• About MT
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • STORE
  • RSS Feeds

Get our issue, highlights, free stuff and more!

  • Blogs
  • News
  • Arts+Culture
  • Music
  • Screens
  • Food
  • Calendar
  • Best of Detroit
  • Classifieds
  • Slideshows
  • Free Stuff
  • Careers
  • Dating
  • Clubs
  • Archives
  • MMJ
  • Blowout
  • Adult Classifieds
  • Calendar

    Detroit Daily Deals powered by ReferLocal
    • New Comments
    • Popular Threads
    • Most Read
    Most Read
    • Politucs & Prejudices Is the system hopeless? | 5/22/2013
    • Steam Dreaming Fans are getting hot and bothered for a new steampunk confab. | 5/22/2013
    • They Don’t Care What You Think They don’t care what you want | 5/15/2013
    • Penrose Rising Changes are under way. | 5/15/2013
    • Savage Love Closure and watersports. | 5/22/2013
    • Gracie See Pizzeria West side institution | 5/22/2013
    • The Epic Career of Screenwriter Dan Shere From viral videos to feature length films. | 5/22/2013

    Print Email

    News Hits

    Shark bait

    This time it's Bob Ficano's blood in the water

    By Curt Guyette

    Published: October 19, 2011

    For weeks now, there's been the smell of blood in the waters surrounding Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, and the media sharks have been dutifully circling, churning up one incriminating story after another.

    The ongoing scandal resulted in Ficano doing a little bloodletting of his own on Friday, when he suspended two high-ranking members of his administration for one month without pay and canceled a six-figure contract with a third person neck-deep in the scandal.

    Big Bob has to be hoping at this point that the furor will die down now that some punishment has been meted out to those he says were responsible for the $200,000 "severance" handed Turkia Mullin a few months back when she left her job as Wayne County's economic development director to become CEO of the Wayne County Airport Authority.

    What remains to be seen is whether the actions announced by Ficano at a news conference Friday, along with Mullin's promise to return the money, will prompt the area's reporters to swim off in search of new prey.

    Our guess is that there's been enough dishonesty, evasiveness and shady dealing exposed in recent weeks to convince anyone with even half a nose for news that more scandal could well be found lurking not far from the surface of this administration.

    These troubled waters are new territory for a county administration that, until now, hasn't been subjected to much media scrutiny. For most of his time at the helm of Wayne County, the former sheriff benefited from the fact that so much media attention has been aimed at the felonious former mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. 

    But that started to change on Sept. 27, when Channel 7's Heather Catallo (working in conjunction with her investigative producer Ross Jones) first broke the news that Mullin received a $200,000 going-away gift when she voluntarily gave up her job with the county to go run the airport authority.

    The following day, Wayne County commissioners began calling for an investigation. Two days later, Detroit's daily papers and other area media were all over the story. (As far as we can tell, though, neither the Detroit News nor the Free Press had the good graces to credit WXYZ for landing this blockbuster of a scoop.)

    From that point on, things have gotten increasingly bizarre.

    On Sept. 29, Ficano, on radio station WJR, claimed that the payout was a "standard-type contract." Mullin — who, as it turns out, also received an additional $24,000 in compensation for unused sick leave and vacation time — also claimed that the $200,000 "severance" payment was guaranteed in a contract.

    Since then, we've learned that there was never any legitimate contract. Instead, the Ficano administration served up a seven-sentence undated letter that was initially purported to be a contract. It was printed on discontinued stationery that is now no longer in use, but was in use in 2008 when Mullin took the development job.

    But Ficano, according to published reports, subsequently said he had signed the letter just last month — on Sept. 2.

    WXYZ has reported that the FBI is looking into the matter, which is a good thing. With a contract that never was, and a letter that appears to have been deliberately designed to deceive (why else would it have been placed on outdated stationery?) this has all the appearances of being not just inept bungling on the part of Ficano and Co. but outright chicanery.

