Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Matthews Arrested - Part I

I'm still not finished with the 69-page Grand Jury report on the fall of Montgomery County Commissioner Jim Matthews, but I just had to stop and write this post. I really appreciate the way the report is written. In the report are words like stunned, unbelievable, and a cadre of others to describe their take on the shennanigans taking place in our county government. Here's just a couple to get you started on. I'm sure there will be several posts to follow, but thought we should get the conversation going with a couple of particularly good nuggets.
First, the CBIZ contract. We believe it was pay to play all along, and still do, and yet our state laws are written in such a way that even the Grand Jury couldn't come up with charges. CBIZ is the consultant for the county's healthcare services. They were awarded a no-bid contract, and subsequently deposited more than $20K into Matthews campaign coffers. But that's not all. G. Fred DiBona sat on the committee that was formed to oversee the applicants for the contract, which was awarded to Blue Cross/Blue Shield. DiBona's father was the former CEO of Blue Cross.
And the second one I'll throw out today is the county's head of Human Resources, Eleanor Schneider, who was promoted to the position by Matthews. Schneider, as we pointed out on several occasions, was Matthews secretary and not even remotely qualified to be director of Human Resources. The Grand Jury apparently believes the same, "We find that she is not qualified for a position of such importance."
Stay tuned. I'll dig into it some more soon.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

why not post the grand jury report on line so everyone can read it and enjoy your commnets

Unknown said...

Trying to get a PDF copy. Will put it up as soon as possible.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

You mention shenanigans. Guess the shananigans of Castor crying foul all the time and not growing up and doing the business he was elected to do wasn't enough for his protegee to arrest him, too? Risa is on a witch/warlock hunt b/c she was told to cut her bloated staff like all the other departments. I hope the new commissioners will rein in her arrogance along with Castor.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, why not just post the report. If you are reading it, convert it to a pdf and be done with it. Also, unlike the first poster, I won't enjoy your comments because of your biased opinions. You might as well put up a tea party flag on your building because anyone that tries to compromise with the other side is the enemy according to you, Lisa Mossie and Christine (I'm not a witch) Odonnell.

Anonymous said...

Stan, we've been saying this all along about Eleanor Schneider. They changed the educational requirements (needed a college degree) to a dummied down version of just a HS diploma. Clearly she is not qualified for this position. And Eleanor's husband working at the Transportation Dept. Definitely nepotism there. Maza also needs to go.

Keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

Nepotism? What about Castor riding on his mentor's coat-tails and Ferman riding on Castor's with all that money from mobsters and crooks. Manilla was a felon and got off, then killed a man with an illegal gun. Marino let him off and Castor let off a guy who then gave him money for his campaign. Quid Pro Quo anyone? Risa has skeletons in her closet too.

Ashamed Republican said...

We sure have come a long way since the Courthouse was ruled by Bartle and Linker. They both had class and integrety, I am ashamed to be Republican in this county today, hopefully the Democrats have some class and integrety and will work to make us proud to live in Montgomery County again. Castor had better work to improve things or he will be the next one to get the axe. Goodbye Miller, Heffel, and Matthews, take the stink out of the courthouse when you leave!

Ashamed Republican said...

We sure have come a long way since the Courthouse was ruled by Bartle and Linker. They both had class and integrety, I am ashamed to be Republican in this county today, hopefully the Democrats have some class and integrety and will work to make us proud to live in Montgomery County again. Castor had better work to improve things or he will be the next one to get the axe. Goodbye Miller, Heffel, and Matthews, take the stink out of the courthouse when you leave!

Anonymous said...

The Teapublicans have done it again!They have taken things down to the wire, nearly shutting down government to get what they want. Have these GOP/TP idiots learned nothing from the S&P downgrade of our credit rating? Have these GOP/TP hypocrites not learned a damn thing about "uncertainty" in our economy?

What these Teapublican losers haven't learned is that this short-term emergency measure is going to keep their treasonous behavior in the news. You right-wing jerks, don't you realize this will allow for another two months of exposing you for being the anti-democracy and middle class obstructionists that your are?

Have at it Dems -- crank it up. Let's talk non-stop about how the Teapublicans are protecting the 300,000 rich folk from a measly 3% surtax AFTER the first million of income, instead of helping the struggling middle class in this time of crisis. YES let's keep this in the news every single day for the next two months! And NO, I don't wish congress a Merry Christmas. I hope Teapublicans choke on their Christmas dinner while poor children go hungry in this once great nation of ours. They need to all be fired and Castor and Ferman need to get pink slips too.