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Community Corner

INERTIA, INEPTITUDE OR POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY GOVERNMENT?

"HOW IS THE OCTOPUS INVOLVED AGAIN?"

Members of the school board, Prince George's County, MD elected officials, their staff and county employees are still guilty of fostering the myth (misinformation) that "The Octopus" holds certain "elected" offices in one or more civic associations, when in truth, nothing could be further from the truth. A search of state, county and local news databases reveals that "The Octopus" is the 'self appointed head' of one or more non-chartered associations getting money and support from the county to the detriment of other organizations or citizens. 

News reports and other local sources say, she was actually forced out of the chartered association she is most constantly associated with, the Suitland Civic Association, for failure to produce certain requested or required documentation.

Forget that Prince George's County schools have been ranked last or next to last in the state for too long and then some, while various school board/educational system members supported "The Octopus", forget that Jack Johnson was being investigated and or tried for political corruption around the same time "The Octopus" resigned or was forced out of office, forget that we have a new 'Office of Accountability' that is so underfunded we can expect nothing of substance will be accomplished in the near future.....let's just focus on a question of how $10,000 became(?) millions flowing thru "The Octopus" almost overnight and without any apparent accountability by the county.

The officers of the Suitland Civic Association, those who followed the resignation of "The Octopus", have been involved in a protracted effort with the county to obtain documentation of financial grants or resources made available to the Suitland Civic Association, the Suitland Citizens Association and/or other entities (such as the Family Life and Technology Learning Center) that were spun off by officers or members of the association during the tenure of "The Octopus", to no avail. Over a year ago one of the chief financial officers for the county executive said this documentation was ready and available but as the dollar amounts added up he began to sing a different tune. In fact, on a matter not related to "The Octopus", as far as we now know, he had more than a little difficulty responding to a request from a Washington Post reporter and the Suitland Civic Association concerning a recent sum of about $5MM dollars allocated to the purchase, renovation and sale of homes by the Redevelopment Authority.

Back to $10K becoming millions - the county states attorney said there was no criminal activity related to a $10K check returned to the county by "The Octopus" during the transition in the SCA administrations; seniors at Windsor Crossing said the county allocated almost $200K for a wrought iron fence around their facility but all they got was some cheap aluminum painted black; an old Suitland Civic Association newsletter from 2003/2004 was found containing information that the Suitland Community Development Center had received funding in the amount of $2,773,537 to be used for the Suitland Technology Center and Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Program; and to top it all off, that first puff of smoke, the failure to locate any active chartered entity by any of those names in the state records.
 
We can agree to disagree, but where there is smoke most likely there is also fire. Some are still bestowing favors on or showing deference to "The Octopus", and/or her associates, because of inertia or the fact that some habits are very hard to break. Most would say there is no crime in that, unless taxpayer funds are being abused. It's no crime, to my knowledge, if an worker is an incompetent screw up. It's on the supervisor or employer to correct that situation.

Perhaps this is a case of one county employee covering up for a predecessors failure to check the standing of an entities charter before cutting a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars year after year. Maybe the law doesn't require a civic organization to be formally organized in order to receive taxpayer funding but there should be some sort of formal accountability.

Ineptitude in itself is no crime unless certain rules or conditions are brought into play. For the counties elected and appointed officials to stonewall repeated honest requests for information, whether by making the online process difficult and/or impossible to navigate or follow to an actionable end item, whether by making themselves scarce at scheduled meetings or by delaying the full production of documentation involved in the requests, it smacks of someone trying to run out the clock on some particular statute of limitations while covering up a potential misuse of our tax dollars.

In some circles this is much ado about nothing, less than ten million over ten plus years, but in Prince George's County with its reputation of being pay to play,  if found to be true, it is quite possibly a continuation of political corruption in local government.

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