    Once the severance story broke, other revelations quickly began to surface.

    One story that grabbed our attention was last week's piece by the Freep's John Wisely, who reported on the contents of a sworn deposition provided by former Wayne County Human Resources Director Timothy Taylor. Taylor, who (as we reported on metrotimes.com last week) retired in April but was almost immediately rehired as an independent contractor at an annual salary of more than $117,000, signed off on a separate severance deal Sept. 3, granting Mullin an extra $24,567 payout for unused sick and vacation time.

    As in indicator of just how cozy (and lucrative) things can be for higher-ups on the Wayne County payroll, Taylor, along with collecting a pension of more than $8,838 a month plus the six figures he was earning annually as a contractor with the county, also signed a contract with the airport authority that was worth as much as $10,000.

    Or maybe he didn't sign a contract with the airport.

    A particularly interesting thing about Wisely's story was the way those involved in Taylor's airport deal tripped all over themselves trying to explain exactly what was going on.

    Taylor, according to the article, testified in a sworn deposition that he began working for the airport toward the end of August, and had put in about 21 hours worth of work, but had not yet submitted a bill. 

    On Tuesday, Oct. 11, according to Wisely's story, airport spokesman Timothy Johnson confirmed that Taylor had a contract to work on labor relations issues for the airport. Hours later, the airport released a statement from Mullin saying Taylor's services as an independent contractor began in mid-August, but that his work for the airport "has since concluded."

    Late that same day, spokesman Scott Wintner, according to Wisely, "said Taylor never did any work for the airport authority, never billed the airport and never got paid." 

    1 2 Next Page

    > Email Curt Guyette

    We welcome user discussion on our site, under the following guidelines:

    To comment you must first create a profile and sign-in with a verified DISQUS account or social network ID. Sign up here.

    Comments in violation of the rules will be denied, and repeat violators will be banned. Please help police the community by flagging offensive comments for our moderators to review. By posting a comment, you agree to our full terms and conditions. Click here to read terms and conditions.
    comments powered by Disqus


    Metro Times

    733 St Antoine

    Detroit, MI 48226

    Main: (313) 961-4060

    Advertising: (313) 961-4060

    Classified: (313) 962-5277

    Contact MT | Advertise | National Advertising | Work Here

    All parts of this site Copyright © 2013 Detroit Metro Times.

    News

    News+Views

    Politics & Prejudices

    News Hits

    Stir It Up

    Higher Ground

    Comics

    Blogs

    Music Blahg

    News Blawg

    Reckless Eyeballing

    The B-Roll

    Blowout Blog

    Best of Detroit

    Best of Detroit

    Best of Detroit 2010

    Best of Map

    Music

    Music Homepage

    Album Reviews

    Add Music Event

    Search Music Events

    Arts

    Arts Homepage

    Book Reviews

    Culture

    Culture Homepage

    Savage Love

    Motor City Cribs & Rides

    Screens

    Screens Homepage

    Film Reviews

    Idiot Boxing

    Events

    Calendar

    Search Calendar Events

    Enter Calendar Event

    Art

    Benefit

    Civics

    Comedy

    Dance

    Family

    Film

    Talks Plus

    LGBT

    Literary

    Music

    Special events

    Sports

    Theater

    Food

    Food Homepage

    Find a Restaurant

    Clubs

    Find a Club

    Classified

    Classified Home

    Place Ad

    Jobs

    Services

    Stuff For Sale

    Massage

    Personals

    Adult

    Automotive

    Cars, Trucks+More

    Services

    Real Estate

    Real Estate

    For Rent

    Roommates

    Archives

    Search Archives

    Search Authors

    Search Issues

    Latest Comments

    Get Our Newsletters

    Enter your email address to get our weekly emails.

     

    Metro Times Stuff

    Win Free Stuff

    Velvet Rope Photos

    Event Photos

    Social Media

    Facebook

    MySpace

    Flickr

    Twitter

    Youtube

    RSS Feed

     Full Feed