October 8, 2013, - 5:54 pm
EXCLUSIVE: Bankrupt Detroit Paid $11.7 Million for Defective Computer System No One Used – @ Today’s Detroit City Council Mtg
Hey, another example of why Detroit is bankrupt.
I just returned from a Detroit City Council meeting, which I attended for a client on legal business before the Council. While I was waiting for that matter to be heard, the Detroit City Council–only two members of which were in attendance–discussed a contract the City had with Compuware for $11.7 million, a total waste of money since the money went for a useless computer system that was never used.
The contract with the City’s Buildings Safety, Engineering, and Environmental Department, was only just discovered by Detroit officials because it was under the radar and approved and paid outside of the regular ways the City does business, for reasons that were not clear. The contract for “information technology services” paid Compuware $11.7 million for some kind of computerized database or system that didn’t work and that, because it didn’t work, nobody used. Councilwoman Brenda Jones, who was chairing the meeting, exclaimed repeatedly what an incredible waste of money that was. Sure was.
After I left the ongoing meeting, I ran into former Detroit City Councilman (and police officer) Gary Brown, appointed as a top deputy to Detroit Emergency Manager Kevin Orr. He and Orr are managing Detroit’s bankruptcy and have far more power these days than the City Council. I told Brown he missed the best part of the meeting–the worthless $11.7 Compuware contract. He asked me what it was about, and I filled him in. I concluded by saying, “and you wonder why Detroit is bankrupt.” “Exactly,” he responded.
Exactly, indeed.
And, as I’ve noted, , bankruptcy–and the eventual emergence therefrom–won’t save the City of Detroit from itself and its bankrupt culture and morals.
***
It’s an interesting coincidence that while I was listening to the City Council dive into the Compuware boondoggle, I was reading the “society” column of The Detroit Newsistan, which gushed over a party for the vanity project coffee book written by Compuware billionaire founder Pete Karmanos’ gold digger wife #3 (or #4–I’ve lost count), “Peter Karmanos: A Life in Progress.” (The book–which no one will buy–has a section on “family,” which I’m sure will not mention the fact that the children in Pete Karmanos family #2 are far younger than their nieces and nephews from Pete Karmanos family #1.) While the rich people of Detroit were living it up over the irrelevant Compuware founder and his “philanthropy,” the company in which he still owns a huge chunk of stock soaked Detroit yet again (the company got huge tax breaks and corporate welfare to move its headquarters to the City).
Karmanos was recently fired from his $600,000 a year do-nothing “consulting” job with Compuware after he attacked the company for catering to shareholders and not the interests of the community. But it seems like both the company and Karmanos are guilty of that.
In any event, the worthless Compuware system is yet another example of the waste that is rife throughout the city–the same waste and corruption that brought the city to its current bankrupt state.
Tags: Brenda Jones, Compuware, Danialle Karmanos, Detroit, Detroit Bankrupt, Detroit Bankruptcy, Gary Brown, Pete Karmanos, Peter Karmanos, Peter Karmanos: A Life in Progress
This article says: “The contract with the City’s Buildings Safety, Engineering, and Environmental Department, was discovered by Detroit officials because it was under the radar and approved and paid outside of the regular ways the City does business, for reasons that were not clear.”
As someone highly experienced in such matters, the reason here is crystal clear: kickbacks, typically paid in cash and dropped off in an envelope. And if those who awarded the contract to Compuware didn’t get at least a 10% kickback, they got less than the norm.
It’s just life in the big city, and by no means limited to Detroit.
Ralph Adamo on October 8, 2013 at 6:08 pm