District Knew Potter Was a Problem as Far Back as 2009
The program's former manager, Silas Potter Jr., was stripped of his ability to award small construction contracts in response to the warnings in January of that year. But the district allowed him to continue to award personal-service contracts and approve payments to small businesses that included minority- and women-owned companies, according to a recently completed state audit.
Despite a reprimand and directives to improve his performance, Potter continued to flaunt rules with little oversight, the audit found.
- Evidence has emerged that some district employees informed superiors about irregularities with the program but were brushed aside, said a source familiar with the matter.
Other employees had concerns but did not raise them because of "fears of reprisal," according to the state audit.
"We found that many District employees were unaware of the District's whistle-blower and anti-retaliation policies, or did not trust the policies," the audit said.
- "The reprimand also included an admonishment for testifying and lobbying in Olympia on behalf of the District on two occasions without approval of the District's Government Relations Department," the audit stated. Despite the reprimand, Potter contracted with consultants to meet with state legislators and testify in favor of legislation although he didn't have the authority to do so, according to the audit.
In a 2009 story on the consultant's report, the Daily Journal of Commerce in Seattle quoted Lee Newgent, executive secretary of the Seattle-King County Building & Construction Trades Council, as saying some construction firms the district used weren't licensed and didn't do background checks on workers, including some who worked near children.
Newgent also told the newspaper some firms were doing work for which they weren't qualified and predicted criminal indictments "somewhere down the line."
Comments
Oh that's right, because they have been all along, as long as I have been a part of this system.
http://www.osec.doc.gov/cfo/stephens_bio.html
Check out what he says about his time at Seattle schools:
"Prior to joining the Commerce Department, Stephens served as executive director of facilities and construction for Seattle Public Schools, where he built a reputation for his rigorous approach to environmental health and safety issues, real property management, maintenance programming and capital projects, including approximately $800 million in capital outlays."
Blah, blah, blah...
That is such baloney. If he was so concerned about "environmental health" he would have raised the flag about how many of our schools are still in dire straits in terms of seismic safety, the initial reason why I got involved with SPS matters.
And now I will remind parents one more time, many of your schools are not safe. If there were an earthquake tomorrow, at least 12 schools would come tumbling down including my daughter's building.
Our school board did not want to deal with this knowledge but maybe parents will at some point.
For many of you, your children's safety is at risk.
I am an architect and I speak from an educated and experienced background that this is the case.
If you have questions about your particular school, please e-mail me at dora.taylor@gmail.com.
Stephens, whoever he was, didn't care two hoots about our children.
Did Potter personally gain from this fake agency he ran, meaning did he deposit funds into his personal account?
Where did he go after leaving Seattle?
And is it true that he cannot be located currently?
Was MGJ in town to give that statement, then left? Or was the statement given from a remote location.
What I find so interesting is MGJs statement of outrage and the audits finding that employees are afraid to speak up. Not very creditable.
Anyway, I appreciate the information.
Po3
How can the district spend 3 million on a small business program in the midst of a financial crises that included the RIF'ing of teachers, and not notice that money was being spent on the wrong things?
Nevermind the criminality. Never mind the paying $100K and $7000 there for things that were never delivered. There are thieves in the world.
I won't blame the district for that, but not being able to know or not caring about huge non-essential spending is gross mismanagement that really can't be excused.
It's of a magnitude that really calls for a top to bottom house cleaning.
"SBOP transition to RSBOP"
The email states:
"Attached is the transition plan for Seattle Public Schools' Small Business Development Program to the Regional Small Business Development Program. If you like, we can go over it sometime next week after you had time to review it over the weekend.
Thank you, Silas"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49445040/Transition-Outsourcing-001
This appears to be the moment that Potter changed over from managing the SPS "Small Business Development Program" to the "Regional Small Business Development Program." The latter is his private firm.
This thing is much bigger than 1.8 million dollars. Stephens knew what was going on based on the above mentioned email and proposal. But, there is more. I started investigating the contractors...can you say nefarious? One appears to have some big trouble with CPS.
Allow me to speculate for a moment (I have no facts to base any claims), but I believe that this is a possibility. This whole fiasco looks a lot like a contracting kick-back scandal in the making. Many of these contrators and service firms (on the SPS list) are very marginal players in the Seattle construction/business scene.
This could get very big folks. Keep digging.
Might have been legally OK. Didn't look good at all.
Still want to know extent, if any, of English's involvement in Pottergate.
-skeptical-
-skeptical-
And... so there's talk that the Seattle Times sat on details of this story for months, that they wrote what they had to in a passive boring voice. Well, Charlie accused them of not speaking out because it would hurt the levy or that it would hurt their darling Maria. I am guessing that some folks are Hugely relieved that this stayed quiet until after the sale of MLK. But what did they know and when did they know it?
How can they do that? Easy. When their true aim is pushing an agenda, enriching their friends, pulling power plays. When they could give a sh*t about children, teachers, learning, and "closing the achievement gap".
He is a lawyer and was very close to Fred Stephens in facilities and all land use and facility decisions. Who would understand better than he?