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Posted on 10/06/2002 7:33:13 AM PDT by GailA
$25,000 Australia junket worth it, Rout says
By Bartholomew Sullivan sullivan@gomemphis.com October 6, 2002
Nobody ate the kangaroo fillets.
But if former Shelby County mayor Jim Rout and senior aide Tom Jones were squeamish about munching on marsupials, it appears they weren't afraid to spend more than $25,000 in taxpayers' money last march on a trip to Australia and New Zealand.
Just 135 days before Rout left office, he, Jones and Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau president Kevin Kane - along with their wives - left for the land down under.
The couples dined at a five-star restaurant, visited Olympic sites and rode submersibles over the Great Barrier Reef during what travel documents refer to as an economic development mission to the two countries.
The Routs and the Joneses were gone for 11 days, Kane and his wife for 10.
Shelby County taxpayers picked up the tab for Rout and Jones, which included $18,070.43 in airfare and $7,061.24 for hotel accommodations. Most of their wives' airfare was free through a special promotional arrangement; Jones and Rout said they paid the rest.
Kane's expenses, including $9,093 for his airfare and $2,896.28 for hotel accommodations, were paid by the CVB, which is funded largely through the local hotel-motel tax. Kane said he also paid the part of his wife's airfare not covered by the promotion.
Jones is at the center of an investigation involving his use of county credit cards for personal expenses. An internal audit found Jones made more than $126,000 in personal purchases and still owes the county more than $87,000.
Jones's lawyer disputes the audit's conclusions.
It's not clear whether any expenditures on the Australia trip are among those purchases, but Rout, Jones and Kane said last week that the trip itself had a legitimate public purpose.
Rout and Jones traveled extensively over the years to domestic resorts and overseas destinations at the county's expense, records show. Kane says he travels frequently to promote Memphis but seldom travels on business with his wife. He had traveled only twice before with Rout.
The trip was encouraged by officials with Partners for Livable Communities, a Washington-based urban affairs organization Rout served as board chairman. Partners director Bob McNulty said he urged county officials to establish trade and cultural links with Australia.
"I did advance that an Australia trip might be appropriate for expanding the horizons of the greater Memphis area," he said.
Rout acknowledged last week that it wasn't an official Partners trip, but said he made contact with officials associated with the livable communities movement while overseas. Among the government officials he mentioned was Andrew J. Refshauge, deputy premier and minister for urban affairs and planning for the government of New South Wales, one of Australia's six provinces.
In interviews, Rout and Kane said the trip allowed them to see how Sydney has rehabilitated its downtown and reused its Olympics infrastructure and how Christchurch, New Zealand, makes its streets more pedestrian-friendly. Similar issues face the Memphis area, they said.
Jones, in written responses to the newspaper's questions, said there was a public purpose for the trip and that "information, materials and reports were brought back and shared with local agencies."
Among the information they returned with were observations about the use of shredded paper in the ceiling of an Olympic auditorium to improve acoustics. An itinerary for that visit indicates they were at the Olympic Village site for 2d hours.
They shared their acoustics findings with members of the authority overseeing construction of the new NBA arena, Rout and Kane said.
Asked if the trip was worth the price paid by taxpayers, Rout said yes.
"They got their money's worth," he said.
Michael Pawlukiewicz of the Washington-based Urban Land Institute said such fact-finding tours can be useful, and that Sydney, which he's visited, is a particularly good object lesson.
"I can't fault anyone for going there," he said. "They have been very successful in controlling sprawl."
But Thomas Lyons, a professor of urban and public affairs at the University of Louisville who trained New Zealand development officials in 1999, said such a small group needed to ask the right questions for the public to derive any benefit from the trip.
"I think the only way it can be a fruitful public investment is if there's a transfer of that information to the successors," he said, when told of Rout's brief remaining tenure. "If the public's paying for it, they should get some benefit."
Kane said he did not consider the trip a vacation and that serious work was done.
"I was requested by the mayor of Shelby County to go on this trip, and my executive board and my chairman said 'You should go,'" Kane said.
Kane, who said his job requires that he travel for a living, said it was no pleasure cruise.
"I don't need to go on vacation with Jim Rout," he said. "That's not my idea of a good time."
Kane also suggested the trip is getting heightened attention because the CVB recently hired Jones, who resigned from the new job on Friday as new revelations were made about his personal use of county credit cards.
Kane said planning for the Australia trip began in September 2001, shortly after Rout's July 24 announcement that he would not seek re-election to a third four-year term. It was originally scheduled for January, then pushed back to late March after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.
The couples flew from Memphis to Los Angeles to Sydney. They spent March 24-28 in and around Sydney, sometimes guided by Penelope Coombs, managing director of The People for Places and Spaces, an urban renewal think tank loosely affiliated with Partners for Livable Communities. They also visited the Olympic Park arena and football stadium after a long water taxi ride across Sydney harbor that cost the CVB $168.
