From the same site: Problems in Durham.
10.29.02 - You know, Durham officials don't even seem to care about the appearance of corruption anymore Yet another Herald-Sun front-page scandal, this one involving Marcia Conner, the city manager hired away from Austin to clean up just this sort of thing (register at the H-S already, it's free).
A company run by a former colleague of City Manager Marcia Conner informally has been given a city consulting job worth up to $30,000 for work the city never advertised or put out to bid...City policy requires a competitive bidding process, including advertising a "request for proposals," for city work valued at $10,000 or more...[I]t’s not the first time that Conner, who can approve contracts up to $30,000 without City Council approval, has been accused of steering work to people she has known or worked with in the past. Many are from Austin, where Conner was an assistant city manager for seven years before coming to Durham in June 2001.
Conner, whose personality and work style are analyzed at length half-way through this Austin Chronicle piece, denies ever seeing the contract. Durham's Housing Director refused to answer questions about who suggested the company. Instead, we're told the contract "slipped through the cracks" and "The process...should have been better."
That sure must be one seriously screwed-up "process" over there in Durham. Remember it was July 2001 when we learned of a massive scandal involving federal Housing and Urban Development funds being disbursed to non-existent businesses from within the city's economic development department. For background, check the 3rd story in this newsletter from Durham's Center for Economic and Environmental Justice (prettier pdf here). That scandal erupted a year after HUD attacked the city's inadequate record-keeping for "serious discrepancies." And now, more than two years after that warning, we still have the head of housing in Durham admitting "The process could have been better, should have been better"?
http://www.monkeytime.org/October2002.html
"Hardin finds himself on the bench several years later."
Remember the Hudson-Hardin-F. Black courthouse faction?
"We must not allow the criminals to rule Durham" was a
Freda campaign statement. Local observers suggest the
Committee prefers to own criminal friendly DA's. They also
diagnose the credibility problems as from being surrounded
by liars, thieves, cheats and murderers all day, everyday.
Maybe there is an osmotic transfer going on.
How about simply lawyer paycheck friendly DA's... We've seen 4 or 5, maybe more "proceedings" in this case so far, from the Duke 3, Kim, Mostafa, Matt, etc. and we've yet to see anything except postponements and legal delays...
I haven't been involved previously with a lawyer and a trial, but I can imagine the additional fees charged each time the trial is postponed.
It appears the whole system (1st, 2nd, 3rd settings) is basically a money machine for the lawyers... The first two hearings we've seen inside the court room accomplished absolutely nothing in my opinion except to generate legal representation revenue....
How did Nifong fit in there?"
Part of the "group"
Always on the outside
Part of another, antagonistic group
I was trying to get a read on the Hardin - Nifong relationship and forgot what I learned (if anything).