FOX 2 NEWS COLLUDES WITH JUDGE COX IN WATER TAKEOVER

The big crooks who belong in the toilet: (l to r) beginning with the two Bushes, Carlyle Group co-founders Frank Carluccia and David Rubinstein, Synagro exec James Rosendall, former Kilpatrick aide Michael Tardif, investigated but not charged in Synagro and Systematic Recycling Council votes, Synagro legal counsel Alvin Thomas II, current Synagro CEO and "Underdover Boss" Dave Massa, and Synagro operative Pamela Racey, still employed despite numerous allegations that she originated bribery deals.

Fox 2 report attacks small Black water contractor Bankston in favor of wealthy white Homrich

September 30, 2011

By Diane Bukowski

U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox, appointed by Carlyle member former Pres. George W. Bush, used Carlyle/Synagro scandal as excuse for DWSD takeover

DETROIT — One week before U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox issued his Sept. 9 order taking over the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), Detroit’s Fox 2 News featured an attack on a small Black-owned water department contractor and virtually every Black official connected with the Water Department contracting process.

It was clearly no accident. One of the problems Cox cited in court filings on the 32-year-old DWSD federal lawsuit was that the city has contracting procedures benefiting resident-owned businesses.

In the piece, aired Sept. 1, Fox 2 reporter Charlie LeDuff interviewed wealthy white suburban contractor Roger I. Homrich, who is contesting the city’s grant of a two-year sludge hauling contract to Bankston Construction, a Black-owned, Detroit-based business. According to AFSCME Local 207 President John Riehl, Bankston has had DWSD ash-hauling contracts for many years.

Roger I. Homrich, suburban CEO of numerous Homrich companies; Fox 2 shows him here in front of Homrich trucks demolishing the historice Cass Technical High School building.

“Remember Synagro, the company that greased more fingers in Detroit than a short order cook?” Fox 2 asked. “It’s the scandal that rocked Detroit city hall, sent Monica Conyers to federal prison and threatens to send disgraced former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his daddy Bernard to lengthy prison stays themselves.”

The comparison of Bankston Construction to Synagro is a giant stretch. According to the business search site Manta, Bankston’s annual revenues run $1 to $2.5 million.

Synagro is a national white-owned technologies corporation owned by the Carlyle Group, an international cartel run by, among other former world leaders, George Bush and son George W. Bush. Carlyle, the world’s largest private equity firm, has $88 billion under management, and another $59.6 billion in equity investments, in 72 countries, according to Dan Briody, author of “The Iron Triangle.”

Fox 2 News reporter Charlie LeDuff

The Fox 2 report (below) featured photos of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father Bernard Kilpatrick, former City Council President Monica Conyers, consultant Sam Riddle, and others being flushed down a toilet. All but one of the officials in the toilet were Black. The sole white was James Rosendall, the Synagro executive who entrapped Black city officials and residents in a bribery scheme to obtain a $1.2 billion incinerator contract for his bosses.

Fox 2 made no allegations that Bankston similarly bribed city officials to get his contract.

The photo at the top of this story shows who really belongs in the toilet, among numerous others.

They are: George Bush and George W. Bush, Carlyle co-founders Frank Carlucci (U.S. Defense Secretary under Ronald Reagan) and David Rubinstein, Rosendall, Michael Tardif, a former Kilpatrick aide who was investigated by the federal government with respect to the Synagro and Systematic Recycling contracts, current Synagro CEO Bill Massa (for lack of available photos of former CEO Robert Boucher, Jr.), Synagro General Counsel Alvin Thomas II, and Synagro Vice-President of Business Development Pamela Racey (back to camera, hand in front of face).

Both this reporter and later, Jennifer Dixon of the Detroit Free Press, did articles exposing the fact that these Synagro top executives, as well as J. Paul Withrow, whose photograph was not found, KNEW of the bribery scheme. Articles by this reporter in The Michigan Citizen said Synagro had similarly entrapped Black officials in Philadelphia and elsewhere. 