In Sydney, they stayed at the Park Hyatt Regency. Rout's four-day bill came to $2,176. Kane's came to $1,645, while Jones's county credit card was billed $1,860.56.
Some or all of the group went to bars and restaurants around Sydney. Jones paid for lunch on the first day in Sydney, a $101 tab at Doyles, a seafood place on the waterfront with a view of the Sydney Opera House. Kane's records for the same day reflect a $70 meal at La Mela Pizzaria at which Jones and Rout were present.
The next day, March 25, it was Sailors Thai Restaurant, where Jones paid $77.30. Kane's records show a $512.96 meal that day at the Bathers Pavillion.
Jones's credit card bills show other meals that week: the Citi Marina Cafe ($51.78), The Garage Restaurant ($448.37). Rout's county-issued card does not show meal charges that are not part of a hotel bill.
By March 28, it was time for the flight to Port Douglas, on the northeast coast of Queensland province, a stone's throw from the Great Barrier Reef. They flew by way of Brisbane, and the group stayed at the Sheraton Mirage, running up two-day bills of $932 (Jones), $941 (Rout) and $983 (Kane). Kane says he met with an economic development official there.
They ate the first night at The Nautilus Restaurant, a five-star outdoor restaurant that specializes in cured kangaroo fillets served with macadamia nuts, according to the restaurant's Web site. No one in the Shelby County party was tempted.
They split that bill, according to Kane's handwritten notation on the back of his receipt. Kane paid $154.40, and Jones paid $143.76. If the Routs were present, there's no separate bill reflecting it.
According to Kane, they spent the following day, Good Friday, on submersible craft over the Great Barrier Reef.
On March 30, they checked out by 7:30 a.m. and spent all day traveling the 2,500 miles across the Tasman Sea to Christchurch, New Zealand, via Auckland. There they stayed at the Parkroyal Hotel.
Kane said he and his wife spent a pleasant Easter Sunday in Christchurch. Paying $267.14, they checked out late the next day for the return home.
The Routs and Joneses, who had a rented car, stayed another day, and met with a Christchurch city council official when plans to meet the mayor of the city of 300,000 fell through. They checked out after paying hotel bills of $493 and $656, respectively.
The expenditures examined by The Commercial Appeal reflect those paid for by the county or the CVB. The group may have incurred expenses they paid themselves that would not be in the records.
County records indicate that Rout wrote three checks totaling more than $2,000, all from his campaign account, to reimburse the county for some expenses related to the Australia trip: $850 for a travel advance, $539 to cover his wife's air fare between Memphis and Los Angeles, and $647.50 for an unspecified expenditure.
County policy requires such accounting to be made within 15 days of the end of a trip. However, Rout's reimbursements were made months after the trip, including one just three days before he left office.
- Bartholomew Sullivan: 529-2317
Ex-aide Jones 'misdirected' $125,000, says county audit Still owes $87,483, quits new visitor bureau post
By Michael Erskine erskine@gomemphis.com October 5, 2002
An internal audit has determined that former Shelby County mayoral aide Tom Jones "misdirected" more than $125,000 in county funds for his personal benefit.
The audit, conducted by county auditor Tommy Cates, determined Jones - former mayor Jim Rout's senior adviser - still owes $87,483.08 for personal items charged to his county-issued credit cards.
The audit, released late Friday, concluded that Jones "committed serious and systemic violations" of the county's credit and procurement card policies.
Earlier Friday, Jones resigned from his new post as a vice president of the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau. He had started the job Tuesday.
The developments came after The Commercial Appeal reported Friday that Jones had become the subject of a criminal investigation by the Shelby County District Attorney General's Office and the FBI.
Jones's attorney, Robert Spence, strongly disputed the audit's findings.
"I'm appalled by its contents. It's difficult for me to characterize this document as an audit. I think a more apt description is a 'hatchet job,' " he said.
Spence said the audit did not truly reflect county policies and procedures and that someone was out to get Jones.
"It appears to me that someone, whomever this person is, created a standard after the fact. Frankly, it appears to continue the systematic character assassination of my client," Spence said.
Rout suspended Jones in the last week of the mayor's term and Mayor A C Wharton, who took office Sept. 1, did not appoint the veteran public official. Jones, 54, had worked in county government more than 20 years and served under all three county mayors prior to Wharton.
Jones and Rout had both been reimbursing the county since April for personal expenses charged to their county-issued cards.
The audit released Friday examined charges by Jones dating back to August 1997 on three county-issued cards: a procurement card and two credit cards.
To date, the audit found Jones had paid back $38,959.14 of personal charges totaling $126,442.22.
