Posts Tagged ‘Racism’

Townes

Michael Townes was protected in the operation of corrupt Hampton Roads Transit Authority by his black ‘posse’ of supporters who knew of his incompetence.  Knew he was incapable of running HRT and the light rail project.

The posse knew months before the HRT board found out that Townes had overspent his budget by $108 MILLION.  They knew it was behind schedule

They said nothing in circling the light rail project to protect the man because ‘he was a black brother,” inside sources have said.

“…the makeup of the board was heavily in favor of Michael despite the evidence.  I will leave it to you to guess why… facts unimportant to them and they had enough votes to keep him on,” VNS learned.

As we have always said about Townes, he rallies the posse at the least hint of a threat to him or of any criticism of his mis-management style.  The black posse’s role was to support his yelps of ‘racism’ as the excuse to cover his problems and inadequate ability to handle the job.

It wasn’t until after the $108 MILLION overrun was made public and officials began to take heat through the media that they were able to override the black posse who stood with Townes to the end.

Sources told VNS that Norfolk Mayor Fraim, Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms and the city manager of Norfolk threatened to pull the plug on the entire project that the HRT board was able to force Townes out.

Why did he get his ‘black’ parachute of about $180,000 for a year?   Because he had a tightly written clause in his contract.

The HRT board was afraid to fire him because it felt that he would go public with his racism charge and take them to court.

He’d keep ‘good blackmail book’ on what he considered racist slights and the board felt it would cost more to fight him in court for the rights of citizens than it would to pay him off for a year.

Other officials said he should have been fired for malfeasance, misfeasance or investigated for criminal activity.  Under this scenario, the contract and ‘black’ parachute clause would have been null and void.

One official said, for the above reasons, “We were very fortunate to strike the deal we did.”

It was said, “Unfortunately, he had a severance clause that was air tight.  Although it may sink in the throat, sometimes just paying the severance is cheaper than a court case. He will never again have credibility, I fear.”

While no one disputes his value in turning HRT into a professionally managed agency, X-VDOT chief Phil Shucet took Townes’ job at $336,000 a year, adding to the already costly venture.

Here we are paying an incompetent $180,000 to get out, Shucet $336,000 to come in, and the project is sitting on a $108 MILLION cost overrun.  If this is good government policy, we’d hate to see what bad government would cost and bring us!

The original documents whereby HRT applied for and got grants of $25 and $50 MILLION, respectively from the state and federal government – leaves Norfolk responsible for all cost overruns:  One reason why it is trying to suck Virginia Beach into to project – to help minimize its loss exposure due to the mismanagement of the corrupt agency.

The original documents whereby HRT applied for and got grants of $25 and $50 MILLION, respectively, from the state and federal government – leaves Norfolk responsible for all cost overruns:  One reason why it is trying to suck Virginia Beach into to project – to help minimize its loss exposure due to the mismanagement of the corrupt agency.

Crying ‘racist’ is a familiar tactic.

Townes yelled like a harpooned sea lion in Nov. 2002, after VNS reported he’d spent $50,000 in tax funds to provide free bus rides to the polls for a transportation referendum.  (See:  http://www.veritas-solus.com/VNS/Archive/axtax_hrt.htm )

He plastered the buses with illegal campaign signs promoting the referendum which would have resulted in a 22% tax hike.

Most of HRT’s ridership is black, but Townes joined Norfolk councilman Randy (I should have had an abortion instead of giving birth to Light Rail) Wright.

VNS reported that normally politicians, primarily Democrats, give blacks a half pint of whiskey and a $5 bill to sell their votes.

Townes didn’t confront VNS personally (in fact no HRT employee would speak for the record), but he called a now-deceased, but at the time rabid black legislator to attack VNS as being racist.

But after it was pointed out that the VNS editor had worked for a congressman and knew of what he spoke, the vocal squealers shut up.  Didn’t want to expose many of the political control tactics they used to control lesser educated black voters.