6 million in bribe money goes a lonnnng way.

The Gwinnett Daily Post reported that the Gwinnett Board of Ed has purchased a piece of property for a new HQ.

the property had been purchased in 2003 for 6.5 million dollars.

now in late 2004 the BoE paid... wait for it...

$12.5 million. I'm sure there's absolutely nothing underhanded going on here, right?

Just to keep it all in proper context, this is the same school system that decided in 2001 they needed to site an elementary school next to an active landfill, even though two other sites were available.

Excerpts from the story follow.

+++++

Schools to move headquarters to $30M complex


By Jaime Sarrio
jaime.sarrio@gwinnettdailypost.com

SUWANEE — Gwinnett County Public Schools will move its administrative staff to a $30 million building on Old Peachtree Road, Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks said Wednesday.

The building, located near Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road and Interstate 85, sits on 46 acres of land and was occupied by electronics manufacturer Solectron Corp. It has 370,000 square feet of office space and will house about 500 employees who will be relocated from other administrative offices around the county.

The empty offices in Lawrenceville will be converted into classroom space, Wilbanks said.

“This campus will give us the ability for growth,” he said. “We feel very good about it, and we’re glad the board was willing to take care of this long-term need.”

Gwinnett Schools paid $12.5 million for the sprawling complex and will spend about $17.5 million on renovations. The money will come from the voter-approved Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.

Gwinnett County Public Schools announced plans to relocate its administrative offices from Lawrenceville to a $30 million building in Suwanee that will be dubbed the Instructional Support Center.

Solution Property Group Northbrook LLC bought the property in October 2003 for $6.5 million, according to county tax records.

(And I mean no disrespect to actual pussies, feline and otherwise.)

The BoEd Chief, Alvin Wilbanks, had signed off on deliberately falsified school crime reports for several years. When caught, there was sufficient outcry that our county's attourney general Danny Porter was forced to "investigate."

We had such high hopes that these crooks would be spending some time behind bars... but the fix was in. Investigation was dropped.

If you're allowed to lie about crime stats, sign obviously fraudulent documents that painted our school system as being safer and less violent than they really are/were; if you can do that, and hand out sweetheart deals to developer friends for school construction projects, heck, what's another 6 million in a slush fund?

the BoE controls $1.5 billion in revenue, and most Gwinnettians couldn't even name a single board member. I was so desperate I canvassed on behalf of a conservative REPUBLICAN this summer in hopes that at least one honest person who hadn't been bought might serve on the board, but a hand-selected Baptist was running against him in the primarary and won in a landslide.

and the really disgusting thing? Gwinnett's still got the best public school system in Georgia. That's how low the bar is set in this state. People actually move here because of its supposed "excellence." We're the best of the worst. So we tolerate outright thievery and lies.

Oh, and did I mention that Alvin Wilbanks was picked by Bush to help write the federal No Child Left Behind legislation?

that sound you are about to hear is my head exploding.

"$17.5 million on renovations" ????

You have got to be kidding....especially in the context of an elementary school next to a landfill...:puke: