An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings
Dirty Dealings
Records reveal lucrative dealings for mayor’s friend
When it comes to landing City Hall subcontracting jobs, Reginald French has a golden touch — a $1.4 million touch.
A close friend of Mayor Willie Herenton, French has been paid at least that much, and possibly much more, for a variety of jobs, including a particularly fortuitous deal to install fiber-optic cable at two city police stations.
A bud of ol’ Willie’s, eh?
Newly disclosed records tell how French, a onetime prison guard, landed the $68,000 cabling job in 2006 despite lacking experience or equipment for the work.
No experience, no equipment, yet he was given the job? What is wrong with this picture?
Undaunted, French then hired a cable installation firm — for $30,000 — to perform the work.
So, the city could have saved $38,000 if they had just hired the cable installation firm out right? Is it any wonder that cities are getting hard up for cash when they have folks like Harenton in office? Yet, they keep right on voting ‘em in, year after year. Reckon it really is a case of ‘you get what you pay for’.
News of French’s role in the police cabling job comes amid a federal probe exploring connections between Herenton and several associates, including French, who’ve won lucrative City Hall contracts.
Harenton should have lost the last election. Do the people in Memphis not know enough to pour piss out of a boot? Well, Harenton has sure wizzed in their boots, alright.
Memphis attorney Scott Kramer was more loquacious, calling French’s cabling payments unnecessary and wasteful. While apparently legal, French’s involvement in the deal reflects larger concerns involving abuse in city contracts, he said.
Gee. Y’think?
“It appears to us that Reginald doesn’t do anything except pocket money.”
French, who received $1.4 million over a 32-month period ending in March 2006, dismissed Kramer’s assertions, and his suit, as baseless.
“I stand by (my) work,” he said. “I run a legitimate company.”
Where have we heard such claims before? Hmmmm…. Oh yeah….the movie “The Godfather” comes to mind.
Such assertions about French — that he acts as a middleman paid merely to supply city government with computer programmers and others with specialized expertise — have surfaced repeatedly. A Dallas computer-programming consultant claimed last fall that he was told he had to go through French if he wanted city work and that French later cheated him out of $80,000.
And yet, because he is Harenton’s bud, he continues to do business with the city? Hmmm….
“You’ve been on my trail for a long time,” French told a reporter. He was referring to news stories about not only his subcontracting work but his past life as an officer who was fired from the Collierville Police Department and a later role as a criminal defendant found guilty of slitting a rival’s tire.
Must be a Dhimmicrat. They’re known for tire slashing.
Despite that history, French was hired by Herenton as a top City Hall aide who was soon forced to resign following a sexual harassment claim. French became a business consultant selling access to government officials and eventually wore a wire for the FBI’s Atlanta office in a corruption probe there — only to reinvent himself again as the owner of a technology firm with rich success winning subcontracting jobs for the city of Memphis.
You’d think the mayor of a city would choose his ‘friends’ a little more wisely. I wonder if he get kickbacks from these ‘lucrative’ payouts? Just a thought.
Herenton maintains he has pulled no strings for French or anyone else.
Uh huh.
Spending spree
Flush with money through a subcontract with the city of Memphis, Reginald French’s firm, Integrate Technologies, has issued checks paying:
$1,684 to Parker Consulting in 2006 for robo calls, apparently for French’s unsuccessful campaign for Shelby County sheriff.
$700 to a landscaping firm in 2006.
$13,700 for bonuses to himself in 2006.
$5,000 for loans to himself in 2006.
$300 in 2003 as payment to Dewey Clark, a friend who turned government witness and testified against former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell in his 2006 corruption trial.
$250 for an ice sculpture in 2005.
$1,351 for liquor for a party in 2005.
Hey, I don’t know how to do anything. Maybe I can get a job working for the city Memphis, too?
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