Betrayals, Lies, Deceit, Threats, a Colleague's Suicide - and Eventually, Death Threats, an Attorney Uncovers how the University of California is operating outside their own Charter's required Governance - and the Architect discovers a huge chain of involved politicians.....
And it's all true.
Ever wonder how California got into the mess it is in?
You won't after reading the facts below.
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Introduction:
I caught onto what I thought was a small scam at the University of California, San Francisco, where they were illegally sole-sourcing one manufacturer's products in construction contracts - and instead, uncovered a massive, national/international scam of school dollars by three companies from Cleveland, Ohio in just one product area - roofing - that has been going on since the 1930's according to documentation uncovered, at the very least.
It led to the suicide of a colleague, one of the first women architects in the US, the murder of two prominent labor leaders in California (blown up in a plane over Sitka, Alaska), and who threatened me - alone - led to the discovery of the involvement of one political party in the scams.
Utterly amazing. And true.
My whistleblowing court case - taken to the US Supreme Court - uncovered how the University of California is operating outside their Charter's prescribed Governance - and how all those executives are stealing ad infinitum.
It also led to the discoveries of why California is in such a horrible budget position - how all the checks and balances were destroyed under the watch of "Slick Willie" - the former San Francisco Mayor (who threatened me in person) and who ran the California Assembly for 20 years.
An amazing, amazing series of discoveries.
What an incredible series of events!
Telling them for the public to see would be beneficial for all.
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Prologue:
Dismantle Checks and Balances, and thievery of the taxpayer dollar is easy - and massive.
And that is what has been done in California.
Total known damage in just this scam of the taxpayer dollar?
- Hundreds and Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in just one product area lost - since at least the mid-1960's, in school funding in California
- One suicide (one of the first women architects in the US)
- Two Labor Leaders "gone missing" in a plane "crash" - explosion in the air above a cove after taking off from the Sitka, Alaska airport - and after reporting to the California State Attorney General that the University of California was operating illegally 10 days previously
- One architect's career and life severely derailed - for doing the right thing - including death threats and threats by prominent politicians
- School funding depleted - and now harming the education of the young - and our future as a nation
- In order to get work, everyone involved is forced to go along to feed families - or enjoy "bennies" - architects, engineers, roofing contractors, roof consultants - and those at jobs forced by management to involve themselves.
- Public Contract Code 3400 (Competitive Bidding Statute) . Standard competitive statutes across the United States require that three manufacturers and the term "or equal" be listed in public work to qualify as competitive bid specs, but not in California. Already watered down to listing two products (from separate concerns) and the term "or equal" in the early 1990's, Public Contract Code 3400 got changed through the efforts of the Asphalt Lobby in 2003 to state that a design professional only had to list one product and others only if they "knew of any," and then "or equal". Both stated that the specifications could not restrict the work to one concern - but that has not stopped anyone. There is no teeth to the legislation, or enforcement, much less normal competitive specifications expected of professionals.
- Two Whistleblowing Statutes, one whose intent was clearly stated in Legislative Documents (their debate and Intent) but ignored by the California Supreme Court, who stated that because the intent was not re-stated or addressed when the law was passed during (brief) deliberations, the intent could and was read the opposite by that Court - and was, in conflict with the statutes.
- Futility Statutes intent do not apply to the Board of Regents of and University of California employees. That is, apart from all other state agencies, employees of the University of California are not allowed to impartial judges in hearings, nor is evidence allowed to be taken under oath of the defendants - yet given the full force of such as if they were. All other state agencies and colleges are required to have impartial judges (from a panel outside of the agency or college) and testimony must be taken under oath. But not at the University of California. The question is: Why?
- The Board of Regents and the University of California is no longer required to obey any laws due to the ruling in my case - declared a "fourth branch of government that does not have to obey any laws", and my case was noted as a "prime example of the lack of accountability of the University of California" during the US Congressional Los Alamos Hearings in the Spring of 2003. The Administrative Arm was proven by my attorneys in their last pleadings before the US Supreme Court to have pulled out illegally from under the governance of the Academic Senate, as set forth in their Land Grant Charter, the Organic Act of 1854. In so doing, the Administrative Arm of the University of California took the freedoms of Academia with them into their business operations, violating not only their charter, but multiple civil and criminal statutes. Those statutes were referred to in legal proceedings, and culminated in the youngest male California Supreme Court Justice standing at the beginning of my oral hearing, leaning over the bench, and yelling with a shaking, pointed finger over and over at the University of California attorney, "You tell your clients these were criminal acts! You tell your clients these were criminal acts!" My oral hearings were not held in open court in San Francisco, but taken to San Diego to a private Jesuit University classroom at the University of San Diego, doors locked, admittance only by approval of the court, televisions off when this happened. And they did it at Christmastime, Dec. 8, 2004....a time at which attention would be drawn away from the hearings by holiday-making.
