In the two weeks prior to the Nov. 3 Prop S vote for an extension of the 1994 bond, Bobb held the hearing to give the public insight into the past misspending, all of which was under the first state takeover. School board member Marie Thornton called the hearings a “dog and pony show,” saying most of the information was not new. During the first hearing, Bobb said he had “no authority” to take any action against those involved in the multi-million dollar deals. However, he earlier said the FBI and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy would bring the full weight of the law to bear against school workers for allegedly stealing relatively small amounts of lunch money and computers.
In a 2007 memo to then Interim Superintendent Lamont Satchel, Thornton objected to the 2003 DPS transactions with the Farbman Group involving the Fisher, Albert Kahn, New Center and Lothrop Landing buildings. A study done by the law firm of Floyd Allen and Associates showed that DPS spent $24,150,000 of the 1994 school bond to buy floors 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14 of the Fisher building on a condo basis and is also spending over $1.9 million a year from its general fund to lease other space in the buildings from 2003-2013. “We are under a Deficit Elimination Plan and the District volunteered to close 50 schools to satisfy the debt that was approved by the State of Michigan,” Thornton told Satchel at the time. “You as the Interim General Superintendent sit relaxed in your office. ... In addition, there are Central Level Administrators that are sitting in these plush offices.”
The report said the district deliberately negotiated a purchase deal from Farbman in order to use the bond money, which could cover only capital purchases. Thornton said the sale of the old School Center Building on Woodward to Wayne State University brought in no more than $11 million. On the second day of hearings, testimony revealed that the Farbman Group and a real estate brokerage firm profited inordinately from the 1994 bond. The DPS ended up buying land for the new Cass Technical High School and the School of the Arts valued at $57,000 for $743,000 after it passed hands several times in one day.
It has been known for some time that the new Cass and DSA schools were among the most expensive in the country. Cass cost DPS $262 per square foot and about $47,000 per student. The Detroit High School for the Fine, Performing & Communication Arts had a price tag of about $391 per square foot and $80,600 per student. Then to add to this evidence, an auditor says Bobb shouldn’t handle contracts. Robert Bobb should not handle contracts. That was the conclusion of the auditor for the Washington D.C. council. In 2005, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb worked as the City Administrator for Mayor Anthony Williams. As the Administrator, Bobb circumvented procurement laws, according to a report by D.C. auditor Deborah K. Nichols.
Bobb is currently leading a campaign for Detroit voters to pass Prop S which would raise half a billion dollars. Last week, the Michigan Citizen reported that Bobb and his committee alone would control the bond money without public oversight. “The chief issue is one of public accountability. It is never a good situation when you have one person in control of everything. The public should be allowed to view a transaction in its entirety, not only in terms of the decision but the decision-making process and that is difficult under a reform process because you have a total lack of external control,” says DPS School Board member Anthony Adams. The school board does not support the bond proposal.
“Our issue is about the process and public accountability. Oversight needs to be established before the bond issue, not after the fact. What they have proposed is virtually no accountability and then you have the EFM chairing the process? I don’t know how the fox can guard the hen house like that.” The Washington D.C. audit described payments made by Bobb and former D.C. Mayor Williams, to “friends and associates” who were allowed to begin performing services without a contract. The services in question were related to the District’s lobbying for the establishment of a major league baseball team and a trip to China to induce trade.
A subsequent Washington Post editorial dated June 15, 2005, cited Nichols’ June 3 report on Bobb’s “failure to follow city procurement law.” “The city administrator’s action of identifying friends and associates, principally from Oakland, Calif., for non-competitive, sole source ‘deals’ with the District government resulted in transactions that were not: above reproach, ‘arms length,’ completely impartial and free from the appearance of preferential treatment,” the auditor concluded in her report. At that time, Nichols recommended that Washington D.C. appoint an independent official to handle contracts.
Bobb had arranged to pay four consultants more than $150,000. The report further stated that the Office of Contracting and Procurement, which operated under the mayor’s control, should be made “truly an ‘independent’ agency free from any pressure or constraints” from Williams (D) or Bobb. The report further states that: “These transactions, or business opportunities were not publicly disclosed or subjected to a credible competitive procurement process. The transactions examined by the Auditor were financed with public funds, and thus should not escape or be exempt from public scrutiny and complete accountability.”
The beneficiaries of Bobb’s included consultants Melinda Yee-Franklin, Liliy Hu, Rosie Rios of Red River associates and former Oakland City Council member Jane Brunner — all former associates of Bobb’s during his time as Oakland city manager. Also cited in the report were payments made to Ira Sockowitz for overseeing a trade mission to China by Franklin and Hu, according to a Washington Post article dated June 8, 2005. In a June 27, 2005, article in the Washington Post, Nichols also criticized a city award of $300,000, described as a sole-source contract, to Strategic Advisory Group LLC in January 2003. That contract was twice modified, breaking city law prohibiting extensions of sole-source contracts, increasing its amount to $977,000.
According to recent reports, in Detroit Bobb has awarded no-bid contracts in the amount of at least $42 million. Washington’s political insiders say it was the news of the no-bid contracts that scuttled Bobb’s political ambition to be Mayor of Washington D.C. Bobb was also ousted as D.C.’s school board president when Mayor Adrian Fenty seized control of the district’s schools. Still with all of these reasons presented before us that many people don’t know about Robert Bobb and the major news outlets will not present, I am asking all Detroiters to know the facts regarding why there are more questions to Proposal S than answers.
Proposal S will build or remodel 18 schools but some of the buildings are buildings that have been currently closed and the reality is that the proposal will extend the debt on Detroiters homes from ending in 2033 to 2039 or beyond if the district borrows from the State at any time during the current bond proposal. Thus I urge Detroiters to ask Detroit Public Schools and Robert Bobb to find another alternative to building or remodeling schools by seeking to invest in the DPS Foundation that can get funds from public and private businesses and organizations in order to build the new buildings that the district seeks to create with Proposal S money. Thus Detroit, we can do this by voting no on Proposal S which only adds additional debt to the homes of Detroiters.
Vote NO on Proposal S Detroit!
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