spiritsoup's Blog

Trading one corruption for another?


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Now before we all start dancing and singing "ding-dong, the witch is dead,".

I thought to ask myself a few questions. 

So this Cockrel guy is the new mayor in acting.

Understand that I am a little cynical of any one in Wayne county government, so please...bare with me here.

What kind of media is available, what sort of news is this cat into of late.

What's his story?  

Well, seeing how he's the head of a city council that is still involved in a FBI embezzlement investigation I bet it's a hell of story.

I'm not trying to say he has anything to do with the FBI investigation.  I'm just saying that groups tend to elect leaders they deserve.
 
Let's start there, shall we?  See what we know as of yet about this on going FBI debacle.

 July 2 2008 the Detroit Free press published this article: FBI targets 4 on council, and within that article, just about the very first paragraph was this.

"The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the probe's sensitive nature, said they were surprised how cheaply some public officials could be bought."

"If you're going to trade your vote, you'd think it would be for a lot of money," one said.

"Four figures is not a lot of money. ... They were selling their votes in volume."

As if that isn't bad enough, Mr Cockrel had this to say about that information.

"It's not surprising, but it's very disappointing and very disturbing,"  

Not surprising?  Are you serious?

He then adds this statement,

"We'll have to see how this all plays out. But in the meantime, until names are actually dropped, council has to continue to focus on doing its job and it has to be business as usual, no matter how difficult that may be,"  

If I just found that out I would think I'd be a bit more appalled, and stern in speech.

So business as usual, hummmm? 

Now what business is that?  Ripping off the City of Detroit?

What else could it be when 1/3 the council is on the take?  What good is trading a blatant in your face corruption for a more covert one that sells their votes for peanuts?

It appears the only low bid contract given in the city is the bribes given to the city officials. 

They don't even sell us out at a decent price.

The Free Press first reported that one person taped by the FBI was John Clark, Cockrel's chief of staff, who sources said accepted two payments of $2,000 from Rosendall earlier this year. Clark resigned last week.

But ends with, "Cockrel had voted against the deal."

So that makes you wonder...well he did vote it down but in my eyes, when your Chief of Staff is on the take and you have no clue...you are either

A: corrupt too or

B: too ignorant and/or naive to be awarded the right to run the city as mayor in acting.

And who is this Rosendall guy,

Rosendall, 43, of Grand Rapids, vice president for market development for Synagro (A Waste management corporation) before the company announced his suspension Monday, came to the attention of FBI agents several months ago, sources said. He was one of two Synagro representatives involved in helping the company win a lucrative contract in southwest Detroit last November.

Synagro is the next question.   What do they do, and why are they trying to buy our city officials?

On there own site:

Synagro Technologies Inc.

They boast multiple city services including rail transportation, land development, Design/build.

Syngro, who was bought out in April 2007 by none other then the Bush Family Friendly, Carlyle  Group as reported by Behind the Buy Out,  But that fact is not mentioned on the Synagro web site.

Read the entire article from Behind the Buy Out 

Wow! It's enough to make your head hurt isn't it. 

But the soup just gets thicker and thicker, along with all the negative press they have garnered over their involvement with the Council of Corruption that is Detroit.

Now here is a bit about Synagro from Onvia a company used to assist them in there sales leads.

Synagro Earns a 44-Fold Return Winning New Business with Onvia

Synagro is the country's leading independent, full-service provider of residuals management services to municipalities and industrial customers. The company has three regional sales groups across the nation, including a Rail Transportation Division and Engineering & Facilities Development Group that looks into facilities construction. Government business drives 75 percent of Synagro's business revenue, which is supported by a sales force that spans across the country. Each sales person is in charge of their own states and a sales support team assists them in putting together the proposals and pricing for each region. To generate government sales leads, the company was trying to sign up for vendor lists and monitor new business intelligence. However, the company wasn't confident that they were catching all the right opportunities and needed a source to deliver timely government sales leads. They also wanted a way to track competitive data and gain insight into geographic market intelligence."

Sounds like a battle plan to me, "Can't catch the right opportunities?...buy them!

So what was it that Syngro has done for the city other then pay off it's council members?

Here is an snippet from an article from Diane Bukowski:

DETROIT — Without a whimper, Minergy Detroit LLC’s plan for a private incinerator for the city’s water and sewerage department expired after five years of protests by union and environmental activists.

But the company, a subsidiary of the giant Wisconsin Energy Corporation, is still seeking to profit from its 15-year, $375 million deal with the city.

It wants to sell its contract to Houston-based Synagro Technologies, which plans to transform sludge from the Waste Water Treatment Plant downriver into fertilizer pellets for land application. Environmentalists say the process has caused disease and death nationwide.

A city council public hearing on the buy-out is set for Thurs. Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. at the South Rademacher Recreation Center, 6501 S. in Detroit.

“Ever since the EPA banned ocean dumping 10 years ago, a whole industry has grown selling their processes to dispose of [sludge],” said John Riehl, president of Local 207 of the American Federation of State.

“Detroit burns or buries ours. That system has improved. It is certainly better than Synagro’s track record. But if the debate leads council to support pelletizing, remember this, Detroit city workers can do that work also. There is nothing that Synagro could offer that city workers couldn’t do for a lot cheaper with investment in Detroit’s infrastructure.”

Riehl and members of his local, which represents water department workers, fought Minergy’s original plan, saying it would displace nearly 200 city workers.

Water department worker Steven Borella told the council that there is no need for either a private incinerator like that Minergy had planned, or a pelletizing process.

“Our current incinerators have the capacity to handle all the plant’s sludge, 5,266 tons a day,” said Borella.

“The department has invested $300 million in a computer control system to operate the incinerators, and recent improvements can make them virtually emission-free. ”

So what they are doing here, is paying of city officials so they can send even more Michiganders off to the unemployment line, so they can charge the tax payers a huge sum of money to do what our city workers have done for years, but the difference is they can then turn around and sell our own fecal matter to local farmers to fertilize Michigan crops.

I don't know about you, but I'm not really ready to jump on that band wagon...who would?

That's like one step short of, "Solent Green is people."

Well, the good thing is...it's business as usual for the crew down at the Council. 

And why shouldn't it be, it's not their jobs that are being tossed to yet another juggernaut corporation owned by the same group of crooks and thieves that have controlling interest through out the world...meaning that world control is their interests. 

I'm glad Kwame has been ousted, but he isn't even the tip, of the tip of the iceberg that is the corruption in this city,  I will continue to research this matter but, damn I have other things to accomplish then dig through this tangled web of "Sludge".

I don't want this to imply that Cockrel has or had any thing to do with the F.B.I. investigation and I would like to believe he is just naive. 

I just ask...before we all go patting each other on the back, let's not stop asking real questions about the governing body of this, our City.  Whose pocket are they in, and how do their -more often, then not-shady practices effect our economy.