PureBunkum

It's not his Money!!!

By Betty Roccograndi

Feb. 18 , 2010

“We didn’t feel there was any need to look at other possible developers.”

So on that note, Wilkes-Barre City Mayor Tom Leighton, acting as though he owns the place, simply hand-picked two non-profit organizations for a $2.4-million city development project.

Let’s hope the feds will keep close tabs on this no-bid deal that, according to Leighton, apparently only the Housing Development Corp. of NEPA and GRIT, Inc. possessed the expertise necessary to develop the dilapidated former Murray building off Courtright Street.

We’ll just have to take the mayor’s word for it that there were no other companies out there with even more expertise, who may have done the job at a lesser cost.  But without bids, we’ll never know.  And, besides, it’s only public money that’s being spent.  If it were Leighton’s, he’d probably want to shop around for the best deal.

Gotta get it done, Leighton told The Times Leader in an eye-opening front-page story on Feb.7

The mayor is running for state senator.

The two non-profits, praised by Leighton, are anything but to the man who runs them, Eugene Brady, who takes home a handsome package of pay and benefits.  In addition to the two  non-profits which landed – were handed – the city contract, Brady also manages two other related public entities.  My, where does he find the time?

Well, he only works six hours a week at one of them, Northeastern Resources Development Corp., where he receives a salary of $40,994 and a benefits package worth $22,896, the TL reported.  Nice work if you can get it.

For his 15-hour work week at the Housing Development Corporation of NEPA, Brady receives $68,516 in pay and $48,200 in benefits.  Then there’s his long work week job, 40 hours, at the Commission on Economic Opportunity, where he is paid $58,331 and $44,421 in benefits.

There is surely no shortage of economic opportunities for Mr. Brady at these non-profits.

The fourth one is GRIT, Inc., the uniquely qualified firm which landed part of the $2.4-million city project.

Brady said he draws no salary from GRIT.  The Times Leader learned, though, that an IRS filing indicated that a $131,372 payment was made to Brady and the Commission on Economic Opportunity for managment services, but Brady  said he received none of it.  Hmmmm.  That begs the question: Where, then, and to whom did that tidy sum go?

The $2.4-million Murray project, by the way, is located in a KOZ zone.  So no taxes will be levied for about a decade.

Are you getting mad yet that your Luzerne County taxes just increased by 15-percent?

Calling the state Attorney General’s Office:  Add this contract and these non-profit agencies to your list of investigations.  There are a lot of questions which need to be asked.

Here’s one:  Were there any finder’s fees or commissions paid to anyone?  After all, mega-developer Robert Mericle allegedly paid millions of dollars in “finder’s fees” to disgraced former judges Mark Ciavarella and Mike Conahan for their help in his getting contracts to build two juvenile detention centers.

And  unlike the  judges, Wilkes-Barre’s mayor owns a real estate business.   And speaking of real estate transactions, a client of Mayor Leighton’s  recently snapped up the site of the Old River Road Bakery for $38,000.

The property was not only assessed at $478,300, but also $42,344 in back taxes were forgiven because the county commissioners understood that townhouses would be built on the site.

Maybe, the commissioners  should have gotten that in writing because the city of Wilkes-Barre pulled a real fast one.

Feb. 16, 2010

We have reached a verdict, your honor.  The state Judicial Conduct Board is guilty – of ineptitude, inaction and, possibly, a cover-up.

Furthermore, some penetrating questons need to be asked of Patrick Judge, the politically-connected lay person on the Conduct Board and a business partner of former Luzerne County Judge Mike Conahan, alleged racketeer and money launderer.

Judge was a member of the Conduct Board around the same time a complaint against Conahan was lodged and subsequently tabled.

The Conduct Board says it shelved the complaint because a criminal investigation of Conahan was underway.  More reason to consider getting him off the bench, wouldn’t you say?

This “review” board sat on the complaint for years while Conahan and former judge, Mark Ciavarella, were taking millions of dollars in kickbacks in what is now known nation-wide as the kids-for-cash scandal.  It wasted no time; however, bringing down former county Judge Ann Lokuta  And it is now fighting the state Interbranch Commission’ s request for a copy of the Conahan complaint, arguing it must protect the confidentiality of complainants.  One has to wonder, though, whether it was the judge the board was protecting.

The Commission is investigating how two judges were able to close down a county detention center and send juveniles not represented by attorneys to private centers, whose owner and builder were paying them off.

Coincidentally – or not – Conahan, Ciavarella and others closely associated with them testified against Lokuta, whom the Conduct Board charged with being a judicial bully in her courtroom and making her staff perform personal chores for her.  The judicial bully lost her job and her pension while the purported racketeers roam free pending what is likely to be a long and drawn-out trial.

Conduct Board Chairman John Cellucci testified at the commission’s Feb. 2 hearing that the complaint lodged against Conahan, who, with Ciavarella, faces 48 counts of corruption-related charges, was written by a court system insider.

Now, one would think that such a complaint would be taken even more seriously.  Except one would be wrong.

Conduct Board Deputy Chief Counsel Francis Puskas, who went after Lokuta with the aggression of a pit bull, confirmed that a member of Lokuta’s staff filed a complaint against Conahan.

So what did the Conduct Board do?  Instead of investigating the complaint, it went after the messenger.

Although the complaint was filed in 2006, Cellucci admitted that he only saw it a few weeks ago.  He only saw a summary of it before voting to table it in June 2007, he said.  Incredibly, he settled for a summary.  One judge’s complaint against another didn’t even pique his interest to read the entire complaint.  Actually, the Interbranch Commisson needs to read this summary as well.  Maybe it was watered down as to not appear alarming.

Pittsburgh attorney and commission member Kenneth Horoho seemed incredulous when he asked Cellucci, “You do a lot of investigating.  This one you shut down, you shut it down.”

Yeah, why is that Mr. Cellucci?  We’d all like an answer to that rhetorical question.

So let’s connect some of the dots here.  A complaint arrives at the Judicial Conduct Board.  It’s against powerful Luzerne County Judge Mike Conahan.  Mike Conahan is a business associate of Pat Judge, who, lucky for Conahan, is also a member of the Conduct Board.  The complaint is reduced to a summary and gets shelved.  Said Conduct Board now refuses to hand over relevant documents to an investigative body.

Is the Judical Conduct Board hiding something?  It sure looks that way.