(Click on EVIDENCE Synagro payoff MC DB and Carlyle and Synagro escape charges DB MC to read two of dozens of stories by this reporter on the Synagro deal.)

Former Kilpatrick aide Michael Tardif, married Michigan Citizen publisher Catherine Kelly in Aug. 2010; they are shown here at a benefit for the privatized Detroit Insititute of Arts

But only Rosendall went to prison, for 11 months. Meanwhile Rayford Jackson, a Black Detroit entrepreneur Rosendall used, got five years because he would not cooperate with the FBI in naming others. Meanwhile the federal government is busy taking down other Black officials involved, including former Kilpatrick aide Derrick Miller and Emma Bell.

Mysteriously, former Kilpatrick aide Michael Tardif, who is white and was  alleged by Detroit Free Press writer David Ashenfelter among others to have been investigated for his connections to Rosendall and Synagro, dropped from sight until he quietly married the publisher of The Michigan Citizen, Catherine Kelly, in August, 2010. There is still no mention of his being charged in current articles naming Miller and Bell.

(Click on: Eight named in FBI Kilpatrick probe including Michael Tardif forAshenfelter article, also http://voiceofdetroit.net/2010/12/08/southwest-detroit-wins-court-victories-against-polluter/ for articles related to Tardif connections.)

Synagro CEO Bill Massa (appropriate name) in series "Undercover Boss"

Neither Synagro nor Carlyle as corporate entities were ever charged in the deal THEY set up.

In fact, Massa was recently featured on the reality show “Undercover Boss,” indicating his company’s continued acceptance in the world of corporate finance and big media.

In the center of the toilet photo above is Homrich, president of numerous companies bearing the Homrich name. After Synagro canceled its $1.2 billion contract to build a new private incinerator amid the scandal, the city kept using DWSD incinerators. Mayor Ken Cockrel, Jr. let a contract to haul the sludge to Homrich and Waste Management, Inc. The second company is well-known for federal investigations of its ties to organized crime.

Ken Cockrel Jr. and Dep. Mayor Saul Green at press conference announcing giveaway of Cobo Hall

WMI was a significant contributor to Cockrel’s campaign for Mayor. (Click on KEN CASH CONTRACTS DB MC to read this author’s story on THAT questionable Sludgegate deal, which none of the daily media in Detroit raised a stink about.)

But LeDuff reported Sept. 1, “Both the mayor’s office and the city council – bent over backwards to give Bankston Construction the $47 million contract – despite state law, city law and custom. Despite tax liens, law suits, lack of insurance and bonds and a credit score of 2 out of 100, Bankston got the deal.”

LeDuff proceeded to attack Vincent Bankston personally, claiming he had several drunk driving arrests. (So has Oakland County Chief Executive L. Brooks Patterson, one of the moving forces in the DWSD takeover.)

Patterson stopped for DUI, let off by Oakland County cop; cartoon from Metro Times

According to records obtained from the City Council Research and Analysis Division (click on Bankston contract for full account of contract from RAD), the figure of $47 million was deliberately inflated. The contract is for $23.5 million over two years, with a possible additional two years that Council has not yet voted on. Bankston was the low bidder. Homrich bid $29 million. The city’s Purchasing Division said the contract would save the city over $4 million.

This is not the first time Bankston has experienced problems in the generally mob-dominated sludge-hauling business. Bankston filed suit in 2000 against the city, a suit which was dismissed at all levels. (Click on Bankston lawsuit v Detroit to read Court of Appeals ruling.) However, the language in the COA opinion is illuminating:

Anthony Soave (with guests) sold City Management to Waste Management, Inc.

“Specifically, plaintiff asserted that its offer to haul solidified stabilized sludge was implicitly accepted by the defendant after it submitted the low bid in July 1997, (VOD ed: it is common practice for city departments to have contractors begin work before City Council approval.) and that because the offer was accepted it was entitled to begin hauling solidified stabilized sludge immediately thereafter. Plaintiff contends that it had an output contract with defendant that entitled it to haul a specific amount of sludge, and that defendant’s award of emergency contracts to City Management in 1997 and 1999 to haul raw sludge breached its contract with defendant by reducing the sludge available for plaintiff to haul to an amount less than that established by the contract, causing damages to it by diminishing the revenues that plaintiff was able and entitled to earn under the terms of the contract.”

