TV MEDIA REPORTS


See the TV News Reports at the top of the Sidebar below to the right, just below this links section....and click on the photos!

LEGAL CASES

  • John Fox & Clemon Williams vs. Kern High School District, Whistleblowing to the FBI Re: Garland Purchase Orders, Bakersfield, California, 2013
  • GSA vs. Tremco, Qui Tam Suit, 2013
  • Los Angeles vs. Garland, Re: Bid Collusion, Racketeering, etc., Los Angeles, California, About 1997
  • Quality Tile Roofing vs. Tremco Roofing, Re: False Fraud Charges leveled at Tremco Certified Contractor for not bidding Tremco products at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Boise, Idaho, About 1997

Sunday, August 18, 2013

School District Personnel Fired for Whistleblowing to the FBI Re: Garland Purchase Order Scam WIN Their Case

That's right.

Two School District Personnel Fired for Whistleblowing to the FBI Re: Garland Purchase Order Scam WIN Their Case

They settled with a frantic School Board attorney on the morning their case was to start trial....Monday, August 12, 2013.

A First.

Have you ever heard of a Facilities guy or School District guy who fought or reported to the authorities anything about these scams winning?

I haven't.  If you have, please write and let me know!

Well, it just happened.

And it didn't "just happen".  I explain below - with a lot of stuff I have never yet disclosed.  There's much more than I say below....that will be in the book.

The original news story:
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Announcement of the Settlement:
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Long story short:

An Assistant Maintenance Director in the largest High School District in California noticed that with the influx of a cadre of new men coming into the Business Office and above them in various positions, that the normal and required competitive bidding specifications in roofing and other products were thrown out the window.

The men who came in and instituted the practices all seemed to know each other also seemed to party hardy together, knowing each other from CASBO and CASH.

CASBO is the California Association of School Business Officers (www.casbo.org)

C.A.S.H. (which sends investigators into slack-jawed shock of the open brazenness of obvious aims with the name) is the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (www.cashnet.org)

Right.  We all know what kind of "adequate" C.A.S.H. reserves they are for the con men targeting school funds.

Slobbering at the pig's trough....hogs, really.

Time for the hog slaughter.

So these men coming in as Business Officers and Facilities Directors/Managers and more targeted - get this? - TARGETED the largest High School District in California, a remote area.

It's Kern High School District in Bakersfield, at the end of the massive Central Valley in California, well above the mountain range that separates it from the huge Los Angeles area.

Kern High School District has 18 high schools and assorted other schools and structures, at one time over 35,000 students.

These men circumvented all normal competitive bidding processes and state licensing laws regarding who should be making decisions regarding fire-rated materials and commercial/public structures.

It's not business officers, it's not facilities personnel,  it's not school board members and it's not Superintendents.

It's only supposed to be licensed Architects and Engineers.

Period, end of story.

Instead, they forced $200,000 a year Garland Purchase Orders in a cooked-up scheme - and it's complex - and one roofing contractor was used in broken-up contracts for years, inserting "Garland" products (just whose were they really?) into warrantied roofs - destroying good warranties and good roofs.

The direct boss of John Fox, an Assistant Maintenance Director, was involved.  John Fox was confounded with what was happening - like so many in facilities abused for speaking up and saying something when they see something not being bid properly.   John came to me for help in February, 2009.

And man, did he need it.  Completely confused, hurt, angry and pissed (with good reason) beyond belief.

I had to listen for weeks and not just a few hours a day, tons of them, letting him talk, then teaching him what it was all about, then unraveling the problems.

And putting it in a form to give to the FBI.

He saw kickbacks.  He reported them.

The FBI Office in Bakersfield refused to do anything with it.

His boss came from - get this - the heart of Hollywood, the Beverly Hills High School District, where he was sole sourcing Tremco, in 2002-3.  Wonder what those benefits were for him?  He seemed to be driving a massive SUV and another vehicle that went bye-bye right before his death from cancer a couple of years ago.  And he kept a safe in his office, out of which $20,000 a time would appear, suddenly.....nice drop for _________?

John had tried with School Board Members and the local Taxpayers Association, to no avail, before he got to me.

Strangely, one of those Board Members called me at same time as John trying to do something locally, in or about 2007, and the Board Member called me at the behest of someone else in the conservative political community that knew me, and wanted to know the names of the companies involved.  I told him.  He asked the  Superintendent if they were doing work with those companies.

The Superintendent lied.

Now we all know that if you have to lie, you know something about it is wrong and you have to be complicit in it.

More background:
 We already heard that Sam Salamone, working for Johns Manville (who private labels for Tremco, undermining their own reps!), caught two Santa Monica School Board Members driving Mercedes leased by Tremco.  Sam tried to get something done, not one person would listen (authorities) and then Sam died young.....that was in the late 1990's or early 2000's.

So the boss of John Fox had to be well-acquainted with the scams in schools.

You'll have to wait for the rest of the story.  In a book.


Bottom Line?

The facilities guys that were hurting so badly because of the Garland Roofing Purchase Order Scam found me because of the blogs.  And the work involved was massive.....to get them in a winning position, even before the lawyers got involved.

It's a whale of a story - and involves the second of the two scam manufacturers still operating.

Yes, it's a massive scam.  It involves politicians...and it's seriously bad stuff. And not just in the USA.


I will put up on here when the book comes out - and where to get it.

If you want something included in the book, let me know.  Or on the blog, anytime, contact me at roofreports@gmail.com

Previous posts on the blog are slowly being put back up over time, with improvements.  The service revamped them without my ability to control them!  If you know of a way to get .pdf's onto these blogs, or on another service, let me know, so I can link to them or put them up - easier than downloading off the blogs!