- The California State Auditor no longer operates as an Auditor should, but instead, is controlled by politicians. The California Legislature has a Joint Legislative Audit Committee that tells the California Bureau of State Audits what it can look into and not. The person who is the "gatekeeper" is a paid political consultant, and we discovered that they had not only been on a City Council and School Board that was involved in the scams, they were going to throw any investigation to the California State Attorney general - whose family was in the very business where the scams were caught, and himself a member of that Union. He had also refused to investigate. Today, the California Bureau of State Audits is not allowed to audit the Department of Education, the largest (40%) of the state budget, or colleges and Universities without the express permission of the political Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
Conflict of Interest after Conflict of Interest has destroyed California. And we discovered the gateways for the conflicts of interest - through a series of amazing occurrences.
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Background
In my field, I have had the luck to work on a landmark and be trained by some great men in Atlanta. I was on the Georgia Board of the American Institute of Architects for 3 years, elected by 97% of the 1200 member Atlanta Chapter each time. You can see some of my work here, including the landmark and architectural illustrations I have done:
http://www.campbellarchitects.blogspot.com/
For those of you in Atlanta who remember me - know this. The gentleman I speak about below, the former Mayor of San Francisco and former 20-year California Assembly Leader who has done so much damage to California, was behind the elections of Bill Campbell and Kasim Reed to Mayor of Atlanta. You must know what happened to Bill Campbell - he got caught doing what it is rumored his mentor does out here, and paid a dear price for it.
Heaven only knows what will happen with that same mentor's second shill in at the helm in Atlanta. The mentor held fundraisers for him in San Francisco in November, 2009.
Beware, beware, beware, my hometown.
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What Happened
I came to San Francisco after divorcing a philandering husband, who is now VP of his company, a San Francisco-based environmental engineering firm in Atlanta (reputedly the oldest and best in the world…). Ice cold, he would regularly take $20 million projects and turn them into $40 million design projects. A native Georgian, he was and is known as the "Perimeter Bandit" amongst all the engineering firms in Atlanta and the Southeast. We had been together for 19 years, 14 married. My Dad took out the divorce on me (How Dare I leave!), strangely, and the two of them stole my real estate development in the process – along with my Dad's friend, our Joint Venture Partner, a contractor – who was preaching in the church I grew up in. Although our credit was great and we could get a Development Loan, the Banks wanted a contractor in the deal because, as they said, "We aren't going to let another John Portman happen!" even though I have an MBA in Real Estate (Development)...Right – just look where the banking industry is today, with folks that don't know what they are doing, investing in real estate.....
Worse, my father and ex became abusive verbally and in action, the former more so, with violence….my divorce counselor finally told me “Get the hell out of Atlanta!” – for my own safety.
I did.
I fled with seven bags on Delta to a place that very good looking Dad of mine would never go: San Francisco.
It was a massive and very painful set of betrayals - up the wazoo.
I took a job for what I thought would be two years till I could go home to Atlanta – at a place I thought was safe – in education, as an architect.
But more betrayals were to come – and eventually, an unlocking of who was stealing from all of us in the US, under the guise of "It's for the kiddies".
An incredible, incredible and very surprising journey - and it's not over yet.
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So what happened?
In San Francisco, where I ran to to get away from the hell I was catching from both men for daring to get a life, I found myself in the middle of a den of thieves (for-real, old-world style "Barbary Coast" pirates - in suits) masquerading as a major "Educational Institution".
There's no other way to accurately describe what I have seen.
