful."

Baird credits the bankruptcy's success to both Duggan's management and turnaround skills and the talents Orr and his Jones Day legal team brought to the restructuring of a city that was drowning in debt and political dysfunction.

The same cannot be said for Flint, where Baird ran a "Mission Flint" program in 2016 trying to chart new initiatives in education, economic development and social services for his hometown in the wake of the water crisis.

Baird, the longtime human resources professional, is blunt in his assessment of how Flint's water became tainted with lead under the watch of Snyder-appointed emergency managers.

"The reason it didn't work in Flint is because we did not always have the right emergency manager that looked at this as a partnership as opposed to a dictatorship," Baird said.

Rumor has it

With just two weeks remaining in Snyder's term, the only transforming Baird is working on is stepping back into semi-retirement.

Snyder appointed Baird to an eight-year term on the Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents, and he's planning to do some long-overdue traveling with his wife next year.

And even though he's already got walk-in privileges at the mayor's office, Baird said he isn't going to join the Duggan administration.

"I think Mike was the one spreading that rumor," Baird said with a laugh.

In an interview, Duggan didn't deny he has tried to make Baird more than a weekly visitor to Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.

"Yeah, I'm recruiting people all of the time," Duggan said. "But you know, I think he's earned retirement."

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Cocktails & Popcorn: SEC, Kwame Kilpatrick & Detroit Unfinished Business

Outstanding SEC investigations of Detroit
"It is time to uncork."

Whenever opening a vintage wine, one must always enjoy the messaging of the label.

In this instance, the vintage wine is SEC, a very dry vintage going back to the days of the unfinished public corruption situation, still rolling strong, in Detroit.

Now, why would the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission be dust off and bring up unfinished business from the cellar of public corruption history?

Can you say, "Bonds and structured debt"?

I can, and I bet SEC is the message.

Stay tuned.

Judge boosts Kwame Kilpatrick's debt to $11.5M

Detroit — A federal judge sent former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick a prison cell-warming gift Wednesday: a $552,862 bill stemming from another City Hall scandal.

Kilpatrick, 48, who was recently transferred from an Oklahoma prison to a New Jersey lock-up, was ordered to pay the money to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC claimed Kilpatrick was part of a scheme to strong-arm a city pension fund businessman for $125,000 worth of private flights, Prince concert tickets, steakhouse dinners, golf trips and VIP hotel rooms in Las Vegas.

The order from U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts boosted Kilpatrick's debt to more than $11.5 million, which includes taxes, restitution related to various criminal convictions, attorney fees, loans and credit card bills.

Collecting could be difficult. Kilpatrick claimed he was broke before being convicted of racketeering conspiracy in 2013 and recently said he had 96 cents in his prison commissary account. Kilpatrick isn't scheduled to be released from prison until August 2037, though his family is pushing for clemency from President Donald Trump.

Kilpatrick’s finances came into sharper focus April 19. That’s when U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow ended a six-year legal battle by issuing a nearly $7.5 million judgment to a firm owned by minority contractor Willie McCormick.

McCormick sued the former mayor and contractor Bobby Ferguson in 2012, alleging they ran a secret scheme to steer water department work to favored firms.

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Ferguson (Photo: David Coates, The Detroit News)

McCormick’s lawsuit mirrored allegations that were central to the racketeering conspiracy case against Kilpatrick and Ferguson. Ferguson was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison.

Kilpatrick, Ferguson and former mayoral aide Derrick Miller never responded to the civil lawsuit and McCormick received a default judgment in 2016. A federal magistrate judge in March issued a recommendation that McCormick receive $7,477,874, which represents lost profits on three Detroit Water and Sewerage Department contracts.

The McCormick lawsuit was filed the same year as a separate civil complaint filed against Kilpatrick and others, including former Detroit Treasurer Jeffrey Beasley.

Jeffrey Beasley (Photo: U.S. Department of Justice)

The SEC alleged the city officials received extravagant gifts in exchange for approving pension fund deals pitched by Detroit businessman Chauncey Mayfield, whose firm reaped millions in fees tied to about $115 million in investments made by the city’s pension funds.

In April, the SEC’s lawyers asked Roberts to issue a final judgment. 

Beasley, 49, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison in 2015 for pocketing bribes while serving on the city’s pension fund boards.

Beasley was the lead defendant in a widespread corruption case that provided insight into a system of businessmen bribing pension trustees for their vote on investments that were supposed to raise money for retiree benefits. Instead, two Detroit pension funds lost more than $95 million in corrupt deals.

On April 16, six years after the SEC filed the lawsuit, Kilpatrick responded and asked to have the judgment set aside.

Kilpatrick wrote that he did not recall anything about the lawsuit and was preoccupied with the criminal corruption case.

In a letter sent from federal prison in Oklahoma, Kilpatrick asked the judge for an “opportunity to zealously and vigorously defend myself.”

In response, the SEC blamed Kilpatrick for ignoring the lawsuit, a copy of which was served on the former Detroit mayor at his rental home in May 2012 in Texas.

“Although he indisputably knew about the complaint, Kilpatrick never answered, pled, appeared, or otherwise defended the SEC’s charges,” the commission’s attorney Timothy Leiman wrote in a filing.

On Wednesday, the judge said Kilpatrick's excuses for failing to respond to the SEC lawsuit were illegitimate.

The judge ordered Kilpatrick and Beasley to pay $122,923 plus $39,939 interest.

Kilpatrick also was ordered to pay a $390,000 civil penalty.

Here is a breakdown of Kilpatrick's other debts awaiting his release from federal prison:

■ $1,520,654 in restitution to the city water department from the city hall corruption scandal.

