Related: Oakland County leader again evades WXYZ as taxpayers raise their own questions<\/a><\/p>\nOakland County leader again evades WXYZ as taxpayers raise their own questions<\/p>\n
Now we\u2019ve learned that the two commissioners who presented the Automobile Theft Prevention Authority Grant acceptance to the commission in September, also went on what several county leaders say was another undisclosed trip.<\/p>\n
The 7 Investigators have learned Chair Woodward and Public Health and Safety Committee Chair Commissioner Penny Luebs (D-Clawson) flew to Chicago to visit Motorola headquarters one week before the auto theft grant vote.<\/p>\n
But when 7 Investigator Heather Catallo caught up with Commissioner Luebs to ask about her trip to the Windy City, Luebs seemed to have a hard time remembering the details.<\/p>\n
In the video below watch 7 Investigator Heather Catallo’s full interview with Commissioner Luebs<\/p>\n
Investigator Heather Catallo’s full interview with Commissioner Luebs<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you not disclose that before the vote?\u201d asked Catallo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn’t go before the vote,\u201d said Comm. Luebs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen did you go?\u201d asked Catallo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t remember. I’d have to look at my calendar,\u201d said Luebs.<\/p>\n
According to others in attendance, the trip took place on Thursday, September 10th and Friday, September 11th\u2014 a full week before the September 17th board vote.<\/p>\n
A sheriff\u2019s official confirms that on September 10th Woodward, Luebs and the Oakland County Undersheriff all flew to Chicago, spent the day at Motorola Headquarters, then went to a dinner hosted by Motorola, stayed overnight in a hotel, and flew home the next morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was the technology you were looking at?\u201d asked Catallo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were looking at how they do business,\u201d said Luebs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d asked Catallo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they do, how they started out with computers, telephones, handhelds,\u201d said Luebs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you specifically see then?\u201d asked Catallo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe history of Motorola,\u201d said Luebs.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the purposes of the county, what technology were you looking at?\u201d asked Catallo.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow Motorola does business,\u201d said Luebs.<\/p>\n
Chair Woodward also would not answer any specific questions about the Motorola trip and would not return calls and text messages from the 7 Investigators. No one answered the door at Woodward\u2019s home, which is also the address of his consulting business, Woodward & Associates L.L.C.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office has been very transparent, telling the 7 Investigators their official agreed to go on the trip that Chair Woodward organized so they can compare Motorola\u2019s products in order to get the best equipment for their deputies and get the best deal for the taxpayers.<\/p>\n
The OCSO also confirmed Motorola paid for their overnight trip to the company\u2019s headquarters, as well as meals.<\/p>\n
Getting a straight answer about who paid for the trip for the two county commissioners has not been easy. Neither commissioner\u2019s expense reports submitted in September show any receipts from the Chicago trip. Commissioner Woodward has not denied that Motorola Solutions paid for the trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho invited you on the trip?\u201d asked Catallo.
\u201cChair [Dave Woodward],\u201d said Luebs.
\u201cWho paid for the flight?\u201d asked Catallo.
\u201cAs far as I know right now, Dave [Woodward] paid for my flight,\u201d said Luebs.
\u201cPersonally?\u201d asked Catallo.
\u201cAsk Dave. I did not ask,\u201d said Luebs.
\u201cSo why wouldn’t you ask that kind of question?\u201d asked Catallo.
\u201cThat was a quick overnight trip to see Motorola headquarters,\u201d said Luebs.
\u201cThese are people that get multi-million-dollar contracts with the county. So, is it appropriate for commissioners to be attending these?\u201d asked Catallo.
\u201cI think if we want to know how a business works, how ethical they are and how they do business, you do have to meet with them,\u201d said Luebs.
\u201cShouldn\u2019t you disclose it, though,\u201d asked Catallo.
\u201cIt wasn’t a secret,\u201d said Luebs.
\u201cDid you tell anyone that you went?\u201d asked Catallo.