I caught onto a huge national scam of the school dollar, which is laid out in various media (tv and print) that I have been in, and trade magazines. The story is also detailed on my blogs, with the link to the two NBC TV reports in Cincinnati (on hidden camera), the first national link in the story on the NY Times newswire for 17 months, et. al - at:
http://www.quicklinksschoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/
and
http://www.schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/
Here's the San Francisco Weekly Cover Story Article on myself...funnily, the man in the article with me had his name under my picture and my name under his online, so when my "deep throats" on the East Coast first saw the article, they laughed their heads off...saying I looked like the "Quintessential San Francisco Woman!" (I most certainly do not look like that - and am not....) Here's the link:
http://www.sfweekly.com/2003-02-26/news/the-fix-is-in/
I am on NBC Hidden Camera (flown out to me to use), on WLWT NBC TV in Cincinnati, here:
"Roofers May Cash In at Local Schools: Schools Spend Millions on New Roofs", at: http://www.wlwt.com/news/790350/detail.html
and "Ohio School Projects Not Competitively Bid", at: http://www.wlwt.com/news/2010987/detail.html
and more.....
What tipped me off was a boss sexually harassing me at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF)- which I ignored. He was my boss, for heavens' sake - and I was still literally shaking uncontrollably inside, in shock from the divorce, theft of my real estate development and total familial lack of support - with violence.
In fact, I had those normal to divorce, tell-tale emotional slides into oblivion, like I was going off a cliff, for a year past the divorce being finalized. I was in no shape to think of anything but putting one foot in front of the other that year.
Because I was not responding to my boss' advances, he took me in a company car one day to a jobsite on campus and on the way, threatened me with being sent to jail for doing something illegal for them (unspoken implication: if I didn't “capitulate” to his advances) - but when caught, if caught, I would be getting paid off with an MBA from Stanford. I replied angrily, "I already have an MBA!!!!!" - and the boss stiffened his arms on the wheel of the car....staring straight ahead. Turned out what he described had actually happened the year before with an employee who did get caught doing something illegal his boss at UCSF asked him to do (the Management Services Officer in Biochemistry at UCSF).
My boss made this demand after he took me to his flat very near campus one day in the company car. I lived in a Texas-developer's apartment block in downtown San Francisco and had never been in one of the typical San Francisco homes. When my boss drove us up to the front of the two-flat building over a garage, saying he had something he wanted me to see, I was alarmed (hoping it was a renovation of an outpatient clinic). I was in a vise, under probation in a new job 2800 miles from home. He took us up the stair to the front living room of what turned out to be his flat, then straight back to dining and into a galley kitchen. At the end of the kitchen was a swinging door and into the bedroom he took me, stood at the end of a huge bed covered in black silk, and said, "Look at my big bed!" and just stood there. I went around him onto a porch, turned around and went back through a small bedroom with a mattress on the floor and women's clothes everywhere, her clothes hanging off lines, past a bath and back onto the stairs. He was shoe-shuffling "aw gee shucks..." and I went down and out the stairs to the car.
I later found out my boss shared the building with a Vice Chancellor, two steps above his position. In my boss' own words, they got a loan from the University of California for the building together, and the Vice Chancellor had my boss sign the loan application with no information filled in - a felony. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the loan given to them by the University of California and the building they shared - but not how the loan was applied for.
What a weasel! No man in my profession in Atlanta had ever done that to me - they had decent respect! Gheesh!
And what I didn't know until May 4, 2010? That same Facilities Department had it's work stopped and Auditors came in - all because of the brown bags filled with cash.....in the 1980's, shortly before I came to work there.
Rule of Thumb here?
If they are getting away with one thing, they are getting away with absolute murder wherever they can.
And man oh man, did I find out it was and is even more true then till today....all under the guise of "education".
And in California alone, it has cost schools easily hundreds of millions in the past 10-20 years of the scams operating here.......
I didn't give in to my boss' continuing sexual advances, but instead, after having cancer unexpectedly nine months after getting to the job and needing the health insurance (stuck in the job), I set him up. I couldn't figure out why they were putting out non-competitive construction product bid specs - in government work, totally illegal - but I was able to get him to order me in writing to do the illegal activities. You should have seen the UC attorneys when those emails came out in depositions! (Depositions where their attorney and I were battling for how fast each of us could go, driving the stenographer crazy for 5 days and over 900 pages of testimony...but I am getting ahead of myself here....)
I figured I had nothing to lose, and being sick, could get away with confronting the boss if the issue came up again. I had decided 29 days before finding out I had cancer to go home to Atlanta, two months after probation was up and just after the in-house counsel refused to answer my question about how bid specs were to be made competitive by California's laws (Public Contract Code 3400, which I found out much later from FBI Agents), without asking the question through my boss first….
You see, my surgeon had told me the cancer was “growing on its’ own” and I had to take care of the emotional aspect of what he thought caused it. He said, "Never, ever play victim again!"
And so I didn't.