Wonder why Bankston workers might have sued the company for non-payment, as alleged by Fox 2?

City Management’s owner Anthony Soave (rumored to be part of the mob underground), also a contributor to Ken Cockrel and numerous other city officials’ campaign finances,  later sold the company to Waste Management, Inc. Click on http://www.forensic-intelligence.org/waste/cttrash.htm to read “The Offensive, Odorous Underbelly of Trash,” published in the Cheboygan Daily Tribune.

Bankston is certified by the City of Detroit’s Human Rights Department as a Detroit-headquartered business, a small business, and a minority-owned business, while Homrich is certified as a Detroit-based business. Bankston, Homrich, and the Humand Rights Department director did not return calls for comment on this article. 

Oasis Trucking Center at 4195 Central

According to state records, Homrich’s only “Detroit base” appears to be Suite H at 4195 Central Street, the address used for the company’s certification. But no Homrich signs or equipment are visible there. This reporter was not able to obtain entry to Suite H on Sept. 28 because no one was in the office that day.

Manta says Homrich employs two people there, and has $98.000 in revenues annually.

But according to State of Michigan records, Roger I. Homrich owns numerous companies using the Homrich name, based mainly in Carleton and LaSalle Michigan.

Located at 12856 Allenhurst Rd. in LaSalle, Michigan, are Homrich Contracting, Homrich Environmental Remediation Services. LLC, andHomrich Industrial Services, LLC. 

Aerial view Homrich LaSalle address on Allenhurst, appears to be lakefront property

Located at 200 Matlin Rd, Carleton, Michigan, are Homrich Management Corporation and Homrich Enterprises, as well as Regulated Resource Recovery, another company owned by Roger I. Homrich.

According to Manta, Homrich Wrecking has $7.1 million in revenues, with a staff of 60. It identifies Homrich Inc. at the Detroit address, but also says Homrich Inc. in Carleton rakes in $20-$50 million annually and has a staff of 100 to 249. Resource Recovery, which operates the land-fill on Matlin, has annual revenues of $5 to $10 million and employs 50 workers according to Manta.

Homrich was contractor on Hudson demolition

Homrich already has a huge share of both the City of Detroit and Detroit Public Schools contract pies, among them the notorious demolition of the J.L. Hudson Building, which caused a huge cloud of pollution to blanket downtown Detroit, the implosion of the Jeffries Projects to replace them with “market-rate” housing, only 20 percent for low-income individuals, and the current demolition of the historic Cass Technical High School building.

Of course, Fox 2’s fly-by-night attack on Bankston and Detroit is not surprising, given that Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, known for his obscene wealth, anti-unionism, and corruption.

Four towers of the Jeffries Projects demolished by Homrich on April 29, 2011

According to Wikipedia, “Murdoch has been listed three times in the Time 100 as among the most influential people in the world. He is ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes’ The World’s Most Powerful People list. With a personal net worth of US$7.6 billion, he was ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world in March 2011.

“In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his companies including the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of private citizens. He also faces police and government investigations into bribery and corruption in the UK and FBI investigations in the US.”

Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News and world's second largest media conglomerate

So, Charlie LeDuff and Fox 2 News Detroit, when are you going to flush Rupert Murdoch’s photo down the toilet? Or are you afraid of being fired like other Fox outlet officials who reported on the Murdoch phone hacking scandal? 

Murdoch of Fox News Admits Manipulating the News

Rupert Murdoch of News Corp / Fox News Admits Manipulating the News for Agenda – Admits he supported the Bush Agenda in Iraq – He is part of the Bilderburg group

 Also click on http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bin%20talal to for account of the Carlyle Group’s connection to Rupert Murdoch’s news empire. Turns out a major partner in the Carlyle Group owns the remaining stock in Murdoch’s News Group, parent company of Fox News.