Posts Tagged ‘fishy fire truck’
Dominican Mayor Says $11,000 Paid for Trucks That Never Came
A heretofore mystery man in the fishy fire truck affair has spoken: Vladimir Céspedes, mayor of the Dominican Republic city of Sosúa, told reporters today about the caper that has generated a great deal of political heat in this town.
Turns out it's not just this town. Céspedes, through a translator, tells LL that he has his own political problems: His own city council wants to know what happened to the $11,000 in city money he paid expecting a fire truck and ambulance in return---not a small amount in a city of 50,000 that has a municipal budget totaling $100,000 per month. There was no written contract, he says, just a receipt from the shipper.
"Not only they, but I want the money back," Céspedes says.
That money, he says, was paid in cash to Sinclair Skinner, friend and political associate of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, in the expectation that the funds would finance transport of the rigs to Sosúa. Skinner, Céspedes explained, has presented himself as being very close to Fenty.
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D.C. Council Asserts Control Over Channel 13
As LL first broke yesterday, the D.C. Council is embroiled in a dispute with Mayor Adrian M. Fenty over control of Channel 13---the District's public access channel devoted to airing council proceedings.
The dispute is rooted in last Thursday's 'open deposition' of Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald Moten---an unorthodox proceeding, to be sure. As a deposition, Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Phil Mendelson requested that the television recording not be aired on Channel 13.
Long story short, the proceeding has been aired repeatedly since. That led the D.C. Council today to take up emergency legislation saying that it has exclusive control over the content of Channel 13.
In brief comments prior to the vote, both Cheh and Mendelson said that the executive branch had exerted influence on the Office of Cable Television, and its director, Eric Richardson. Mendelson, in fact, said that Richardson "was specifically directed by the highest member of the executive branch to run this tape and run it again."