Shortly after having an operation and one week into chemotherapy, my boss and the head Building Manager of four hospitals, the manufacturer's rep involved and the locally involved large roofing contractor came to my desk, hung over the partition, and asked me to do one of those illegally sole-sourced specs - again. Little did I know that what came out of my mouth was so true - I stood up in that executive area that I worked, and said, LOUDLY, "This SMEEELLLLLSSS LIKE COLLUSION!"
In less than a second after yelling out my response, my boss was into his office next door, the Building Manager and Roofing Contractor gone, running out to the hall, heads lowered below the partitions, and the snake of a manufacturer's sales rep was literally bent over way low, running like hell to the hallway!
My boss did what he could to destroy me after that, loading me up with 343+ hours of work a week, 17 projects dumped on me versus 1 the other architects got...ad infinitum. I got sick, doubled over in pain with stomach pains that would only go away in the emergency room with their treatments...and no diagnoses. After 18 such trips, I went to a lawyer to go after the sleazy boss for the sexual harassment. The pains stopped immediately and never came back. But the sleaze continued - "Someone" had to have paid off the federal employee who called me in to tell me in a conference room that she was finding against me and would not let me sue. Turned out in the depositions that the UC attorney went into shock when I was asked why I didn't sue for it, and I told her I was told I couldn't, and puzzled, she asked who did it? When I picked up my boxes of evidence from their offices, in there were items I had never seen before, one a box with the letter I should have gotten allowing me to sue....
It seems the “pay to play” con artists I worked for never changed their spots. Wonder what that federal agency employee looking into allegations of sexual harassment got for lying to me about their Federal Agencies' investigation and what I could do?
In the meantime, attempting to survive, I set the boss up in different ways, documenting what he was asking in weekly meetings - and I again made him order me in writing in an email to sole-source roofing products.....
At one point, I discovered that the Assistant Vice Chancellor running the 800-man Facilities Department allowing all these illegal contracts was not only not qualified to do so as a trained musician, he had been charged with fraud as a former Vice President in the massive Lincoln Savings and Bank Loan Scandal - the worst ever until the recent sub-prime mortgage loan scandal.
During a coffee break one day, the Assistant Vice Chancellor was relating to another one of the architects that he had gone through something really bad. Standing right there, I said, "You mean where all those Vice Presidents of Lincoln Savings Bank and Loan were charged with fraud?" and looked at him. He looked utterly shocked, and stammered, "They dropped the charges due to lack of evidence."
He didn't know that the former owner of the Chartered Bank of London in San Francisco, a friend, had told me about him.....with great disdain.
Just amazing - but he wasn't the only former executive disaster given great paying jobs at UC - which appeared to be a "parking lot" for the same throughout their massive and unnecessary "Administrative" branches....using women as
fronts" and fall guys" for the same, stealing funds in so many ways. For those of you who keep up with UC's activities (reporters reading this), remember the Chancellors and Vice Chancellors and the Office of the President (the 2,000-3,000 person duplicate "administrative arm" of the University of California in Oakland, CA) taking a lot of heat for all the executive, massive perks they were getting? Do you remember the one woman Chancellor (the engineer heading UC Santa Cruz) that they had the press focus on, not the real rats? Do you remember what she did? She was so angry at being setup for the fall, she literally fell 29 stories to her death - jumped - at 3rd and Mission Streets right across from the "W" Hotel and Muscone Convention Center in San Francisco?
In my dept., a woman was running a bunch of project managers doing construction - and she was a lab tech in background. You could pull the wool over her eyes in a second - and they were. Two women were former clerks, put into "Contracts Manager" positions - and the same deal was going on with them, with at least one of them later admitting involvement in getting kickbacks for contracts.
Well, that's what my bosses were attempting to do with me. Problem was, all that great education darn good training in Atlanta from world-class consultants and damn good architects - not to mention a man named Joe Smith (architect) teaching ethics at Georgia Tech. They ran into the wrong, wrong woman.
I say thank you every day to the great men in Atlanta who taught and trained me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I knew they were setting me up, and turned it right back around on them. After all, I was not involved, and certainly not getting kickbacks - what I eventually discovered WAS going on.
The continuing "up yours" attitude of the University of California (UC)personnel I worked with to the competitive bidding laws was completely baffling. So were statements by many managers that "UC didn't have to obey any laws."
