Monday, July 19, 2010

Madison County Board of Supervisors sues MDOT. MDOT to Supes: Try again.

The Madison County Board of Supervisors sued MDOT, MDOT Executive Director Larry Brown, and MDOT Commissioner Dick Hall for $20 million in damages on June 4, 2010.  Madison County accuses the defendants of breaching a Memorandum of Understanding that bound MDOT to provide $6 million to Madison County for the construction of the Reunion Parkway interchange with I-55.  Madison County alleged MDOT issued a different set of conditions in January for receipt of the funds. The complaint states the purpose of the new guidelines was to provide "MDOT with more control of the project." The lawsuit was filed by County Attorney Eric Hamer.

The defendants filed the typical answer: deny, deny, deny, admit, admit, deny most defendants file in such cases. MDOT filed a Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim on July 2, 2010. MDOT claims according to state law, only MDOT can be served with a lawsuit and if served, such process must be served upon the Secretary. Madison County served Attorney General Jim Hood with the complaint. None of the defendants were served through MDOT (page 2 of the attached file). MDOT also asked for the Court to make Madison County pay court costs and attorney's fees for defending against this complaint.

If Hamer screwed up serving the lawsuit, it would be interesting to see how much of his bill is paid by the County. Copy of complaint and motion to dismiss.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting how Madison County wants to enforce a Memorandum of Understanding against MDOT on Reunion Parkway interchange, yet they won't agree to comply with the Memorandum of Understanding they had with Parkway East Public Improvement District. Eric Hamer himself recommended to the Board of Supervisors not to comply with the Memorandum of Understanding, and innocent tax payers were left holding the bag.

Anonymous said...

Awfully funny we have never heard anything about the audit. Those good ole boys run deep, but let's just see when it all unravels or will it? Notice they thought they had Butch Brown in their back pocket but wonder if it has hit them yet Butch is literally who they sued and this could be the straw that broke the camel's back!

John said...

Hamer didn't file the lawsuit. Doug Minor at Bradley Arant did. Hamer's listed as of counsel, but Minor signed it All the motion says is that MTC is the proper party. The 120 days for service of process hasn't run. MTC can still be served. It was named as a party. No big deal. No attorney's fees will be awarded.

Kingfish said...

I know that. I was being a smartass.

Anonymous said...

Madison County is soooooooo dirty! Ask them how much they chipped in on the pretty bricked exit ramp. They said they were gonna pick up the tab..................and then they got the tab!! Dirty, dirty, dirty, the poor tax payers for the whole state bought us the pretty(EXPENSIVE) bricks. It get's brought up every year the legislature meets.....................

Madison County has a STORM headed its way right now!!! I hope they all go to JAIL. Dirty cops, DIRTY DIRTY Mayor........Chief..........etc!

Anonymous said...

@11:07, While I agree that there is definitely something rotten in Denmark at the County level, namely with the BOS, Engineer and Attorney. I have not seen anything that screams corruption to me in Madison and Ridgeland governments. Yes, the bricks were a lot, but in all fairness, the city did use the money from the landscape portion of the project to pay for the bricks. While there are many things that I do not agree with that the two cities do, I do not believe that we have out and out corruption at that level. Time will tell, and if there is, they need to be removed from office, prosecuted to the fullest, and sent to jail for a long time. NOW, the Board of Supervisors, HOLY CRAP, is this bunch dirty! Tim (Elvis) Johnson, Karl Banks, Rudy Warnock, Eric Hamer. These dipshits have gone and sued MDOT, now I hope and pray that Dick Hall will hand their ass to them when in the discover phase they will have to prove what their actual damages were and they start delving into Rudy's contracts, and the subs and what they were paid versus what he billed the county! Then 'we the people' need to file a class action law suit against the BOS for Breach of Fiduciary Duty to the tax payers of Madison County! Wouldn't that be nice to see these dumbasses picking up paper with a convict work crew along the side of one the roads that they engineered and built!

Anonymous said...

There has also long been " something rotten in Denmark" at MDOT.

We need either one elected highway commissioner or make this part of the executive branch.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I agree totally about MDOT! That is a great point and I wasn't trying to leave them out! I think if you simply looked at Butch Brown's son, who sells bonds for a living and look at the deals that he has been involved in and what percentage of those deals revolved around MDOT projects OR county projects in counties where daddy is tight with the BOS members, someone might just have some problems with it all! I believe that Butch's son was involved with the East Parkway in Madison County. I just really wish that someone would look into it ALL!

Anonymous said...

MDOT Executive Director, Butch Brown, arrested this morning for Public Drunkenness and Disorderly Conduct... see articles and mug shot picture at Mississippi Business Journal....

http://msbusiness.com/

and...
Today Mississippi Business Journal reporter Clay Chandler broke the news that the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation was arrested at the Beau Rivage casino in Biloxi for public drunkenness.

Larry L. “Butch” Brown Sr. didn’t just publicly embarrass himself and disgrace the state of Mississippi. He followed his misdemeanor with lying to an MBJ reporter, denying that the incident occurred.

Brown should resign. Our public officials should be held to a high standard of conduct.

Brown was appointed to his MDOT position by the three Mississippi Transportation Commissioners. He was confirmed by the state Senate in 2009. He has three years left before his term expires. Central District Transportation Commissioner Dick Hall opposed Brown’s appointment.

The three Commissioners can vote to terminate Brown at any time with a majority vote. It’s time they do that.

Anonymous said...

I do hope something happens to the closed society in Madison and the corruption is exposed. I have attorneys on speed dial in my case. It would be a fine day for the clubhouse to be disassembled.

Anonymous said...

Dick Hall could care less about this project. His interest is Glugdstat Rd. Although anything to oppose Butch Brown, is a very good motivator for Hall to step in.

I would like to see a post of the original MOU and the new MOU MDOT proposed. The Feds have investigated projects nationwide which are run by local public agencies and found that there are serious risks involved because the local agencies don't know what they are doing in complying with Federal laws. Thus, leading to waste, fraud and abuse of the taxpayers funds.

So I would like to know what the legal issues are of updating the MOU. Why was Madison County so opposed to it? Was it because the MDOT required more scrutiny over the project to adhere to Federal and State requirements? Was Madison Co intending to pad all of their friends' pockets with the award of the contract?


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