Day: November 29, 2016

Houston we have a problem: Bay St Louis City management of public lands held in trust abysmal

This will be a multi part post.

At last Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the issue of the City leasing air space over the state owned green space came to a head and such was the major reason that Slabbed was interested in that meeting. To set things up, at the council meeting of November 8, 2016, Mayor Fillingame told the Council there was no written lease for the use of air space over the state owned Green Space at the Harbor used by Triple Tails and when that was relayed to Slabbed, we immediately spotted major potential problems. At this point we need to give a major hat tip to Lana Noonan and the Hancock County Alliance for Good Government who did some major legwork for Slabbed New Media in advance of last Tuesday’s meeting.

First up is the construction of the Bay Harbor courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers, the taking of private land for the Harbor and construction of the new Seawall under the auspices of the US Army Corp of Engineers. After the construction of the Seawall was completed property lines were redrawn and a strip of Green Space between the private property and the seawall was created. It is the City’s inability to manage this small strip of land that is the topic of this post as we explore how one private business, Triple Tails, was able to build and cantilever part of their building over the property line into the air space above the state owned green space. Mayor Fillingame and his administration’s inability to manage this green space in accordance with the lease has now caused major problems that are not easily fixed.

A timeline of events is in order: Continue reading “Houston we have a problem: Bay St Louis City management of public lands held in trust abysmal”

Bay St Louis City Council meeting recap: Mayor Fillingame tries keeping the Denardo Payroll Fraud under wraps

Bad boys bad boys, whatcha you gonna do whatcha you gonna do when they come for you….

According to both news reports Les doesn’t want to protect the tax payers financial interest by placing the Bond Holders on notice. Obviously he isn’t worried about fulfilling the contractual agreement to report a claim or the possibility of a claim. Personally I feel he is culpable with the Police Chiefs going rogue.

Of all the things he is accused of being a good steward of the tax payers interest isn’t one of them.

Les n Lil Daddy Said have some hard decisions to make in the coming weeks.

Indeed they will. In the case of the Denardo payroll fraud, the questions are pretty easily answered but the little Dutch Boy Hizzoner begs to differ:

Bay police chief’s widow implicated in payroll-fraud investigation ~ Wes Muller

However, the mayor believes the council is acting “prematurely” by filing notices with the bonding companies and said he will likely veto its decision.

“We don’t have anything to say if she’s guilty or not guilty,” Fillingame said. “We’ve got nothing to base that on yet except for suspicion.”

Better than a suspicion in a typical payroll fraud case there is actually a money trail as well as a documentary evidence trail in the form of time sheets and other documents used to prepare the fraudulent paychecks. In the case of Ms Denardo, everyone at City Hall knew she no longer worked there given the social media surrounding her leaving the City to work at FEMA and her going away party. Continue reading “Bay St Louis City Council meeting recap: Mayor Fillingame tries keeping the Denardo Payroll Fraud under wraps”

Bay St Louis City Council meeting recap: City Clerk Gonzales tries her hand at hoodwinking the City Council

Of the last four City Clerks only one had the kind of professionalism and personal integrity to follow financial portions of the Mississippi Code while the other three sold their professional reputations for a paycheck. Unfortunately Clerk Gonzales falls in with the majority in my opinion and it was a rather simple, somewhat innocuous looking agenda item in 3(g) that attracted my attention before last Tuesday’s meeting:

Source: Bay St Louis City Council
Source: Bay St Louis City Council

The reason the proposal to set up an Unemployment Compensation Revolving Fund within the Municipal Reserve Bank Account attracted my attention is the obvious co-mingling of dedicated funds, a major no no the council should have learned by now.

That said there were at least three City Councilmen, lead by Councilman Doug Seal, that evidently retained none of the training given them by the Office of the State Auditor’s Performance Audit division in favor of railing about there being too many bank accounts (itself a confusion between the terms “fund” and “bank account”). That said, after a member of the audience repeatedly mentioned to City Attorney Trent Favre the money needed to be separated into its own fund, were questions asked by Councilman Boudin. The council ended up telling Gonzales keep the funds separate. Continue reading “Bay St Louis City Council meeting recap: City Clerk Gonzales tries her hand at hoodwinking the City Council”

Good morning Vietnam……

I gotta admit the week plus away from Slabbed was nice but now we have a log jam of material beginning with last Tuesday’s City Council meeting, which attracted Slabbed’s presence for a couple of reasons.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend as we now head to year-end.