I was ordered on another occasion to write what are called "restrictive proprietary specs" - which limits the product to one by calling out product tests ad infinitum - and not always correct. In these specs, I deleted a payment to the local manufacturer's rep for so-called "field observations", done at no charge to ensure the warranty is intact by all the four major roofing manufacturers in the US (with longer warranties and 1/3 or less in price). While up on the roof during construction on a hill overlooking downtown San Francisco, the manufacturer's rep, who appeared badly shaken, asked if I had taken that payment out to him. He was very, very upset.
Turned out years later I discovered that was one of the ways the reps could get monies out of contracts to pay off the involved public officials. The other? Contractors making payments to the reps, who then made the payoffs.
After I cut out the payment to the rep from the University, the bosses did not order me do another illegal spec.
Shortly afterwards, everything changed when a woman architect I worked with that was much older than myself killed herself over the illegal contracts, calling me up the night before from her home in Mill Valley (Marin County), just sobbing in great gulps, over and over again - "Janet, how do they keep getting away with all those illegal contracts at UC? You just have to do something about it!" She had been forced to retire early for fighting with our bosses about the non-competitive bidding practices.
Joanie, as we called her, was one of the first women architects in the US, and did incredible homes on the islands off Washington State in her spare time, better than Frank Lloyd Wright...she graduated from Iowa State, known along with my alma mater, Georgia Tech, and Oklahoma State, for putting out the best well-rounded architects in the US (consistently). We had a great deal of respect for each other, and her loss was great for me.
Five months later, I got up the courage to demand of the head of the building managers of over 110 buildings, including hospitals, why I was not being allowed to write competitive specs - and he took me where no one could see us, checked around, asked me to ask him again - I did, and smiling broadly, he indicated "payola" - which surprised me - and I asked you mean____?" and he indicated it again, smiling, saying yes.
Friends at UCSF - doctors whose funds were impacted by the enormous facilities costs - demanded I go to the FBI.
I did.
You see, 54% of every medical research dollar went to the "Office of the President" - UC's massive, several thousand person administrative arm (duplicate to its' ten campuses) in Oakland, Ca. Half of that was for facilities. Then another 25% was to go to construction of the new labs in old facilities, 15% to equipment and supplies, and less than 10% to salaries. And did we hear research staff screaming about the low salaries in outrageously expensive San Francisco!
Much later, I found out what was happening: kickbacks were gotten out of the contracts by complicit manufacturer's reps and contractors, for such things as illegally sole-sourced firm alarm system, which a manager appeared to have gotten a 500 SEL Mercedes, $3,000 a golfing game hole "gambling" losses from badly-playing roofing manufacturer's reps, trips to Europe (one Building Manager in particular), cash, parts and additions to houses, etc…..to get their products sole-sourced.
The very persons I had sent FBI Agents to that I thought were “clean” – Contracts Managers - were in fact involved, and had lied to the FBI. One of them, retired, told me four years later that “EVERYBODY was involved” in that 800 person Facilities Department, laughing at me and enumerating what people got.
One of those Managers? The daughter-in-law of the San Francisco Police Chief. She met the FBI Agents in my district’s Police Station – and surrounded by San Francisco Policemen and with a tape recorder, refused to answer the FBI Agents. Afterwards, I got a call from the agents, screaming at me, “She’s dirty, she’s dirty, how could you?!?!?!” I had no idea, but everybody was involved….apparently, all 800 in the department except for a few of us….
Later, when I told my "friend" who had been the President of the San Francisco School Board about that incident, she said, "Oh, they are going to have to move him out of town!" (meaning San Francisco Police Chief Lau). Within a few months, he left the San Francisco Police Dept. to head "Homeland Security" at the Oakland Airport......see how the coverups work in San Francisco/California?
And everyone involved are in the same political party, it turns out.....very unexpectedly and interestingly....a "modus operandi", it appears.....borne out by later arrests twice in New Jersey of those in the same party helping each other (one with 11 arrests two years ago in the roofing scam, all politicians, the other with 44 arrests last year...), one of which events affected me more than I can say here, my own "9/11".
But I am getting ahead of myself....
I was fired for reporting the illegal sole-sourcing of products in construction contracts at UCSF to the FBI. Their excuse? I was “laid off” for not knowing how to translate two CAD software programs into each other, as opposed to being what I was, a really good architect. An FBI Agent "let slip" my name – and they put me in archives for several months, I went out on disability first to get four needed operations – and came back to be fired (with a lawyer in tow).. You should have seen the chagrin on the FBI Agents’ face as my attorneys forced him to tell the truth in depositions....we already knew from the guy he told my name to what happened - and that the guy he told had come in and told my boss. I even witnessed the guy come in and do it!
