Just when you think Buie-gate has seen it’s last bit of sunlight, it returns from near death to reveal even more of his underhanded dealings. Besides Tim Washington’s revelations about working with Buie to deceive taxpayers, WALB reports that the deal was the only reason Washington came to downtown.
But Channel 10 illustrated that he wasn’t alone.
The much anticipated Alltell store downtown was revealed to be based on free rent, taxpayer funded build out, and taxpayer funding of free computers and other equipment inside the store. The cost would have been astronomical, just to have a cell phone store downtown. An Alltell official said that there were no red flags in the deal. “I would never think that he was not being honest. “I mean, he was a city official, or a city employee,” she said. And, she’s got a point.
Here’s the thing though. If these kinds of deals are the only way to get people into downtown, why? Is it possible that Buie tried to play by the rules and no one would come, so he tried to think a bit to far outside the box to get these businesses to come to downtown? Only Buie could answer those questions, but I’m definitely curious about the answer.
Through this whole mess, the one constant has been a lot of people upset with ADICA. Frankly, I understand that completely. The only one I give any kind of pass to is Phil Cannon. He apparently tried for months to get things done within the system, and it was him and Nicole Brown’s mother that started this whole thing. For his efforts, I would encourage him to stay on the ADICA board. While many may not agree with me, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Cannon may not have acted the way some of us prefer, but he’s the one who acted. He’s also the one who called on Lajuanna Woods to return the money, and act that lead to the now infamous line regarding unethical and wrong, but not illegal. Remember that Cannon was the recipient of that line. Frankly, I say remove everyone but Cannon.
While the scandal has rocked Albany and might not encourage business to come to town, it needed to see the light of day. Now, we can cut out the cancer and make efforts to prevent a relapse of the disease. This has revealed a lot of warts in our city government, but the warts were there the whole time. There is no oversight, and who knows quite how little oversight there currently is. It only comes up with a situation like this, but we’re counting on city officials to step up and do what we require…make sure this doesn’t happen again.
If they won’t, then it’s time to find those who will.
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The fact that Buie essentially had to pay retailers to move downtown should be eye-opening to our leaders. However I’m highly confident that if we keep the same group of comissioners, they will continue to dump tax dollars down a rathole that is demonstrably uneconomic. Langstaff has got to go.
I toldly agree with Jack Smith, but let’s not stop there with Langstaff. I think Richard Thomas has the best idea. Clean sweep. Think about it….Mayor Adams wanted his commissioners to vote on whether he should stay or not…well we see how that went. The commissioners had a GOOD chance to boot him, instead they support him by saying he is doing a GOOD job….Get REAL…If the commissioners don’t have the back bone to tell Adams and Lott just how bad things are, the public sure can. So getting back to what needs to take place…clean house and let’s start over, dont’ give them any more chances to milk us.
I attended the ADICA meeting yesterday. HERE’S A LEGAL REASON WHY MS. WOODS NEEDS TO IMMEDIATELY REPAY THE $50,000 TO ADICA.
The board’s basic beginning legal position was that since it did not specifically authorize Buie’s actions on the “tenancies” with a formal resolution, Buie was acting without Baord approval and ADICA was not bound by Buie’s acts or promises. Each of the votes of the board to reject the purported Buie acts, including those regarding the Dollar Square store passed unanimously which included the vote of controversial board member Lajuana Woods who got the $50K from Buie without formal board resolution and approval.
Get where that goes? Buie’s acts purportedly on behalf of ADICA without Board approval are “void” with respect to ADICA and are not binding upon ADICA. ADICA’s attorney also stated the legal opinion that “performance” by Buie or ADICA paying out money did NOT further bind ADICA. The payment to Woods was not only without board approval, but also purportedly without any board knowledge. Applying the board’s legal position vis a vis other parties and the board’s legal advice, the transaction with Woods was an improper payment of ADICA and city funds to Woods and MUST be repaid by Woods. I personally can’t see how the board can take a different view given the legal opinion they received at the meeting and the unanimous votes taken – ESPECIALLY since Ms. Woods is presumed to know that the payments were for matters outside the purpose for which the city advanced the $500,000 (purchase option deposits).
Of course, that’s my personal view, and the board did not address the Woods issue specifically.
I, as a member of the audience, stated this interpretation publicly to the board at the meeting in response to a question from the audience about recovering the money from Ms. Woods. It’s a no-brainer issue in my humble unrequested opinion. The money needs to come back to ADICA.
I would hope that this will be addressed at the next ADICA meeting (Sept 2??) since that is $50,000 in taxpayer funds reprepresting the annual ad valorem taxes from about 40 or 50 homes in Albany.
