GRIESHABER BLOWS IT

The Whistle…That Is

Since April 2007, an unquantifiable amount of your tax dollars has been spent chasing a former City Manager for the sum of approximately $15,000. The total amount, even if IRB prevails, cannot be recovered.

Mediation held on November 20th resulted in an impasse. Both parties had the chance to walk away, each bearing their own costs. Neither took the deal. Instead, at the direction of our City Commission, trial is set for the week of April 20th.

Grieshaber’s countersuit is the scariest part of the deal. It includes a whistleblower claim under the False Claims Act, which results when a current or past employee feels that his position has somehow been compromised by bringing illegal deeds to light. To what misdeeds does Grieshaber’s counterclaim refer? Are the unauthorized loans at the crux?

Just hope that IRB doesn’t end up in the City of Detroit’s shoes. In 2008, a jury found Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick guilty of retaliating against a former Deputy Chief for investigating wrongdoing by the mayor’s inner circle. After the case lumbered through the courts for four years, jurors awarded the police $6.5 million after three hours of deliberation. By the time interest and legal costs were added, the figure mushroomed to $8.5 million. The city settled for $8 million with another $400,000+ in legal fees on top of that. The final cost to the City of Detroit--nearly $9 million dollars!

A month before the trial, the city could have settled for $2 million and didn’t on the advice of their city attorneys. According to Sam Riddle, a political consultant and chief of staff, “Had this same deal been made before the trial, the city could have saved millions of dollars.”

University of Michigan law professor Paul Reingold stated, “…putting the case in the hands of a jury also is a gamble…In the end, a jury is unpredictable."

If the City of IRB had bigger coffers right now, it might be worth the gamble. But rolling the dice when the city is allegedly “flat broke” is akin to playing Russian roulette with what’s left of our hard-earned tax dollars. What other services will be cut from the IRB budget to free up more gambling money?

(Note: The trial is scheduled AFTER the March election so that a ruling not in IRB's favor has no chance of reflecting poorly on either of the two incumbent commissioners who voted to move forward--should either or both decide to re-run for their seats.)

Nancy Obarski
Beach Trail/IRB

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