■ $854,062 in restitution to the city stemming from the text-message scandal that ended his political career. Kilpatrick hasn’t made a payment since before being sent to prison.

Dan Gilbert is among the aspiring owners for a Major League Soccer expansion franchise in Detroit. (Photo: Robin Buckson, Detroit News)

■ $650,000 in attorney fees.

■ $240,000 in loans from Compuware co-founder Peter Karmanos Jr. and businessmen Roger Penske, Dan Gilbert and James Nicholson.

■ $195,000 in federal taxes.

■ $53,577 in student loan and credit card debt.

rsnell@detroitnews.com

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Detroit Land Bank Authority Awards PwC Sealed Contract To Cover Up More Fraud

"Thou shalt not steal cookies, or children,
or land, or taxes, or votes."

When engaging in a cover up of a complex financial fraud scheme, it is always wise to keep it in the family.

Sometimes, I think my #Superfans are sitting back, watching, just to observe the menagerie of "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending), trying to figure out how to justify its operations, even though it never incorporated.

Detroit Land Bank farms out demolition bid scoring to PwC

The Detroit Land Bank Authority has sealed a $701,000 contract with accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers to process and evaluate housing demolition contracts in an effort to more quickly spend $258 million of federal funding that expires at the end of 2020.

I wonder if I should FOIA the contract between Detroit Land Bank Authority and PricewaterhouseCoopers, just to read the terms of agreement, to see if anyone catches that it is not incorporated.

Oh, wait!

The contract is sealed.

I wonder why an organization that has been falsely presented in the public record as being a governmental entity has a sealed contract?


Probably because it is not a governmental entity.

I bet they are going to fund a congressional and gubernatorial campaign.

 On July 1, the land bank outsourced the scoring of demolition bids to PwC amid continued federal scrutiny of the city agency's handling of government contracts for tearing down thousands of abandoned and blighted Detroit homes.

It outsourced because it is not incorporated and needed a real corporation, which is incorporated, to execute federal grants.

"What we're trying to do is put some consistency and transparency into the process," DLBA Executive Director Saskia Thompson told Crain's. "Every bid is scored against the same criteria."

Guuurl, stop lying.  You know you are terrified, yet in the most peculiar way, you love me.  You know you do.

The land bank is retaining its oversight of awarding bids to demolition companies, which have torn down more than 14,500 blighted structures during Mayor Mike Duggan's 4 1/2 years in office.

We call this "retaining of the oversight" the Hawthorne Effect, where, in this case, the Detroit Land Bank Authority will be working really, really hard, increasing productivity of trying to not engage in any more fraudulent activities.

Thompson said PwC's role in scoring each bid should make the flow of work for demolition contractors more predictable....because the Detroit Land Bank Authority does not have a clue as what to do!

PwC won the one-year contract over two firms that bid substantially less. The staffing agency Experis bid $172,000 for the work, while a firm called RGB made a $99,000 bid.

PwC has a history when it comes the privatization....and bankruptcy...and other forms of questionable auditing of other Ham Sandwich organizations that never incorporated.

Thompson said the other two firms did not have the qualifications to carry out the contract. PwC has experience in evaluating and executing fraudulent bids for government agencies, she said.

"They were much higher on price, but they had much deeper capacity and more experience, and ultimately that's more important," Thompson told Crain's.

Just ask Kevyn Orr and USC.

PwC will follow a criteria set by the land bank, which gets its instructions from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. The $701,000 contract for PwC was first reported Friday by the Detroit Free Press.

How can the Detroit Land Bank Authority set any kind of criteria, policy, guidelines, chalkline in the middle of the sidewalk, when it is not incorporated?

The Detroit Land Bank Authority has no affiliation, association, ties, consanguinity, nada, with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority.

The Detroit Land Bank Authority cannot even file basic IRS requirements of not lying and putting down fraudulent corporate tax identification on federal reporting of real property transactions.

Heck, it cannot even produce a Federal Employment Identification Number because it never incorporated.

I wonder if PwC is going to report it to the SIGTARP?

The land bank, which has been the subject of a federal investigation, has struggled at times with administering Detroit's massive demolition program and a plethora of federal and state rules, some of which have changed over time.

It struggles because it never incorporated and is stealin' taxes, real properties and the legacies of Detroit.

This spring, for example, MSHDA said Detroit could no longer give extra points to contractors that are based in the city. "We can no longer consider that," said Thompson, who took over the land bank in September 2017.

I possess written communication from MSHDA stating that it no longer had association with Detroit Land Bank Authority.

Detroit has been awarded $258 million in federal funding for its historic demolition program in which entire city blocks with vacant or burnt-out homes are being razed.

The Detroit Land Bank Authority has about $265 million total available for the residential demolitions and, to date, about $175 million has been spent or contracted for demolition jobs, Thompson said.

The total number of remaining homes still to be demolished in Detroit varies, as some have been sold at auction and salvaged.

But the goal with the PwC contract is to have contracts awarded for all remaining houses slated for demolition by July 2019, setting a pipeline for demolitions through the end of 2020, Thompson said.

I truly wish this entire financial farce would either be put into federal receivership or just transfer the entire thing back to the City of Detroit.

What the heck is the purpose of the Detroit Land Bank Authority when it has to outsource all its nefarious operations, just because it never incorporated and was busted engaging in historic, complex financial fraud scheme, that shall be enshrined in the annals of history...by the Celestial Goddess of the Woodshed.

"We know the community wants these buildings down," Thompson said. "So we're moving as expeditiously as we can."

One can only move so fast when they know, that at any time, they will be indicted.

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