Spence maintained Friday that his client had paid back the county a sum of $45,000 and had the canceled checks to prove it. He further said that Jones had paid back all or "almost all" of the personal charges on the cards - and had started to do so on his own long before the audit began.
"There may be a charge he missed, but certainly nothing like this report indicates," Spence said.
Auditors reviewed monthly billing statements and scrutinized each charge that was not reimbursed.
The charges making up the six-figure amount of alleged personal spending were generally for books and CDs, meals and travel expenses.
The auditors determined Jones owed the county for all meals at which the mayor was not present, which made up a significant portion of the charges.
Auditors noted they were not questioning most of Jones's travel-related charges for the moment, though they cited two specific trips that coincided with Bob Dylan concerts in Austin and Atlanta.
"Mr. Jones is known to be a fan of Bob Dylan. The trips . . . were either by coincidence or design taken when a Bob Dylan concert was held in that location or proximity. In any case, we think that Mr. Jones should repay all of the expenses in connection with the trips . . ." the report said.
Wharton said in a prepared statement Friday that he was satisfied the auditors had been thorough, objective and professional.
"I support the report's findings that Mr. Jones routinely violated the county's policies and procedures related to travel and credit card use," the mayor said.
"I shall continue to expeditiously implement much-needed reforms in the county's credit card and travel policies in order to tighten internal controls and prevent future abuses by county employees, officers and officials."
Wharton ordered all county credit cards to be turned in the day he took office and later tightened the county's policies governing their use. He also determined that high-ranking officials would not be issued new cards, cutting in half the number of county cards issued. Only "front-line" employees who need the cards on a daily basis are getting them back.
In a letter Friday to visitors bureau president Kevin Kane, which was copied to board chairman Billy Hicks, Jones informed Kane of his immediate resignation.
"It is out of my love and respect for this organization that I have deep concerns that my presence is a disruption and a distraction to your operations," Jones wrote.
The decision to hire Jones for the bureau post drew heat from some elected officials this week because of Jones's close ties to the organization, which receives a significant amount of tax dollars for its budget. Jones had served on the bureau's board for a number of years as the county's representative.
Kane said Friday that Jones made the decision to leave.
"I think he was thinking more about us than he was about him," Kane said. "We felt Tom would bring a tremendous amount of value to our organization. Obviously we wish him the best and I hope things work out."
- Michael Erskine: 529-5857
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Here's more on this scandal CC Scandal
I know something about the cost of travel to Australia and New Zealand. These sums are lavish.
$18,000 for the combined cost of First Class Roundtrip tickets between Memphis-Los Angeles and Los Angeles-Sydney is not surprising to me.
And $800/night for hotel accomadations is not all that surprising either.
Of course they could have easily travelled for 1/10th of those sums, but they decided to live it up because they ain't paying for it!
Maybe the Shelby County voters wanted the best representatives money could buy......................
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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I can usually get round-trip airfare to New Zealand for around $1000. Call that $1200, depending on the season. Add in Oz, and it might go to $1800.
A nice room at at a decent hotel can be had for $80 a night. $120 will get a very nice room.
These people should all be arrested and thrown in jail. I'm completely serious.
We talk about corporate corruption at outfits like Enron, but it does not get much more flagrant than this.
This is apparently a very big problem with government. Personal expenses charged to government issued credit cards should not be allowed. It appears that Jones had personal charges dating back to August 1997. Also the audit found Jones had paid back $38,959.14 of personal charges totaling $126,442.22.
What can we do with a government which lacks the internal controls to prevent such a large run up in personal charges? It is not realistic for the local government to expect someone in Mr. Jones pay range to pay back over $126,000. Wonder if the IRS will get involved?
Per person, they spent something like $4500 on travel for something I know can be done for less than $2000.
They spent about $350 a night for hotel rooms in countries where you can be quite comfortable at $50 a night.
All at taxpayer expense.
Isn't this nice?
They should be shot.
When I was growing up, back in the 50's and 60's, government employees were generally paid lowly but given good benefits and job security. That was the trade.
I doubt the IRS will ever get involved. This has turned into a form of accepted government employee cheating.
So then his family in fit of pique threw their weight behind the demwit. Over a good conservative new comer..who defeated the annointed GOP canidate in a landslide with anit-tax message.
This corruption will go real deep, the more the Commie Appeal digs into the records of the past 8 years the more of this they will turn up.
Gov't officials have been gouging the taxserfs like this for decades now. I don't expect the President to stay in a reasonable priced hotel. BUT I do expect the mayor or governor of a state to stay at a MIDDLE of the road one.
These guys think they are KINGS and want us to wine and dine and house them as such. It is time, past time to put an end to these unnecessary luxaries at taxserfs expense.
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