In the accompanying report by KOAM's Lisa Olliges, Huff talks about the possibility of a lawsuit, though in last night's meeting, it sounded as if the school district and the city will work together on whatever action is taken.
KOAM TV 7
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
C. J. Huff: Wallace-Bajjali left school district in bad shape
In the accompanying report by KOAM's Lisa Olliges, Huff talks about the possibility of a lawsuit, though in last night's meeting, it sounded as if the school district and the city will work together on whatever action is taken.
KOAM TV 7
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Mark Rohr: Wallace-Bajjali failed because council was out to get them
Rohr has not mellowed any since taking the city manager position in League City, Texas.
From the KODE report:
If my memory serves me correctly, former council member Raney, Jane Cage, I think Mr. Anderson, maybe Mr. O'Brien and some others actually took a field trip to Texas to see in person some of those projects," said Mark Rohr, Former Joplin City Manager.
Rohr adds once all contracts were signed, things didn't go so smoothly.
"I've told others this and stand behind it 110%, there were city officials while I was there that were actively working against the projects proceeding. Once again, there were city officials that represented that city that were working behind the scenes to prevent the projects from proceeding," said Rohr.
City of Amarillo severs ties with Wallace-Bajjali
From the report of News Channel 10 in Amarillo:
The LGC (Local Government Corporation) board voted unanimously Tuesday to terminate all existing contracts with the company. "We will send a written notice of default, and we will treat the contracts as no longer binding on the Local Government Corporation, and we will proceed with the projects as if they do not exist," explained Brown.
Brown said the LGC was no stranger to the company's struggles. "I think everyone has been aware that things have been rocky with Wallace Bajjali for the last several years. Just like we have friends who's marriages are sometimes rocky, we knew they had issues amongst themselves, but our projects were going forward and the team of professionals that were going to work on those, we were confident they could get the job done."
According to Brown, the job will still get done. City staff will take over the duties of Wallace Bajjali as construction manager so they can start building the parking garage as soon as possible. If all goes as planned, construction will start this July.
Hartzler votes to combat human trafficking
Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler (MO-4) and the U.S. House have passed a package of bills aimed at preventing, increasing awareness of, and protecting victims of the crime of human trafficking.
“Human trafficking is nothing more than modern-day slavery,” Hartzler said. “It is a heinous crime and more needs to be done to stop it worldwide and here in the United States. Many overlook the fact that this crime is not confined to foreign countries and that many cases are right here in our own backyards. In fact, it is estimated that child sex trafficking is a $32 billion dollar industry worldwide and a $9.8 billion industry here in the U.S. It is the fastest-growing business of organized crime and the third-largest criminal enterprise in the world, putting over 293,000 young Americans at risk of becoming trafficking victims each year.”
“I am proud to have co-sponsored a number of the measures in this package,” Hartzler added. “These bills, along with the others, will help to bring this terrible crime to light, uproot traffickers, and ensure that trafficking victims are treated as victims, not like criminals. This is a good step towards eliminating trafficking, but much more needs to be done."
At last minute, Mike Loyd rejects Joplin High School coaching offer
R-8 Administration had anticipated naming Loyd, who reportedly was torn between returning to his home town and staying at Grove where he became coach in the fall of 2014, but Loyd turned down the offer only a few minutes before the Joplin R-8 Board of Education began its closed session meeting with auditors.
Loyd's hiring was supposed to take place during the closed session with an announcement being made in the open session under an item listed as "employment."
Carol Stark's list of things the Joplin Globe thinks are important
I recently came across a top secret Joplin Globe memo which listed things that Editor Carol Stark thinks are important and should receive major coverage and things that are not important and do not need to be covered:THINGS THAT SHOULD BE COVERED
Joplin City Councilman Ben Rosenberg's dog
Criminals who had Joplin City Councilman Bill Scearce as a landlord 20 years ago
Six-and-a-half-mile ribbons
Anything involving columnist Mike Pound's family
Sticky notes
Six-month-old minor traffic citations
$40,000 extra for investigator Tom Loraine's report
Joplin Progress Committee formed to do great things for Joplin
C. J. Huff brings Bright Futures to the world.
Keeping anything secret from the Joplin Globe
THINGS THAT SHOULD NOT BE COVERED
Wallace-Bajjali involved in at least seven bankruptcies, multiple lawsuits, and has no completed projects to its credit
Joplin R-8 Board of Education approves $8 million in "might-as-well' spending
The $1.7 million that investigator Tom Loraine's $40,000 extra should have saved the city.
Joplin Progress Committee attempting to buy local elections and push costly programs that benefit a few
Joplin R-8 Board approves $5 to $12 million in projects to be covered by FEMA money, but not yet approved by FEMA
C. J. Huff tells world how he singlehandedly saved Joplin from the tornado, poverty, and parents who did not care whether their children graduated.
Anything negative about Mark Rohr or C. J. Huff.
Mike Loyd expected to be named Joplin High School football coach tonight
Grove High School Football Coach Mike Loyd is expected to leave after one year at that position to take the head coaching job at Joplin High School.
The official hiring is scheduled to be announced tonight at the Joplin R-8 Board of Education meeting.
If the announcement goes as scheduled, this won't be the first go-round as JHS Coach for Loyd, a 1974 graduate of Memorial High School, who played quarterback in the NFL for six years, including a stint with the old St. Louis Cardinals.
