Alexandria’s new police headquarters. Nothing to see here, move along now.
by James A. Bacon
Virginia political news this summer has been dominated by the GiftGate scandal, as well it should have been — citizens need to hold state elected officials to the highest standards of ethical behavior. “I abode by the letter of the law,” is not a defense. Some things are wrong, even if they are technically legal.
Now, if only the media would apply those lofty ethical standards across the board. A newsworthy case of seeming corruption in Alexandria has gone entirely unnoticed by the mainstream media, including the Washington Post, which campaigned so diligently to expose the sins of Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen. The story came to my attention only because Virginia Lawyers Weekly covered the lawsuit against the City of Alexandria in the first case of the state whistle-blower law passed in 2011. That story was picked up by OldTown Alexandria Patch, and then by PJMedia blogger J. Christian Adams, whose post was linked to by a blog aggregator that I frequently read.
Henry Lewis, a City of Alexandria architect, was project manager for an $80 million police-headquarters construction project. The project was unfolding without incident until Lewis’ boss in the Department of Government Services, Jeremy McPike, got involved. Writes Adams:
Lewis started to notice that Whiting-Turner, the contractor, began submitting suspect invoices for materials stored off-site which hadn’t been verified to actually exist. They started to bill extra for work that should have been covered by the original contract. McPike became actively involved in approving these invoices for phantom materials—totaling over $2 million—which Lewis could not even verify were actually in the City’s possession.
Lewis started raising hell and — to make a long story short — McPike got him fired. An Alexandria jury found that Lewis had been wrongfully terminated, according to the anti-retaliation provisions of the Virginia Fraud against Taxpayers Act, and awarded him $104,000 in back pay. The city is appealing the case.
Adams asks some pointed questions:
Has there been any outrage about McPike by elected officials in Alexandria? Has the dishonest government official been fired? Do the citizens of Alexandria even know or care?
No, no and no.
Has the paper of record for Alexandria, the Washington Post, covered the story of millions do dollars of waste? No, again.
The Washington Post was too busy covering the tight space for animals at a local shelter and seeking pubic input on “building the most insane cheeseburger.”
The wrong-doings of some seem to elicit a lot more outrage than the wrong-doing of others.
