You may have something there (timeline and collusion with other cities).
There was a federal investigation into a number of cities’ corruption. The same high ranked aide to Mayor Lee P. Brown in Houston was tied to at least one or two other cities under investigation (New Orleans and Cleveland among them).
Everywhere it was treated as a local (back page) story but it was a national news item that was suppressed.
Lee Brown took the pension payout to something like 90% (which was soon changed to something lower for new employees).
....
Corruption probe here broadens to 3 states
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
John Caniglia
Oliver Spellman, the Cleveland parks director under former Mayor Michael R. White, was charged Tuesday with accepting bribes from Beachwood consultant Nate Gray in exchange for political favors in Houston, where Spellman was the mayor’s chief of staff.
The charges, along with interviews and court documents, show that a sweeping public corruption investigation focusing on Gray has spread beyond the borders of Cuyahoga County to Texas and Louisiana.
In Houston, Gray paid Spellman $2,000 and gave him a free hotel stay in Las Vegas and other gifts to land a contract for Gray’s business, Etna Parking, to provide shuttle-bus service at Houston Intercontinental Airport, according to records filed by prosecutors.
Etna Parking has a similar contract at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
Spellman also lobbied another unidentified Houston official to help Gray get a contract for Honeywell Inc., authorities said.
The charges do not identify Gray by name but refer to a consultant who met Spellman when the two worked in Cleveland. Prosecutors filed a document Tuesday that says the consultant who bribed Spellman is the consultant who they say bribed former East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor for contracts. Investigators testified in Onunwor’s trial that Gray is the consultant who bribed Onunwor, but Gray has not been charged.
The charges against Spellman, 51, are the prosecutors’ latest blows to Gray, the political consultant and parking magnate who made his name collecting contracts during White’s administration.
In New Orleans, sources say, Gray is under investigation for his ties to Gilbert Jackson, a politically active consultant who was indicted this week on charges of evading taxes on more than $500,000.
In Cleveland, court documents say, Gray and an unidentified consultant bribed Cleveland City Councilman Joseph Jones in exchange for favors at City Hall. Jones was indicted last month.
In the East Cleveland case, Onunwor is to be sentenced next week and could get more than 10 years in prison.
Gray declined to comment Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors said Spellman, of Friendswood, Texas, was the chief of staff to Houston Mayor Lee Brown for 10 months in 2002, enabling him to “exert formal and informal influence over decisions in Houston to award public contracts,” according to the charges. He resigned Oct. 24, 2002, citing personal reasons.
Today, he works as the chief of staff for a Harris County commissioner in Houston. Neither Spellman nor his attorney could be reached for comment. A spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White, who took office in January, declined to comment. Brown, the former mayor, could not be reached.
Spellman was director of parks, recreation and properties in Cleveland in the mid-1990s. He left in 1998 to become parks director in Houston, bumping his pay from $86,755 to $105,000.
Four years later, Houston city records and interviews show, Gray’s Etna Parking won the Houston airport shuttle-bus contract. But Gray lost out on the contract for Honeywell.
“We’re aware of the federal investigation concerning Mr. Gray,” said Mark Hamel, a spokesman for Honeywell. “We consider this a very serious matter, and we’re cooperating fully with the federal prosecutor in Cleveland.”
He said Gray worked as a contract consultant. He stressed that authorities have told the company that it is not a target in the case. Asked if any employees are, Hamel declined to comment.
Authorities are examining Gray’s relationship with Jackson, vice president of Camp, Dresser & McKee, a national engineering firm. Employees in the firm’s New Orleans office, including Jackson, have testified before a federal grand jury. The prosecutor who handled Jackson’s case, Mary Butler of the U.S. Justice Department, is working closely with Cleveland prosecutors in the Gray investigation.
L. Eades Hogue, attorney for Camp, Dresser & McKee, said the business has cooperated with the grand jury and federal prosecutors in Cleveland, but he insisted that it was not a subject or target of the investigation.
It is unclear how Gray, 46, hooked up with Jackson, though they have been described as friends. In August 2003, Gray gave $2,500 to the campaign of Jackson’s then-girlfriend, Lynda Van Davis, who won an Orleans Parish Criminal Court judgeship. The couple have since married.
Cleveland City Councilman Zack Reed also contributed $250 to Van Davis’ campaign. Reed said Jackson, a visitor to Cleveland in the past, asked for the contribution. Reed called Gray and Jackson his friends.
News researchers Cheryl Diamond and Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this story.
I know for a fact that unions conspired with reps in different cities to increase pensions. But don't know about collusion of city officials in different cities conspiring with each other to increase pensions; it probably does happen. If so, they need to be investigated and charged, because schemes such as these illegally enrich said officials to the detriment of tax-payers.