For this Conrad & Dodd sold out all Americans?

For better rates on 4 houses?

By Peyton Wolcott

July 30, 2009

PHOTO:  Senators Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Chris Dodd (D-CT); below, Dodd's  $1 million "cottage" in Ireland which he owns in addition to homes in East Haddam (CT) and Washington, DC.

Despite Democratic Connecticut senator Chris Dodd and North Dakota's Kent Conrad's reassurances that they received no special treatment for their home loans, Countrywide official Robert Feinberg earlier this week testified that just the opposite was true -- unless "VIP loans" suddenly became code for "everybody dive in including America's great unwashed taxpaying masses."

Where's that little inner alarm ringy-dingy thing we're all supposed to come equipped with, the one that goes off when we're in grey territory, like VIP loans from a lender directly affected by key votes on a Senate committee?

And doesn't all this sound strangely familiar? Like recent public education corruption scandals?

The ones where administrators and board members accept money and gifts and favors from their new best friends, district vendors?

Whether our schools are copying DC or vice versa, and regardless of which came first, the chicken or the rotten egg, although the corruption itself is bad enough, salt in the wound is that the amounts proffered and accepted oftimes turn out to have been relatively low and that just as in our nation’s capitol key public schools contracts are often awarded based on surprisingly slim outlays by vendors.

Dallas fishing boat

As one recent example, former Dallas ISD tech director Ruben Bohuchot’s activities appear to have cost his district $150 million in future tech grants not to mention a $750,000 fine -- all for his use of HP vendor Frankie Wong's fishing boat. Although both Ruben and Frankie are serving time in prison, look at the loss to Dallas ISD schoolchildren, staff and taxpayers. According to Tawnell Hobbs in the Dallas Morning News, "Since 2005, Dallas schools have been frozen out of participating in the Federal Communications Commission's E-Rate program during the lengthy investigation. It's unclear how many millions of potential technology dollars DISD lost out on during that time."

The FBI in PA: no laughing matter

Shades of kidney-selling New Jersey rabbis and mayors: Is there any aspect of politics including public schools in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania untouched by corruption? On May 29, former Pittstown superintendent Ross Scarantino pleaded guilty to accepting $5,000 in February 2008 in exchange for his influence on the awarding of school district contracts worth millions of dollars; just two weeks earlier, former Wilkes-Barre board president Jim Height resigned abruptly in the face of an FBI charge that he accepted a $2,000 bribe. (See grey box at www.PeytonWolcott.com for the lengthy list of FBI activities in that area since January.)

19 trustees, 3 El Paso districts

Earlier this month Bob Jones, a former El Paso "Entrepreneur of the Year," admitted tearfully in court that for years he bribed or conspired with 19 other people to make sure his health insurance company would be the provider for both El Paso County and the El Paso, Ysleta and Socorro school districts. Bob's arrest and trial serve as a veritable road map for those interested in tracking examples of unchecked opportunism coupled with federal taxpayer dollars awarded too freely with too little oversight.

One of the 19 was Salvador Marcos "Sal" Mena, a 14-year veteran of the El Paso ISD school board who served as its president; earlier this year Sal pleaded guilty to accepting a $5,000 bribe on a contract involving $1.5 million in Medicaid payments and accompanying software that never worked.

Following Sal's indictment and not guilty plea last fall he apparently attempted suicide after which he changed his mind and a new arraignment was issued to allow him to enter his guilty plea in February; read the U.S. Department of Justice press release at the link here www.PeytonWolcott.com.

Local attempts at humor aside, the breadth of the FBI's El Paso-area investigation has been stunning; although such luminaries as state senator Eliot Shapleigh have not yet been mentioned in any aspect of the FBI's ongoing investigation, Paso Del Sur notes the $2250 Eliot received from former Access CEO Frank Apodoca; Frank is another prominent local citizen on the FBI probe list. There's also the ongoing HUD/OIG investigation of the El Paso Empowerment Zone. And at one point then-Ysleta ISD superintendent Hector Montenegro and YISD trustees plus others, including El Paso ISD supe Lorenzo Garcia, were all summoned to appear before a special grand jury impaneled 550 miles away in San Antonio. One of the latest casualties is District Court Judge Manuel J. Barraza, charged with taking money and sexual favors as bribes; he was arrested by the FBI in April and his trial is set for November 2. Now in doubt are 100 drug-related dismissals by Barraza.

How far will the FBI be allowed to go?

Depends on DC. If I were an FBI agent or executive, given the new tenor in Washington set by Attorney General Eric Holder's abrupt dismissal of the November 4, 2008 voting day intimidation by nightstick-wielding Black Panthers in Philadelphia, I'd be tempted to back off and lie low/go slow, hope for a more equitable outcome in 2012.

BOTTOM LINE: In all of these cases, including Senators Dodd and Conrad, public officials accepting money and gifts and favors for any reason hurt every one of us. Not only do their actions drive up our taxes unnecessarily but also they contribute to a culture of corruption we don't want our kids exposed to.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Because politics is local and school politics is localer,* ask questions locally, at your own school district and/or of your own state or national politicians. Please remember to be nice about it -- and ask the best questions you can, the ones that the majority of your community can rally behind you on. Such situations as these described above only exist because too many of us sat back and said nothing. I would not ask you to do anything I wouldn't do myself. Awkward as it is, I am asking questions of my own self-described conservative U.S. Senator, John Cornyn. Please, come join me. You'll have fun and sleep better knowing you've done something genuinely effective.

* Attributed to former Texas Speaker Gib Lewis

** Links and illustrations here www.PeytonWolcott.com

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Journalist/activist Peyton Wolcott founded the nation’s online grassroots check register movement for public schools in October 2006 and publishes the only daily U.S. conservative public ed commentary. She lives in Horseshoe Bay, Texas.