Note the managers had put me in archives prior to getting rid of me….
My mother had called from Daytona Beach, her home at the time, and asked where they had put me. I said, “Archives” and she gasped and said, “Are they shtoooopid?!?!?”
They were. She knew exactly what I was doing - I didn't have to say a word. I got copies of 20 years’ worth of the same illegal specs on many, many buildings – a trail of evidence.
The month I was fired, I flew home to Atlanta to see what jobs were available - and there was nothing. I knew I had to come back and fight the devils, and literally cried the whole way on that 5-hour Delta flight 2800 miles back to San Francisco - I knew it was going to be hard, and a long time before I could go home again - and it has been. And man oh man, it has been hard....but what I would uncover was beyond my - or anyone's - wildest dreams.
Within the first nine months after being fired, over 200 men and women in the roofing industry from 24 states called me. Reporters called. Information, trade articles, and in-house documents were sent – and lists and copies of other cases.
And then Investigators called. And called and called….
It has never stopped.
Never.
I was apparently the first architect in the history of the scam to report it to the FBI. Retired roof consultants in the Los Angeles area detail the practices to the 1960’s; an article written by an Industrial Psychologist in 1941 shows the practices were going on in the 1930’s - and have been all over the United States, specifically targeting schools and the public work.
I have been all the way to the US Supreme Court - including having my case read into the US Congressional Los Alamos hearings as "a prime example of the lack of accountability of the University of California". We lost, because UC is not required to play fair - splitting grievances, paying off my first attorney not to do what she should, the second not to enter the pleadings he should, etc. It's hellacious.
The last attorney did know what to do - but it was too late. She had uncovered the way my employer, the University of California, was operating illegally, and detailed it in briefs to the US Supreme Court as well as the appeal to the California Supreme Court decision.
The California Supreme Court decided in my case that "UC was a fourth branch of government that does not have to obey any laws". Mine was the next to the last decided; done in March, 2005. The last UC case they ‘heard”? Lab technicians at the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Labs were ordered to do something so dangerous they reported it to UC police, and were literally ushered off the job. No grievances or in-house hearings were allowed and the California Supreme Court washed their hands of it.
The California Supreme Court made that historic ruling in my case despite the fact that while "hiding" the oral hearing, the youngest male Supreme Court Justice stood up and leaned over the bench took his long index finger, wagged it up and down hard and yelled - and I mean yelled - at the University of California attorney, saying over and over, "You tell your clients these were criminal acts, you tell your clients these were criminal acts!" The UC attorney nodded his head over and over, while hanging his head down.
The Oral Hearing in my case was held closed-door, TV cameras off and allowed viewers only present (no media) at the private Jesuit University classroom in San Diego, not in open court in San Francisco where it should have been. And it was held at Christmastime (Dec. 8, 2004).
Prior to that hearing, I received death threats. One was from a former San Francisco School Board President, playing my "best friend" for 12 years until she revealed what she had done. She told me after being called to a Grand Jury investigating her former San Francisco Unified School District Facilities head that they had asked about kickbacks - and she said she told them that "EVERYBODY does it!" - and the next words our of her mouth were, "Janet, do you have a will?" I ignored any implications and pitter-pattered on the subject for a couple of minutes, and then she interrupted and demanded to know "are you being cremated?" At that point, her implications were clear, and I retorted angrily, "We know where all the bodies are buried!" and she smiled at me - brilliantly. The next and last time I saw her husband, he got angry with me and demanded, "How dare you hurt my poor ____ (wife)?!"
Previously, his wife had taken me to the widely known, now former San Francisco Mayor/former 20-year California Assembly Leader who threatened me in person - over reports I made to the FBI at the University of California. She took me to a "Woman's Center Building" (code for gay) event at Rincon Center - about a 2,000 person event....without telling me what the event was about. She walked in with this extremely nicely dressed (and good-looking, gotta explain it here...) Atlanta woman in tow, cutting a swath easily through the 2,000 women, but causing me much consternation with the hands and "Ahhhs..." with eyes raised in delight when seen (I am not gay, gotta explain that here….).....causing me to run right after her to get through the huge crowd of women literally fawning all over me….. This woman was and is prominent, and well-known in Democratic circles in San Francisco....to explain further – one of the reasons folks moved aside as she plowed through that huge crowd….me running right behind her…...
