Whistleblower Lawsuit: Concerns about Bobby Ferguson were Ignored
from the Detroit News:
The city's former top civil engineer is suing the city, claiming officials ignored her when she raised red flags over a controversial contract that ultimately led to charges against Bobby Ferguson.
Jessy Jacob filed a whistle-blower lawsuit on Friday, alleging she suffered retaliation in part for talking to FBI agents in late 2009 about her concerns.
...Jacob alleges she sent a letter in 2007 to [the] project manager of the Detroit Building Authority, asking that the contract to Ferguson Enterprises be rebid. She claimed the authority never got her approval for cost estimates or engineering drawings and the contract didn't include a complete accounting of the work to be done.
When FBI agents interviewed her in October 2009, they showed Jacob a copy of her letter ... with the word "disregard" written at the bottom, according to the suit filed in Wayne County Circuit Court.
...The allegations are among several that Jacob claimed led to her firing in January. Shortly before she was removed by Bing, Jacob alleges, she expressed concerns that city engineers weren't qualified to manage federally funded projects.
Jacob, a city employee since 1986, has since been bumped back to a civil-service position as head engineer for design and field services for public projects. The suit claims she was forced to work alone in a vacant storage room without voice mail and isn't copied on department e-mails and memos.
Nothing that Kwame and crew have done surprises me anymore, but this employee alleges that she was terminated by Bing in retaliation for raising concerns about Bobby Ferguson. This would be disconcerting if proven to be true, as it seems odd that Bing would be involved in Kwame-related nonsense.
It's possible that her claim may have merit, and it is also entirely possible that she was fired for unrelated just cause -- and recognizes the benefit of tying the termination to her previously-documented objections to Bobby Ferguson. I'll be interested to see what comes out of this in court testimony as it relates to Bing.
