City bus manager's statement surprising
BY RAY GRONBERG : The Herald-Sun, Oct 24, 2006 : 10:53 pm ET [excerpt]
-- Hartley's suit contends that MV Transportation fired him to appease City Council members who wanted a black in the general manager's post, and to head off an investigation of the firm's management practices officials threatened to undertake in response to complaints from a member of DATA's Board of Trustees.
Hartley alleges that the MV Transportation and company Vice President of Operations Russell Tieskoetter cut corners by skimping on pollution-control efforts at DATA's maintenance garage, by refusing to hire as many mechanics as the city contract specified and by delaying the replacement of worn-out bus tires.--
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-781620.html
* Another Durham scandal in the making, under the Baker and Bell watch.
Audit attacks Housing Authority's business practices
BY RAY GRONBERG : The Herald-Sun, Oct 23, 2006 : 10:25 pm ET
DURHAM -- An annual financial audit commissioned by the Durham Housing Authority has savaged the agency's business practices, identifying 14 specific problems that included failures to keep proper inventories and verify the eligibility of rental-subsidy recipients.
The problems are significant enough that the auditing company hired to check the authority's 2005 books wouldn't stand behind them, saying that because officials had failed to document a couple of key assets, it couldn't determine whether the authority's "upper-level financial statements [were] fairly presented." -cut-
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-781277.html
* The folks running Durham can't seem to get anything right.