It was something. She headed straight around two corners and up into a back corner area, where no one appeared to be. Then the Mayor, "Slick Willie" as he is known in San Francisco, came out of that area towards us with an aide, nodding at this woman and she back, and then he fixed his eyes on me as he moved forward. When he got to us, he looked at her again, aide by his side, looking around us. Slick Willie looked at me and yelled, "WHO are YOU!?!??!" angrily, and I smiled pleasantly, ignoring the tone, and said my name, stuck out my hand. He took my hand, squeezed it hard and refused to shake, just holding it. And no one moved for a minute or more, just standing there. Then he dropped my hand, nodded at the "friend" of mine, and moved off.
He didn't know it, but he was holding the hand of a blood relative of General Pershing and much more.....someone with a lot of insight, training and ability as well....
And that was the wrong thing to do to me....the worst.
You see, it gave away the fact that the scam I caught onto was feeding one party.
Just amazing. Utterly amazing.
From one department involved in a scam at the University of California - to inadvertently notifying me of the enormity of the scam – and who was really behind it…benefiting from it…..
I wasn't the only one who caught on to that fact...everyone who heard it did. And that means a whole, whole lot of people, who really matter.
Today, you can still see this man gleefully boasting about how he'll never get caught as he walks up the steps of the make-believe embassy in the movie "Princess Diaries".
It became very, very clear that there was a definite political component to the scam when he threatened me.
It also became clear that one industry was involved - as they were also involved in threats to me. Not only did I get tons of hang on hang up calls after I started pursuing the matter in court, one week like clockwork prior to each lower court ruling I got a death threat left on the phone and the second time, two men following me and deliberately acting like they were going to hurt me (one man "of color" in a vehicle stopping beside me around the corner from my house while walking my dog in the evening, just sitting there, saying stuff to me, gunning the motor...and further into the walk, a decidedly Italian "mobster" approaching, standing in front of me, refusing to move....just glaring at me. Even my attorneys did not know when the rulings came out - but each of those who threatened me did. Which means there was a leak at the courthouse...is that supposed to happen? I think not...but it did.
Then there were the arrivals of the "Asphalt Industry" calendars for several Christmases during the court case....until the California Legislature changed the Public Contract Code 3400 (Competitive Bidding Statute) to read that you only had to list one product, not three products and the term "or equal" as is the standard everywhere else and historically. Behind the change? Road paving contractors and Pacific Gas & electric and assorted few road light manufacturers...in an "Engineering Contractor Association". Right. What is an "Engineering Contractor" pray tell for the professionals reading this? For the layman, it is nothing - but a cover for the Asphalt Industry Lobby.
Later, as to the hang on/hang up calls - another person who a few years ago caught onto the scam and reported it in Indiana, with the same manufacturer I caught at the University of California, got the same kind of calls. Only this time, they stupidly called one time from the manufacturers' headquarters and forgot to block their ID. Which means they were probably behind some or all of the calls I got.
So to go to my oral hearings held in San Diego, I had to change planes three times going and coming from San Francisco to San Diego - just to ensure I would live.
I have not flown in 11 years, despite my father dying 2800 miles away. For those of you who went to his funeral, including family friends, now you know why I was not there.
I have not seen most of my family in 14 years or more.
And the blackballing…..finally, last year, a well-known architect in Atlanta heard I was coming home from those I told who were also made Class Champions in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture's 100th Anniversary Celebration last year.....and he told me, the 180 degree opposite of what I hear from architects in San Francisco: "Janet, WELCOME HOME! We need you!"
How refreshing, how astute, and how kind - especially to be around those who know how to use folks to everyone's benefit, including that person! Real teamwork....and the heart of what our country should be....
The next part describes quite the opposite...and it gets much more harrowing....
Here's what my last attorney, a two-time UC grad, discovered: UC's Administration pulled out in the 1960’s and 1970’s – illegally - from under the governance of the Academic Senate (set up that way in their land grant charter in 1854). While working at UC San Diego - she discovered similar operations to what I had. She was put under folks not licensed to be lawyers, ordered to do stuff that was illegal in National Institute of Health Contracts with UC San Diego, refused and found herself harrassed....by some really strange folks doing some of what I observed at UCSF...it gets very strange...
So she delved into what was going on and made those important discoveries the summer of 2004...and found my case going on...
