20 April 2018

True Story: City Officials + Real Estate Developers Get Stung in FBI Undercover Investigation

Your MesaZona blogger missed 'the buzz' about this one sent by an unidentified source from August of last year, but did bookmark it for future reference just in case too many similar coincidences tended to bumble together and start to get sticky here. Let's get it all out and on the table.
There's one difference though - things just don't get sticky here in Mesa when you have the same group of people and friends-in-high places acting as a monopoly in almost everything including government and politics, the media, finance, insurance and real estate in multiple jurisdictions. 
They've run the show for generations. The public doesn't care, getting effectively un-engaged and not involved.
That's easy-to-do when no one cares. When someone does care, gets interested and starts asking questions, there's always a way to deal with it: keep it off the radar screen, create a fog around it, or make it a non-issue somehow. . .  or say 'it's just the way-we-do-things' until the game gets disrupted or busted-up.
Much too frequently, entrenched corruption has a self-perpetuating life of its own for the chosen few with the right friends-and-family affiliations.
Add religion to the mix and the faithful benefit.
The tattle-tale of two cities (the other name of one is revealed farther on in this post) involves what you see in the inserted image to the left: money, real estate, city officials and city government.
Now remember that the City of Mesa formed an Ad Hoc Downtown Vision Committee whose members were nominated by Mayor John Giles to create a vision for the transformation of downtown. What we got instead are unsolicited developer proposals.
HERE'S A FEW CLUES THAT MIGHT MAKE THIS TWICE-TOLD TALE LOCAL
Reference Points: Site 17, Brown & Brown Chevrolet/Auto Nation, Community Facilities Districts, Bogus ASU Satellite Campus in 2016 General Election, Southwest RDA + Expansion into Central Business District + GPLETS, Recent MOUs and IGAs with Unsolicited Developer Proposals, Innovation Districts and Opportunity Zones, Land Annexations by The City of Mesa
The story line for the other city goes like this - let's call it 'The Honey-Trap' set by the FBI.
1. A rich developer comes to town willing to spend millions to revitalize downtown as the city ached to rebrand itself as a place open for business, spinning his grand plans to redevelop under-used blocks of land in the shadow of a major existing asset.
2. He met with local city officials, hot-shot developers, burgeoning ranks of up-and-coming entrepreneurs all the time wooing the town’s politicians over lunches and dinners.
3. He got into what appears to be a massive, multi-year investigation of local politicians, their friends and millions of dollars in taxpayer redevelopment money. In the crosshairs may be some of the state's most ambitious political climbers, including its mayor, who has his sights set on the Governor’s Mansion.
4. Whispers of corruption - and 'Crony-Capitalism' and 'The Old Boys' Network - are commonplace in the one-degree-of-separation governments in between adjoining cities and towns, teeming with the loyal faithful, lobbyists and public relations firms, academic professors and political sophisticates, where local officials can barely keep an arms-length from those who seek to influence them. Over the years, rumored FBI investigations have come and gone without any charges.
5. Public corruption is the FBI’s chief criminal investigative priority and is something it does very well; they've got the money, resources and agents to do it and the people who understand the crime. Local governments are more vulnerable to corruption, because there are fewer eyes watching. Payments typically don’t need to go through the same approval process required at the state and federal level.
6. Really corrupt politicians deal in straight cash, but many others are willing to sell votes or other government services for surprisingly little money, and can involve city contracts, jobs, campaign contributions,appointments to boards and commissions that approve actions and membership in the Chamber of Commerce.
7. One boots-on-the-ground FBI tactic > Undercover agents are taught to ask questions and present problems for suspects to solve. The developer wanted to build outside the local redevelopment zone - who could help him get the boundaries expanded?
8. Many liaisons were facilitated by a local lobbyist, as well as others with county and city officials . . . Following years of meetings and input from government planners, the FBI sting operation got what it wanted - the redevelopment agency, made up of members of both the city and the county commissions, voted on an in-the-works plan to expand - as it happened, incorporating the land he sought to develop.
9. Some of most prominent politicians the city has ever produced are the most likely to feel political ramifications of the FBI investigation.
10. Many targets of the FBI Sting: people and companies that have been ethical thorns, campaign managers and treasurers, friends and family who reaped financial windfalls getting millions in public money to redevelop old city buildings, and groups of mostly-secret private investors mixing business, politics and friendship.
The city was accustomed to talk of the feds coming to town. Both the former mayor and school superintendent were investigated by the FBI in recent years. Nothing came of either case. . . .But in a town where cozy relationships and intertwined business interests have long fueled corruption conspiracy theories, the wide scope of the latest probe suggests it’s not a matter of if, but when charges will come down.   > He turned out-to-be an FBI agent who had a 25-member staff including undercover agents, intelligence analysts, an airplane, covert vehicles, surveillance equipment and investigative techniques
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FBI agents went undercover in Florida's capital for the 'biggest investigation in years'
by Sean Rossman  Published 4:31 p.m. ET Aug. 14, 2017 | Updated 12:22 p.m. ET Aug. 16, 2017

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East Valley bribery indictment may be tip of iceberg, feds say
"Federal prosecutors are offering to tell East Valley defendants in the Corporation Commission bribery case who and what else they’re investigating – but only if they agree not to share that information with anyone else.
The proposal, made in a new court filing, comes as attorneys for former utility regulator and former Mesa legislator Gary Pierce, his wife Sherry, lobbyist Jim Norton, and Pinal County water company owner George Johnson seek details of the FBI inquiry that led to their indictment in May on multiple federal charges. The lawyers say they need that information to prepare their defense for the Oct. 3 trial
. . . But in communications with defense attorneys, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frederick Battista, who is leading the legal team, said he does not want to tip off those other targets – targets that could include not only other current or former members of the Arizona Corporation Commission but potentially executives at Arizona Public Service Co. . . "
Link > http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/arizona/politics/east-valley-bribery-indictment-may-be-tip-of-iceberg-feds/article_637acd10-7180-11e7-8737-b78bf4674a65.html


















However, 'business-as-usual' in another city got disrupted








  

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