A source has forwarded me 34 pages worth of documents that make the acquisition of 183 acres in particular suspect to say the least. At the center of this latest scandal is an individual that I am well aware of, Vernon Jones.
These 183 acres of land is known as Arabia Mountain Heritage Area. The area in question belonged to a company by the name of Dekalb Stone Company (later changed OldCastle Materials). They owned a rock quarry that was at the time of the beginning of this affair not in use.
Vernon Jones inquired about acquiring this land for the county's green space initiative. On November 21, 2001, he sent the CEO of the company, Morris Bishop, a letter formally requesting the county acquire the land. In January and then June of 2002, the company responded and informed the county that the land had been grandfathered in and that the company intended to re open the area for one of their quarries.
In April of 2003, (again according to the documentation including a court brief) VJ flew to Washington D.C. and met with Bishop and other big wigs from OldCastle to try and broker a deal to provide the company with land to build a quarry in another area of DeKalb County. This quarry was to be built in an area by what is known as Maddox Road. At roughly this exact time, VJ also goes ahead and invests in 53 acres of land right across the street from the Arabia Mountain Heritage Area. It is of course common knowledge that land is depressed in areas next to rock quarries and Jones pays roughly 500k for this strip of land. (Of course, again, not a bad deal considering he makes just under 100k per year as DeKalb County CEO)
This worked out to be a good deal not only for the county but for the company as well. There was only one hurdle. The new land had to be approved for re zoning. I have already pointed out the corrosive effect of corrupt review processes in the medical profession as well as in academia. The process for the review of this zoning was no less corrupt. The very same folks that were involved in brokering the deal, the DeKalb County Board lead by VJ himself, were the ones in charge of deciding the fate of the zoning action. Since the board, and Jones specifically, had a stake in the successful approval of the application, the whole approval process became nothing more than a sham.
According to the documents I received, the zoning approval came with two corrupt quid pro quos. First, OldCastle agreed to give up its 183 acres of land in Arabia to the green space initiative and second they agreed to pay DeKalb County a total of 8.3 million dollars. Here are snippets of correspondences that I was able to get a hold of...
I would like to reassure DeKalb County of our commitment once our land use permits are granted for the Maddox Road site. It is our commitment to donate the South Goddard Road site (the Arabia Mountains area) to DeKalb County for their greenspace expansion
...
I am pleased to advise you that OldCastle Materials is hereby agreeing to donate #300,000 on or before October 31, 2004 to the development of Rock Chapel Park, located on Rock Chapel Road in DeKalb County
Both these emails were written by Morris Bishop, the CEO of OldCastle, to DeKalb County Commissioner Hank Johnson.
According to a brief filed with the Superior Court of Dekalb County (civil action file no. 03-cv-12396) not only were these quid pro quos never disclosed, but neither were VJ's financial interests in seeing the deal go through. To top it off, the application was rushed through without giving residents of Maddox Road area a proper opportunity to object to a quarry being built in their neighborhood.
All of this might have stayed under the radar had it not been for LaFarge Aggregators, a competing quarry company. Their own application to build a quarry in the same area was bumped so that OldCastle could get their application fast tracked. LaBarge of course wasn't sitting on 183 acres of prime real estate that they could donate to the DeKalb County greenspace project. (They are the plaintiffs in the legal suit)
The 53 acres that Vernon Jones bought in 2004 were then sold by him at the end of 2007 for a cool $770,000, or an almost 50% profit in about three years. Not bad considering where the market was. It goes without saying that upcoming greenspace projects are kept private so that there isn't a run on real estate in those areas. In other words, VJ traded on "inside information" as a result of his position.
Epilogue: To see where Vernon Jones fits into the mess overall at Grady Hospital, please read this summary. Also, please read the recommendations my colleagues and I have come up with for saving Grady Hospital
Mike you might be interested in knowing that two purchases were made with greenspace money for built on property. One is the office park on Memorial Drive next to the jail. This office park is being razed, and the new juvenile court building has been built on the property. The other property was on Flat Shoals Parkway, a church. The church building was then leased to the "Black family channel" for one dollar a year. BFC failed within the year, and the news kept so quiet that the county continued to pay for DSL data lines to the unoccupied building for two years. DCTV and the Arts and culture departments are preparing to move into the building. Your Green space money at work for the county!
ReplyDeletemike, this is old news. Since you are blaming the CEO you also need to blame the commissioners and one of the current commissioners is running for CEO 2008, Burrell Ellis how do you like that?
ReplyDeleteI have mentioned that the entire board was in on the fix, however only Jones profited from the land deal. Furthermore, I have reported on Jones previously and this is a follow up. I have Ellis on my radar.
ReplyDeleteMike:
ReplyDeleteAnother twist to the saga.
Oldcastle doesn't just quarry in Dekalb. It also has a cement fabrication plant in Stone Mountain, on Greer Road. The plant
makes cement drainage pipe and other structures.
Last year the central area of Dekalb around Ponce De Leon saw much going on in the way of drainage improvements. Nearby areas saw road widenings. Next to all of this construction sat cement
structures, all bearing the Old Castle logo. All of this work was funded under a recently passed bond referendum. Old Castle is a publicly traded company, based out of either Ireland or Scotland.
Wouldn't it have been rather lucrative if you happened to have advanced knowledge of what was being built, who was supplying, and to what extent? Kind of makes you want to call your stockbroker,
doesn't it?
What was criminal about the Flat Shoals Church not only being rented to a private Black Family TV channel for $1 a year, was the fact that Vernon Jones ordered the County Facilities Management Dept. to remodel the structure, replace the A/C system and repaint the facility to the leasees specs and install upgraded security system ---ALL ON TAX PAYER MONEY AND NO COST TO THE TV CHANNEL. Sounds crininal too me. Someone should still investigate this misuse of county funds.
ReplyDelete