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May 19, 2005

RIVER RAT'S BROTHER BOOSTS BUCKS FOR MAYOR

Rat_wardrop_2Tom Wardrop, brother and business partner of River Rat Robert Wardrop (pictured to the right), was one of the four members of the Local Officers Compensation Commission who pushed for Mayor Heartwell's big pay increase.  (See article below.)  Unmentioned, unnoted, and unremarked anywhere is that this allegedly disinterested citizen is also a City contractor.  The Wardrop brothers run a three-man legal shop specializing in bankruptcy and immigration, yet managed in July 2002 to obtain a contract from the City of Grand Rapids for municipal legal services.

One might think having a City contractor on the compensation commission is unwise for it could lead to the appearance, if not the fact, of mutual back-scratching.  The Wardrops' case is particularly obnoxious because they got a contract for work they don't specialize in after River Rat Rob had given false testimony to the benefit of then-mayor Boss Logie's business clients in a Kent County Circuit Court case.

So you see, folks, these supposedly independent boards only lead to more mischief not less with the advantage to the malefactors of making crooked deals all the harder to reveal.

Posted by Wm Tingley on May 19, 2005 at 11:33 AM in Project: Hall of Shame |

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