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| Shawn Donahue and Shawn Langen |
When Executive Lamont McClure took office and learned what was happening, he immediately put a stop to any payments to Chairman Langen or Solicitor Lushis. He continued to honor the county agreement with Kriger Construction, the company hired to repair or replace these bridges. GPA responded by hiring an outside Philadelphia law firm hand-picked by Solicitor John Lushis. The GPA was told that a lawsuit by the County was imminent, and Conrad O'Brien was paid a $10,000 retainer. The firm just billed an additional $30,000 for 20 days of legal work, though no suit has been filed by the county.
Nevertheless, at the June 5 meeting, and at John Lushis' urging, Conrad O'Brien pressured the GPA to allow that firm to sue the County. The main reason offered was to recover the money ostensibly owed to Lushis and Langen. Fortunately, the Board agreed to wait a bit before going to court.
Basically, the GPA is funding a lawsuit that Langen or Lushis could bring themselves. If they want to sue over money they think they've earned, let them sue and use their own lawyers. I believe it is improper to use public funds to finance litigation by Lushis and Langen against the county.
22 comments:
WTH! Where is county council? How is it they are just letting things go by. Do they have a clue. The head of council should have looked into this deal. So only McClure is concerned.
Keep after these leeches .
2:02. The head of council voted no for the entire P3 project
council is looking into it and most attended the GPA Meeting yesterday, even though they all have jobs
The real problem here is PEG FERRARO who voted to pay the law firm more money to sue herself, then stating she really doesn’t know what is what and is confused.
Time to resign from GPA miss Ferraro
Finance Chair Heckmann was a no-show and Councilwoman/Board Member Ferraro who voted to approve the slimy payments was reported to have sat there like a potted plant. Her behavior has not been in the public interest. Her silence is deafening. I look forward to a lawsuit. It’s time for her to be deposed and the whole stinking mess to be investigated. Taxpayers have been stolen from.
It’s not only for Peg to resign from the GPA it’s about time she resigned from County Council also
"WTH! Where is county council? How is it they are just letting things go by. Do they have a clue. The head of council should have looked into this deal. So only McClure is concerned."
Five members of council sat in the audience at yesterday's meeting. They are letting nothing go by, but the GPA is an independent body. The previous Council let the horse out of the barn when it approved this P3.
The taxpayers will feel the effects of Pocketbook Peg for a generation. We shall rise and bag the spender hag.
"Finance Chair Heckmann was a no-show "
Ron had no obligation to be at that meeting, although I wish he had dropped in yesterday bc then perhaps the GPA would stop taking his name in vain. I was very impressed that four members of Council were there, including Ken Kraft, Lori Vargo Heffner, Bill McGee and Tara Zrinski. It was four, or five, in the audience. The fifth member was Peg.
I agree Peg needs to step down bc she is often absent and has admitted several times that she does not know what she is doing. I think the sole reason she is staying is political. Lamont McClure could appoint himself to that board. Historically, the Exec has sat in that board.
Why hate on county council?
Big problems with performance of Lushis and Langen here. They need to go. But isn't the fact that Kreiger is non-union a significant factor in the Democrats opposition to this project? Especially given how much campaign cash the labor unions put into Norco elections last year?
No because Kriger must use union labor to work on bridges. The only trades people qualified are union members.
Who certifies that trades people are qualified? Are their multiple entities or just the union? I find it difficult to believe that just because you're not in a union, you're therefore not qualified. Union membership is down to around 12% of households. Is the remaining 88% unqualified? Sounds fishy.
I’m no expert but my understanding is that the vast majority of people working this project are union. I agree that there are many qualified non-union workers. But as I understand it, bridgework Is almost always done exclusively by union people. This was a concern I had at the onset. I thought Kraft was opposed bc he was looking out for unions. But Kriger uses union labor.
Also, your point has nothing to do with using public funds to finance a collection matter to benefit two people.
Has a single reporter asked Peg Ferraro to explain her votes to approve the payments, and how she squares a conflict of interest that has blinking lights on it? Has she offewred a single utterance of explanation? This isn't Pawlowski level corruption, but it's rather outrageous. How in good conscience can she serve another day without resigning one of these conflicted jobs? Talk about hubris. Wow.
If McClure is concerned and asking questions, where is the county's council? Who is around from when this was passed and what do they have to say? Why is no one asking Ferraro what has been going on? Are they covering for each other? Will people on county council make inquiries of this authority or are they in over their heads?
7:20 Kraft, Werner, Cusick Dietz & Ferraro were on council Kraft voted no and has always been opposed to the project for various reasons that he shared with the others who all voted for this project anyway. so if you have questions, there are 4 people whom you could ask why, after being told it was a sham by Kraft, did they vote for it anyway.
7:20, County Council is very concerned about what is happening, and various members have attended GPA meetings. The Finance Committee intends to convene a hearing later this month. Depending on what happens, this may go to County Council as a whole, which does have subpoena power.
6:06, In fairness to Peg and other members of Council, they were sold a bill of goods. It's true that the county has struggled fixing bridges, and this was going to solve everything. Brown never bothered to inform council that only 9 of the 33 bridges need any work at all. And now, the county has lost control.
It is said that democrats hate public-private partnerships. Maybe people are just dumping on this because of party politics. John Brown said this was forward thinking and innovative. It may take time. This program is to build more bridges for less money. Can government do better?
Maybe people are being too critical. Maybe this will be hailed as a great achievement.
Democrats don’t hate P3.Wolf is doing them. The problem with this P3 is how it is structured and there was a complete lack of transparency by Brown and Lushis. They viewed it as a cash cow, not something to benefit the county.
@11:05 pm
This P3 allowed Lucius to pocket about $900,000 in two years, and you ask a stupid partisan question?
Bernie, not one member who voted for it has attended a meeting that GPA has had, except Peg and she only voted to pat the atty obscene amounts of money and also voted to sue county council and the county itself, and to pay for another attorney or law firm that billed 30,000 for 20hours of work, and she voted for the P3 project to boot
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