Loyd coached at Joplin High School in the 1990s, then went on to a five-year run at Northeastern Oklahoma (NEO) where he compiled a 44-7 record, including a national championship in 1991.
Mike Woolston and the Wallace-Bajjali land grab scheme
The mayor asked then City Attorney Brian Head to check into Woolston's dealings with real estate sales in the 20th and Connecticut area. She had reason to worry. Her fellow council member Ben Rosenberg had attended a meeting of the Parr Hill neighborhood group where Woolston was accused of everything from using his influence to force property sales to cashing in on insider information.
At that point, Head, while concerned, did not see anything that Woolston was doing that was illegal. The councilman insisted, and no record has ever been shown otherwise, that he received only one commission from the sale of real estate and during council meetings he was abstaining from all votes having to do with that area.
Brian Head later told investigator Tom Loraine that he might not have given Woolston a pass had he been privy to information he later came across. "At the time this (his opinion) was written," Head said, "I did not know there was any conflict."
To put it simply, Wallace-Bajjali was working with Joplin developer Charlie Kuehn to buy land in that area. Woolston was helping Kuehn buy the property, but he was not working directly with Wallace-Bajjali. Woolston was not taking commission for any of the property and not voting on anything concerning it, but all indications from Woolston's own testimony in the Loraine Report is that Kuehn wanted to make sure Woolston was making money, so he increased his involvement in Kuehn's other local projects.
Loraine suspected, and it appears state auditors are checking to see if it is true, that Kuehn bought the property for Wallace-Bajjali, which then sold it at a marked-up rate to the Joplin Redevelopment Corporation. The increased amount also increased Wallace-Bajjali's finder's fee even though essentially the company had done nothing and turned out be nothing but profit for Wallace-Bajjali since the company abandoned Joplin having only paid for one piece of property, the Coca-Cola Building.
With a deadline looming, Loraine wanted to know who was making a profit and how much. Kuehn might know, but he cut his interview with Loraine short, refusing to answer questions. David Wallace refused to meet with Loraine, though he says he just couldn't make it on any days that Loraine had available. City Manager Mark Rohr would not provide Loraine with what he needed. Brian Head had never been involved in much of the city's dealings with Wallace-Bajjali.
That left Mike Woolston.
"I don't think I'm going to be very helpful because I wouldn't be privy to any of the Wallace-Bajjali workings, because I wasn't involved in any of that," Woolston told Tom Loraine. The fees from the property sales for Wallace-Bajjali at that point amounted to $417,900.
Woolston says he and Kuehn talked with Brian Head, though Woolston is never specific about what exactly he asked the city attorney. "Essentially, we just talked about what we were going to be doing and I just wanted to protect myself in terms of the conflict of interest. I got his input, his perspective on it, and I don't remember his exact words, but something to the effect that we would just have to be careful in how we went forward to make sure that I didn't do something to cross the line ethically.
"I attempted to keep myself out of hot water. I don't think that anyone who does their homework can think there's an appearance of impropriety."
Woolston says his business arrangement with Kuehn began a couple of months after the tornado when he was still serving as mayor. The only piece of property on which he made a commission did not involve a conflict of interest because it happened before there was talk of the library-theater complex, he said.
Other property sales did not involve conflicts of interest, he said, because the plan on what to do with the property "hadn't been formalized in writing."
At one point, Woolston said, he was working for Kuehn to buy property to be used for a loft-over-retail project. He knew that "there was the possibility it may be in partnership with the Wallace-Bajjali folks, but again I didn't know of any formalized written agreement."
His only motive in not accepting commissions and doing his work for no money, Woolston said, was that he wanted to help rebuild the city. "We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to shape to a large degree what a community looks like 10 or 15 ot 50 years and I wanted to have a part in that."
Anyone who would see anything unethical in that is just ignorant, Woolston indicated. "An uninformed person who didn't pay a great deal of attention to details might think there was something underhanded going on.
"I have taken very careful steps to ensure that I don't cross the line ethically."
Loraine challenged Woolston about the "appearance of impropriety," including the idea that a city councilman and former mayor was working to make property deals in the area of town that had been hit by the tornado or by Woolston checking with the Zoning Board about matters of interest to Kuehn.
While Woolston acknowledged that someone might think something was wrong, he indicated that in his dealings with the Zoning Board he always let them know he was talking to them as "a private citizen" and not as a member of the Joplin City Council.
"I'm sure that we as council members get treated a little differently than any other private citizen who would go in and make essentially the same request." he acknowledged when pressed by Loraine.
Woolston also talked about the importance of ethical behavior.
"The public needs to have confidence that there's nothing underhanded going on at the Council level."
Scearce on KZRG: Wallace, Mark Rohr responsible for Wallace-Bajjali contract
During an interview moments ago on KZRG, City Councilman Bill Scearce said the city's contract with Wallace-Bajjali was created by David Wallace and former City Manager Mark Rohr and was entirely written by Wallace's attorney.
"It was brought to us as a take it or leave it contract."
At the time, Scearce noted, much pressure was being put on the council by the Citizens Advisory Recovery Team, a group of business people put together primarily by Rohr and Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce President Rob O'Brian.
Scearce, who expressed reservations about the contract, said he had been hopeful everything would work out, "We wanted this to be successful. It they had been, this city would be better," but he added, "I've been critical of David Wallace and his non-performance for quite a while."
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