(In all fairness of disclosure, I should reveal that at an earlier ADICA meeting, Ms. Woods agressively and rather rudely opposed our request for payment of facade grants in the amount of $5,000 each (not $50,000) although they had been approved previously by ATI and we had paid application fees that ADICA also refused to refund and that Buie had agreed earlier to honor. Part of the opposition was based on the claim that our earlier application was not on the current forms and therefor was not technically correct. The forms were produced that day!!)
I would like to comment on the “need” for incentives to get businesses to move downtown and the focus as a government center that Tom raises in this post, but will do that later today.
Peter, man, easy on the post length. Honestly, that’s just to much text. As you’ve been told before, if you have text that long, you can put it in an email to me and we can talk about publishing it under the Publius tag.
Guess What: I’m in agreement with you. I sincerely hope that every race is contested, since that will answer the question of what the people of Albany want once and for all. A clean sweep would be a distinct possibility, especially in this political climate, and if not it’s because the people of that ward simply believe in their guy or gal.
Personally, I don’t think it’ll happen, but who knows.
OK… I had qualms about it…how about giving me a word count or keystroke count. I tend to want to explain things thoroughly since some of these issues deserve that, but could sure edit back or take the Publius route.
Max length you are comfortable with for a comment???
Thanks much
Peter, not sure on the comments, but I tend to work to keep POSTS under 2K words. I would think 500-1K would probably be the max on a comment, but I’m kinda open to discussion on that point.
Again, feel free to email Tom or myself anything longer than that and we can always put it up as a Publius post. Not a big deal at all there.
I agree that the comment looks on the long side, although the quality of your blog mostly leans toward a substantive exchange of opinions and ideas with rationale.
In any case, pasting that comment into my MS Word program gives a 489 word count.
Given the blog style you seem to have, can I suggest 350 or so?
Most of my posts tend toward 400-700 words, though I occassionally go over that. I’d actually prefer 200-300 maximum on comments, and will occasionally overlook overages as well. However, I’ll work with 350 as a maximum.
But for 351 word we will have to use the Chinese water torture on you
I’ll stay between 200-300…which will protect me from myself … and from you in case you decide that the popular water-boarding is faster and more effective…
and safer after all, for my own good.
Nah, waterboarding’s for chumps. Me? I prefer the classics
Did I read the AH correctly? Was Tim Washington dumb enough to publicly admit that he signed a lease ($700/mo.) which had the sole purpose of misleading the public?
The ADICA lease situation is appalling but may be on the road to some semblance of reasonable recovery based on last night’s meeting. But let’s not forget about Woods’ facade grant.
The ADICA discussion last night pretty well established that what Buie did without Board approval was wrong and will not be honored.
That being said, Woods’ grant would likewise be wrong on the basis of no approval. But, don’t forget the building involved was also well outside the zone for consideration so it was also wrong on that basis.
Adding fuel to the big fire, it appears the building being “improved” by the grant was already designed and under construction with private money well before the grant was applied for. So,in this case, it appears taxpayer funds inappropriately supplanted private funds.
At the next meeting, ADICA should ask for the funds to be returned.
The fact that the grant rmoney has been spent should not be considered as justification to let her keep the money.
Remember, we also loaned Woods $100,000. Haven’t the taxpayers done enough for her?
And by the way, Richard Thomas is right–the Board needs to resign. The Board does not have any credibility with anyone.
Cartman: It looks like it. Apparently Washington, in an colusion with Buie, attempted to mislead the people and governmental agencies of Albany as to the details of the arrangement.
Buie was promising the world, and he didn’t have the authority to do so.
I recently forwarded the following email to our elected officials.
Tim Washington agreed that he knowingly participated in criminal activity last night. If a person knowingly purchases a stolen lawn mower, the person receiving the lawn mower is guilty of a criminal act. Washington knowingly participated in a scheme to deceive and defraud the ADICA board and the citizens of Albany by theft of rent. ADICA’s response to the criminal activity was to suggest negotiating terms of a lease with Washington. ADICA and The City should immediately press charges against Tim Washington.
I agree Tim. That’s the only way to put a stop to this nonsense…prosecute anyone involved!
I agree, too. There’s no telling how far this whole thing will go. There are sooo many dirty people. The GBI doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. I wonder what they’re finding?
Who were the other people considered for the downtown manager position in the beginning? How were they beat out by a con-artist? Did the “Don” already have an inside track.
Am I losing my mind or was Phil Cannon trying to make Tim Washington appear honest??
In case you missed it, Mr. Washington (by his own account!) was totally aware of Buie creating a fake lease. I am 100% in agreement with Tim Coley that if Washington’s own words can be believed, Washington should be criminally charged along with Buie.
Maybe Phil needs to resign as well. What a disappointment!
