Friday, September 08, 2017

KZRG probe: City of Joplin, Hope Valley CID took full week to stop checks to arrested consultant

KZRG has hit with another installment of its investigation into the questionable doings surrounding the Hope Valley CID project.

The radio station revealed today that neither the City of Joplin nor the Hope Valley CID Board took any steps to stop the payment of paper checks to consultant Darrell Gross, who is charged with three felony counts of receiving stolen property in Newton County for allegedly having money that was supposed to be going into the Big Spring Plaza CID placed in his personal account.

While Joplin officials claimed there were no problems with the Hope Valley CID, Gross apparently was also having the state send paper checks, something that was not stopped until six days after KZRG first broke the story.

Joplin officials, of course, have told KZRG there are no problems with the Hope Valley project.

Gross' arraignment is scheduled 9 a.m. Monday in Newton County Circuit Court.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The real estate agent/developer is usually reported as Kevin Steele, but these reports usually don't mention the role played by Mike Woolston as Steele's partner (broker) and as the Mayor when the CID was approved by City Council, which goes along with the stuff that the Missouri Auditor reported two years ago regarding other development efforts after the tornado