Detroit's demo disaster: A Land Bank Peyton's Place?
For the past few weeks, Charlie LeDuff has dug deep. Real deep, into the scandal that just keeps going.
Full of fuzzy contracts and finger pointing, the demolition numbers from Mayor Mike Duggan don't add up.
In a bizarre turn, the Detroit Land Bank Authority has become a regular Peyton's Place of stalking and suicide threats.
But first, when it comes to Duggan's demolition posse, they blew a lot of money, they admit no mistakes, had questionable contracts - and nobody's been fired. So before federal investigators look into it, there are a few things to clear up:
1 Duggan passing the buck on the state
2 Duggan says when Dave Bing was mayor, he got nothing done. Bing disagrees, and called it "b.s." adding that the current mayor needs to explain the high costs of demo.
3 And what about Joyce Faunce? Five weeks ago the city promised her it would tear down the abandoned house next door. It's been a month and Joyce has had a stroke since then.
It gets worse. Charlie unearthed a personal protection order filed against the former executive director of the Detroit Land Bank Kevin Simowski. His deputy, Mary Lewand-Monroe, filed the PO and claims that over the past six months, he stalked and menaced her and once threatened to blow his brains out because she stopped being his friend and would not have lunch with him.
The city and the mayor knew for months about his behavior but kept Simowski in his job anyways. That is until a few days after Charlie first story broke about the Land Bank and mismanagement of $110 million in federal money for demolition in Detroit.
Simowski goes all the way back to the county prosecutor's office with Duggan. He gave this statement about the charges.
"Please note that I chose not to fight these false allegations because there would be no winners and it would serve no point. I have simply moved on in my life to focus on my family. I will have no further comment on this matter."
Broken promises and loose ends, LeDuff ties up some of them tonight.