Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: Good Council Call On Airport Audit.
Good council call on airport audit
Anyone who cares knows already the grimy, salacious details of misdeeds at Blue Grass Airport that have been reported in this paper and were confirmed and amplified yesterday by the 200-plus page report of the findings by State Auditor Crit Luallen.
It confirmed years of "excessive, inappropriate and arrogant," spending by a group of five top executives, in addition to outrageous pay increases, a culture of dishonesty and a board and outside auditors who seemed less-than-eager to discover or confront the problems.
As Luallen told the Urban County Council yesterday, there's plenty of blame to go around.
Former Blue Grass Airport executive director Michael A. Gobb and his team went on a number of team-building excursions, including a Richard Petty Driving Experience in June of 2005 that cost more than $7,400. Attendees were (back row, left to right) Gobb, director of administration and finance John Rhodes and director of operations John Coon; (front row, left to right) Debbie Kelly, manager of administration, and John Sloan, director or planning and development.
But there's also some praise to distribute. Most of it goes to the members of the council who voted to ask Luallen's office to examine the airport's financial records after reporter Jennifer Hewlett first detailed excesses in a story in November.
While it seems like an obvious move now, it wasn't a slam dunk at the time. Four council members (Jay McChord and Ed Lane as well as now-former councilmen Dick DeCamp and David Stephens; DeCamp had served on the airport board, Stephens is still on it and Lane recently joined the board) voted against the motion to request the audit, and Mayor Jim Newberry opposed the action, saying the airport board should handle the matter.
What we've learned since is that the board wasn't handling it.
The board was aware Hewlett was looking into airport operations as early as last spring; former board chair Bernie Lovely said yesterday that from February to November of last year the airport "spent an extraordinary amount of money" reviewing former executive director Mike Gobb's expenses. But where was the action?
Even after the first, meticulously reported stories appeared detailing the outlandish spending and compensation, the board circled the wagons and defended Gobb rather than pursue a comprehensive, independent audit.
Newberry argued that the council and mayor should stay out of it "until such time as the board proves that it is unable to effectively manage the airport."
It's not clear how long Newberry would have waited, but it was clear yesterday that any further delay would have been too long.
New airport board chair Robert Owens told the council yesterday that the construction schedule on projects at the airport to get ready for the 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games is so tight "we cannot miss a day."
He said the airport has work to do repairing relations with with the Federal Aviation Administration and the airlines that do business there. Airlines, he noted, "don't want issues," and if they are looking for service to cut in hard economic times they could look to problem airports first.
Asked if the management problems could endanger federal or other funding, Luallen said the critical issue in restoring confidence is to act quickly to address problems that arise.
That's just what a majority of the council did when it was presented with credible questions about activity at a public institution.
Good for them.
Anyone who cares knows already the grimy, salacious details of misdeeds at Blue Grass Airport that have been reported in this paper and were confirmed and amplified yesterday by the 200-plus page report of the findings by State Auditor Crit Luallen.
It confirmed years of "excessive, inappropriate and arrogant," spending by a group of five top executives, in addition to outrageous pay increases, a culture of dishonesty and a board and outside auditors who seemed less-than-eager to discover or confront the problems.
As Luallen told the Urban County Council yesterday, there's plenty of blame to go around.
Former Blue Grass Airport executive director Michael A. Gobb and his team went on a number of team-building excursions, including a Richard Petty Driving Experience in June of 2005 that cost more than $7,400. Attendees were (back row, left to right) Gobb, director of administration and finance John Rhodes and director of operations John Coon; (front row, left to right) Debbie Kelly, manager of administration, and John Sloan, director or planning and development.
But there's also some praise to distribute. Most of it goes to the members of the council who voted to ask Luallen's office to examine the airport's financial records after reporter Jennifer Hewlett first detailed excesses in a story in November.
While it seems like an obvious move now, it wasn't a slam dunk at the time. Four council members (Jay McChord and Ed Lane as well as now-former councilmen Dick DeCamp and David Stephens; DeCamp had served on the airport board, Stephens is still on it and Lane recently joined the board) voted against the motion to request the audit, and Mayor Jim Newberry opposed the action, saying the airport board should handle the matter.
What we've learned since is that the board wasn't handling it.
The board was aware Hewlett was looking into airport operations as early as last spring; former board chair Bernie Lovely said yesterday that from February to November of last year the airport "spent an extraordinary amount of money" reviewing former executive director Mike Gobb's expenses. But where was the action?
Even after the first, meticulously reported stories appeared detailing the outlandish spending and compensation, the board circled the wagons and defended Gobb rather than pursue a comprehensive, independent audit.
Newberry argued that the council and mayor should stay out of it "until such time as the board proves that it is unable to effectively manage the airport."
It's not clear how long Newberry would have waited, but it was clear yesterday that any further delay would have been too long.
New airport board chair Robert Owens told the council yesterday that the construction schedule on projects at the airport to get ready for the 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games is so tight "we cannot miss a day."
He said the airport has work to do repairing relations with with the Federal Aviation Administration and the airlines that do business there. Airlines, he noted, "don't want issues," and if they are looking for service to cut in hard economic times they could look to problem airports first.
Asked if the management problems could endanger federal or other funding, Luallen said the critical issue in restoring confidence is to act quickly to address problems that arise.
That's just what a majority of the council did when it was presented with credible questions about activity at a public institution.
Good for them.
Labels: Corruption, Crime, Punishment
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 12:03 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home