Posted on 03/30/2006 8:35:16 AM PST by BBell
Senator puzzled by state deal to tow cars Firm's office flooded, vacant, phone off Thursday, March 30, 2006 By James Varney Staff writer The featured local company in a proposed $62 million state contract to remove abandoned cars from southern Louisiana lists a flood-ruined 9th Ward address as its headquarters and has a disconnected phone, according to public documents and a cursory investigation by a state senator. The Department of Environmental Quality contract remains unsigned, although the negotiations have apparently been completed between the state and TruSource Facility Services of Georgia and L&L Steel Builders Inc. of 1939 Desire St. in New Orleans, state officials said. It is this contract that the city of New Orleans requested to join this week, following days of questions about its decision not to sell tens of thousands of hurricane-wrecked vehicles to crushers but instead to pay a company $23 million to clear the cityscape of the blight. State Sen. Ken Hollis, R-Metairie, said both tortured deals and the recent developments strain credulity that they are on the up and up. Consequently, he is asking people at all stages of the negotiations to appear before a joint committee meeting next week to explain the situation. "This whole thing is just a maze," Hollis said. "I've spent a lot of time trying to get to the bottom of this, and it keeps changing by the hour. I'm inviting all the players next Wednesday so we can sift out what is going on."
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
The answer is simple. It's easier to syphon off money as kickbacks from outgoing contracts to friends, than to steal incoming money, paid by an honest vendor.
Is there no end to the corruption ?
It is my understanding that the city would profit from the scrap deal.
Kickbacks and friends.
Friends subcontract to companies that really CAN do the work.
Friends get a lush vig, and kickbacks to the crackhead make him happy.
You have to wonder, where's the FBI?
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