\u201cI really haven’t seen anybody yet,\u201d said Luebs<\/p>\n
But a week after the 9\/10\/26 trip, Commissioner Luebs had seen the entire commission and faced the public during the September 17th board meeting where she voted yes on the grant that allocates more money to Motorola.<\/p>\n
The 7 Investigators asked several commissioners if they knew about the trip. None of the commissioners who returned our calls were aware of the trip, including Democratic caucus member Yolonda Smith Charles (D-Southfield). Smith Charles confirmed that Woodward and Luebs did not disclose the Motorola trip prior to the board meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t see anything wrong with what Commissioners Luebs and Woodward did in terms of traveling. I do think that making the board aware is always a good idea, especially under these very difficult times,\u201d said Smith Charles, who voted no because of the surveillance technology included in the grant.<\/p>\n
Democrats Kristen Nelson (D-Waterford) and Charlie Cavell (D-Ferndale) said they were not told about the trip prior to the approval of the auto theft grant prevention grant. Neither were several Republican commissioners the 7 Investigators spoke with.<\/p>\n
Other Democratic caucus members we contacted refused to return calls and text messages including Brendan Johnson (D-Rochester Hills), Ann Erickson Gault (D-Troy), and Gwen Markham (D-Novi).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s disappointing that again, this pattern of lack of transparency seems to be the norm right before important votes,\u201d said Troy resident Mike Flores.<\/p>\n
Flores attends nearly every board of commissioners meeting and has been an outspoken critic of how Chair Woodward has handled several county contracts. Flores also helped lead the recent failed recall effort against Woodward with the group ‘I Am Oakland County.’<\/p>\n
Flores was at the September 17th commission meeting and did not know about the Motorola trip until the 7 Investigators told him about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s extremely important to understand what kind of interaction these vendors are having with our commissioners, who’s paying for those visits, and are those visits really influencing the decisions that our commissioners are making. Again, if there’s nothing to fear, why not disclose?<\/p>\n
As the 7 Investigators previously reported, Chair Woodward owns a consulting company where he works with several businesses that he won\u2019t disclose. That\u2019s why government ethics experts say it’s critical that taxpayers know about Woodward\u2019s interactions with county vendors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s the appearance of impropriety. Why are you there, is the major question… Ethics is the key to any organization. And ethics starts from the tone from the top,\u201d said Brendan Dunleavy, the former Auditor General for Wayne County.<\/p>\n
Dunleavy says commissioners taking vendor-sponsored trips should not be allowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t have to fly to Chicago to do it. You don’t have to eat the steak dinner. You don’t have to drink the bottle of wine. You can sit there and find out what you need to know over a Zoom call,\u201d said Dunleavy.<\/p>\n
The 7 Investigators sent several emails to the Motorola Solutions communications team, as well as text messages and phone calls. When we finally got a communications manager on the phone to ask about this trip, she hung up on us.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile after weeks of asking for information, Commissioner Woodward finally sent us a written statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the most important responsibilities of the Board is to make informed decisions on behalf of our 1.3 million Oakland County residents, which requires an in-depth understanding of issues placed before us. This includes when the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office is facing aging emergency response equipment such as body cameras, dash cams and emergency radios.<\/p>\n
For more than 20 years, Motorola has been an important partner in this space. We attended a day-long meeting with the undersheriff to discuss the potential new equipment to meet our needs and ensure our officers have the best tools they need to serve residents and keep our communities safe.<\/p>\n
My colleagues and I will continue to research and understand the best possible solutions while being responsible stewards of resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
More information from other counties about vendor-paid travel:<\/p>\n
A commission spokesman told us: “While the Wayne County Commission does not formally have a policy that prohibits such travel, it is expressly understood that any potential vendor paid travel for Commissioners or their staff would be inappropriate. Moreover, to our knowledge no Commissioners or staff have previously attended any trips paid for by any vendor.”<\/p>\n
Macomb County has an ethics policy that does not allow vendor-sponsored travel.<\/p>\n
If you have a story for Heather Catallo please email her at hcatallo@wxyz.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(WXYZ) \u2014 Questions are being raised again about the Oakland County Board of Commissioners Chair taking an out-of-state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[14634,143,145,144,14635,14636,4552,14637],"class_list":["post-502847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-heather-catallo","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-ross-jones","tag-the-investigators","tag-wxyz","tag-wxyz-investigations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}