The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
The head of Hampton Roads Transit said Friday that he will seek guidance from Virginia and federal law enforcement officials on how to respond to a state report that said HRT's former leaders hid escalating light-rail costs from the governments paying for the project and disregarded rules for hiring consultants.
"Certain things in this report may or may not be violations of the law," said Philip Shucet, HRT's president and CEO. "It's not my job to say if something is criminal, but it is my job to present the information" to those who can make the determination.
The local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation would not comment on whether it is investigating the matter but issued this statement Thursday:
"The FBI considers fraudulent activity in acquiring or using federal funding, taxpayer money, a serious federal crime. And the FBI will aggressively investigate depending on the factual basis and circumstances supporting the belief any such crimes were committed."
When Shucet took the helm of HRT in February, he asked the Virginia Department of Transportation's inspector general for a "special review" of the agency.
The results of that investigation, released this week, concluded that HRT failed to meet certain state and federal requirements, but they did not indicate whether any crimes were committed.
Shucet said Friday that he will consult with the office of state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and meet with investigators with the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general's office. A spokesman for that agency said it is not currently reviewing the matter.
HRT officials also learned Friday that the Federal Transit Administration will conduct a formal review of HRT's procurements over the p ast two years.
The state report indicated that HRT failed to seek competitive bids in 16 of 24 procurements of consulting services that were reviewed. The report also said procurement files were incomplete and did not establish impartial evaluations of proposals.
Elected leaders who sit on HRT's board, which the state report concludes was often kept in the dark about light-rail costs and the hiring of consultants, said they want justice.
"If there are laws that were broken, I hope and pray they'll be enforced to the fullest extent," said Rick West, a Chesapeake councilman. "You can't not be truthful with the taxpayers' money."
Barclay Winn, a Norfolk councilman, said: "I want to investigate all the improprieties at whatever level they occurred.... And whatever remedies are out there, I want us pursuing them to the fullest extent possible."
Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com
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City Manager's Retirement
Well, I just don't think a retirement package, from a City which claims to be hurting for money, should be that large, since the average worker has not received a raise in the past two (2) years. What's wrong with this picture? Seems like it is always the working class guy who gets screwed, by politicians who have already had their fingers in the pie,getting their share of the action. One poster called for an investigation of the entire Norfolk City Government, and I think at the least,be investigated to see who got what, including the Ex-CEO Michael Townes,who was released in the Summer and remained on the payroll until September. This would not be the case with a regular John Doe employee. He's is terminated and pay stops.
Way to Go!
A project involving this many millions needed safeguards at the beginning. Mr. Townes nor members of the City Council should be looked at scapegoats when problems of this magnitude exist. What has constantly perplexed me is not once have I seen an article detailing what the key players in the day-to-day operations of this project like the budget manager, project manager, procurement officers, human resources, and operations are doing to make it a success. What has there role in this whole process been? All along the finger has been pointing at the wrong people. As a reporter I would be asking "Who were the people involved in keeping two sets of books?" and "What set of books were Townes and the City Council privy to?" for their reviews.
The TDCHR is supposed to safeguard our tax funds from HRT
You correctly stated, "A project involving this many millions needed safeguards at the beginning."
The safeguard was the TDCHR (Transportation District Commission of Hampton Roads). It is another all-appointed regional governing body that has FAILED to do it's job. Why? Because it was staffed to fail! The folks APPOINTED to watch over HRT are pro-light rail folks that are more interested in the development that light rail was supposed to create then they are in doing the job they agreed to do - their job is to audit HRT and safeguard the taxpayer's money. THEY chose Mike Townes and THEY failed to fire him even after they learned about the fraud and the long term, systemic theft of bus fare money by HRT employees.
light rail
This has been a mess since the start. The city was going to put a light rail in no matter what. Little research was done on this project. Now downtown looks terrible, with all the wires hanging over the street. These ugly wires are directly in the line of sight. It makes downtown look old and out of date. Traffic is the worst it has ever been, it takes hours to get to 264 and 664. Alot of streets have been closed making parking near impossible, one lane on Boush street after Nauticus is not a good idea. The city is always looking for the next project to do while they push traffic around. Whats going to happen when the Waterside gets remodeled, it will drive traffic crazy, and cut out yet another route.This city has very very poor planners.
Responsibility
I am a Norfolk resident born and raised. Lived here for 47 years. I am so disgusted with our current city government and officials I can not see straight.I feel all that voted yes for this LR needs to be held accountable. I want to know how many city officials own companies or have friends that own companies that have profited from this project. The money needs to be traced. We need a total cleaning of city governments. The city employees in Norfolk can not get a cost of living raise and have not had one for the past 2 years now because of Norfolk City Council pleading poverty but yet they can give a severance package like a private corporation to the out going CITY MANAGER and the incoming CITY MANAGER.
The Penalty
Although the emphasis has been trying to identify the who is responsible, it is just one aspect of this fiasco; the real question is the penalty. Unfortunately, the citizenry of Norfolk is ultimately responsible for the transgressions that were perpetrated by either the willful misconduct or neglect of their elected officials.
Hence the penalty should be a stiff one, in that Norfolk and HRT should return all the grant and matching funds that were ill-gotten by purposeful deceit in falsified budget requirements based on a faulty EIS study.
Virginia Beach is expecting a SEIS and should equally be skeptical of these studies meant to solicit federal grants with erroneous data.
the feds ought to get the money back
Wally's right. The USA needs to demand its $192 million (or whatever) back from Norfolk. The whole thing was a charade. Word to the wise...scrutinize Norfolk's application to the DOT with a very fine tooth comb. There are probably many misstatements and exaggerations included. How much of what Norfolk told the US was really true?
Meanwhile in a little city far, far away.
A real bus company decided to use 29 million dollars to build a 17 mile long bus rapid transit system using city streets. The result? 3500 riders per week day. How many riders were supposed to ride this LRT fiasco?
Here's the link.
http://communitytransit.blogspot.com/2010/11/swift-ridership-exceeds-expectations.html
LRT not about moving people - about development
Steve, you make a great point - but, the light rail in our area is not about about moving people - it is about more development. Highrise, mixed-use, urban development. It is the corruption funded by the TOD developers and their powerful friends in the banking industry that buy off the local polical process in order to own the politicians that push light rail. The slick talking salesmen pitch light rail is if it would somehow reduce traffic congestion. It doesn't. Because BRT is not a "fixed guideway" system, the developers can't con the banks into loaning them the money because BRT can be easily relocated somewhere else and thus the property values don't "skyrocket".
It's Dead
You hear? DEAD. There isn't a snowball's chance in Hades that LRT could muster sufficient votes anywhere in Hampton Roads, and certainly not in Virginia Beach, where skepticism is high anyway. And that death is richly deserved. Why do we expect these local yokels to manage very large, highly complex projects with which they have no experience? For Shucet's nearly half million dollar salary -- paid in part by Norfolk; can you say conflict of interest? -- don't you think we could hire someone capable enough to get the job done? For the record, I think LRT has compelling benefits; too bad its proponents are so wed to business as usual, like HRT, SPSA, etc. Just fold them, and let's clean house already.