Sunday, March 27, 2011

Corbett is as bad as the Midweatern Govs.

Natural gas industry employee Tom Corbett has take time off from slashing the budget and giving tax breaks to his bros in the gas industry to choose Sam Katz for the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which oversees Philadelphia's finances.

Not being from around these parts, I never heard of him. Well my resident attorney provided me with more info:
"Perennial Philadelphia mayoral candidate Sam Katz must repay $2.1 million he obtained from three business partners by allegedly fraudulently misrepresenting information about the viability of skating rink development projects.
The Delaware Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in a civil lawsuit over a private business deal that Katz tried to keep from the public during his third failed run for mayor last year...
... the dispute arose from Katz's effort to obtain financing for the development of skating rinks, with construction partially funded by municipal investments and then managed by a Katz affiliate. He attracted several investors, who collectively contributed $2.1 million to the project...
The court said the litigation revealed that Mark Robbins, the man Katz hired as COO and touted as a highly experienced businessman, was in fact an experienced felon who was convicted of drug smuggling, armed robbery and assault.
Vice Chancellor Strine said even the most rudimentary background check would have revealed that Robbins misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars from his own family. Instead, the vice chancellor said, Katz set him to work on preparing feasibility studies, which the two promoted to investors as independently produced."

Yeah, just the type of person to you should have overseeing municipal finances, unless your plan is to falsely accuse the city of being unable to run itself in order to strip away local democratic authority.

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