This is it. Truly disgusting. Phil thinks Tim Washington was “duped.” Phil should go, too.
http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=10965261
Jack: It is possible that Washington thought it was all legit since Buie was a city official. An investigation will reveal the details, so it’s theoretically possible to be involved in a case of fraud like this and not realize it. After all, the Alltell representative thought everything they were getting was above board because of Buie’s position. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that you can’t be particularly bright to buy into something like this, but it is possible.
And I have to disagree with you. Phil’s opinion is his opinion. What matters is what actions he believes is appropriate. If Cannon thinks that the law is the law and Washington is just as culpable whether he was duped or not, is there really a problem? Being dumb isn’t a defense against the law last time I checked
Tom: I agree. Being dumb isn’t a defense. That’s why I think Washington should be charged. I will also agree that accepting a $1 dollar rent isn’t criminal.
Where I think a crime arises is when Washington admits to being party to a phony lease for $700 being cooked up to deceive the public and (presumably) government officials. This also dosn’t take into account the fact that Washington appears to have been reimbursed for expenditures that weren’t made.
I wish no one ill, however, how can we not be pleased that the actual realities are finally coming to light? It gives the opportunity to clean-up what has been going on behind the scenes and move forward constructively and professionally – one would hope.
This is a time great time of opportunity for Albany to steer itself in better directions; politically, economically, administratively, collectively.
Real leaders need to get together in order to create a consensus and unity. Those in whom a substantial part of the public have lost confidence need to acknowledge their shortcomings and show how they will improve and/or have the good grace to step away so others can better move this community forward.
Sadly, Mr. Buie insinuated that he had knowledge of other nefarious acts.
I have no specific knowledge, but I would brace for more to come out about others, if Mr. Buie’s implications are to be believed – this one time anyway.
Who in leadership will do the right things and begin to speak out for real change???
I had an interesting conversation with a public person. The gist of part of it was …… who knows what the real story was with Buie and the other recipients of funds and what’s the point in dwelling on things that have already happened, so let’s move on and not “nit-pick.”
I do not intend to disclose her name and I consider her to be a business friend, but I must acknowledge that there must indeed be a line of thinking that does not want to dig any deeper or hold parties to these events accountable.
There is a balance between moving forward and dwelling on the past…but it seems this “past” is still quite present.
I’m all for moving forward, but it seems that disclosing and dealing failrly with all that has gone on is part of the process of change and moving forward.
Peter:
The problem with your friend’s line of thinking is that if you follow it long enough, no one will ever be held accountable for anything and we will be left with a looted, empty city.
Unfortunately, Jack’s right. It’s easy to say, “Just move on.”
The problem is that moving on doesn’t root out the problem. I won’t argue that there is a time to move on, and I don’t think there’s anyone who would, but moving on to soon means the city is still ripe for another Buie-type character to come in and rip the city off. The only difference is that the next guy may be a lot smarter and harder to catch.
Oh, I agree fully.
Hey, y’all must remember Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby’s “Kids say the Darndest Things” show.
Well, Albany is working on its own version called, “Pols-n-Pals Say the Darndest Things.”
Here are a few I remember. Maybe you’ve got some others.
“I’m a deputy sheriff.” A short magicical sentence that get you out of a speeding ticket and a couple hundred dollar fine in Chattahoochee County; but if not true, also can get you hauled off to jail at 2AM, plastered on the front page of the newspaper, charged with two felonies, facing losing your job and incurring $10,000 to $30,000 in legal fees plus can get you a new different kind of sentence.
“Albany doesn’t have a gang problem.” Law enforcement official in about 2003.
“Christmas is over.” City official’s statement declaring the Christmas season ended on December 26 to justify selective ticketing for decorations on top of a building.
“Why would I want to meet with you?” Elected official’s question to a downtown multi-property owner, but the official forgot he had asked for the meeting weeks earlier at a reception that served one too many cocktails.
“Before we get started, let me look at my screen and see where you are on my list of contributors.” Elected official pointing to his city computer screen in a city office.
“We’d rather go to our graves than let __________ and ________ make money.” Officials in a city desperate for citizens’ increased incomes.
“I was set-up.” Public official
“God told me to run (for public office). I was standing in front of the toilet with my _______(thankfully can’t remember exact word(s))in my hands when He spoke to me.” To a large group.
“You have no idea what’s really going on up there.” Official’s reference to higher-up’s activities.
“I always get a 7-0 vote. Does that tell you something?” ADICA Officer referring to his board of trustees.
“That’s what code enforcement is for.” Official explaining how he will negotiate the purchase price of a certain parcel of real estate.
“It’s happening right here in Albany.” Ya think? Citizen justifying secret sweetheart deal.
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