She discovered that UC had it's Administrative Arm pull out from under the rule of the Academic Senate, taking the freedoms of Academia into Business Operations - did you get that? - illegally, in the late 1960's, based on an "Opinion" Letter from the California State Attorney General - and not based on any laws or previous cases. Because of competitive bidding statutes, the California Legislature affirmed the illegal pull-out when they mistakenly added an Amendment to the California Constitution requiring UC to follow competitive bidding statutes in construction - specifically. And although my attorneys hung their arguments on that amendment and the written intent of the whistleblowing laws set up by now US House of Rep. Tom MCClintock in laws passed in 1991, the San Francisco Superior and Appeals Courts and California Supreme Court refused to honor them in my case.
By doing so, the California Supreme Court facilitated years of continuing fraud at UC - and throughout the schools in California. Just think how many hundreds of millions they would have saved - had they done their job.
But no. It was about buddies of buddies helping each other....tyranny, in fact.
So in other words, the University of California is operating illegally even today. When my last attorney's two uncles, labor leaders in California, went to the California State Attorney General and reported it Sept. 10, 2004, they were blown up in a plane over Sitka, yes Sitka, Alaska Sept. 20, 2004 - on a beautiful, clear day.
This is no joke. Google "Jim Murphy" and/or "Joe Murphy" and Sitka and "September 20, 2004", and see what comes up....one part of the story....
You can see the stories here:
http://denningtonsafetysystems.com/docs/Ironworkers.pdf
and US Coast Guard Report at:
http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/780/53034/
and
http://www.wslc.org/reports/Rep-0411.htm
and Associated Press Report - where they show the plane that went down, at:
http://www.dhc-2.com/id642.htm
The plane belonged to a lawyer friend of the California State Attorney General in San Francisco, and had always been well maintained and was piloted by a long-time pilot of that plane. Residents of the island heard a "boom" over a cove, it was the second plane out on a fishing trip....on a clear, sunny day.
This is a photo of the plane two years previous:
My attorney is in San Diego; her Navy Seal brother and his Seal buddies went diving in that cove, but they and the US Coast Guard were called off the search when they found something they thought was part of the plane under water...and the Seals were being watched by men in black trench coats on shore that no one could identify.
She and her son were threatened at her home and his school, her computer hacked into from Los Alamos – owned by the University of California (traced by experts), and so, so much more as she worked on my pleadings....a complete nightmare.
The California State Auditor did do a report in my case, tearing apart the University of California (online, now, too), although hampered by the State Legislature for six years and told to report on only one of over 20 years' worth of the same on over 110 buildings UC has in San Francisco. Here is that four-page report:
http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/I2003-2.pdf
and read Chapter 5.
The very smart and politically-hampered California State Auditor ripped apart the University of California in my case, who answered the State Auditor stating they also had not done something else the auditor had not reported on....and the State Auditor answered back, "au contrare, you did that too...".
Unlike other states and ethics, the California Legislature controls what the State Auditor can look into.
Did you hear that? Politicians in California are allowed to control the California State Auditors - what they look into!
Worse, the State Auditor is not allowed to audit any schools in California and barely allowed to “investigate” – by permission of the politicians on a case-by-case basis – college and university spending.
We uncovered numbers of conflicts of interests like this in California, which clearly are the cause of the budget overruns in CA.
Laws were changed under the "watch" of that former 20-year California Assembly Leader (Slick Willie) that appear to be designed to funnel taxpayer funds into the coffers of the "greedy needy" in "public" "service". And to involved contractors and roofing manufacturers, and from what we hear, architects and engineers.
One conflict of interest that kept rearing its' ugly head was the fact that the State Attorney General was in the roofer's union and his stepfather was a roofer....men in the Roofer's Union in Los Angeles called me, panicked, when they heard the State Attorney General was downloading information off me (all those men and women across the US - over 200 of them in 24 states - who called and gave me incredible information in the first nine months after I was fired for reporting it to the FBI.)
There's more - a lot more.
What I will say is that California has some furious, very smart and very darn good State Auditors…..
I hear from insiders that I am known as the Erin Brokovich of the roofing industry nationally and actually world-wide - it's a huge, huge scam of the taxpayer dollars, particularly targeting schools - shown in in-house training documents of one of the three scam manufacturers. As shown on WLWT NBC TV and in trade magazines, you can see these documents here: http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2008/02/tremco-in-house-training-documents.html
It's amazing, and every bit of it true.
It is absolutely no joke.
Today, in between finding small bits of work here and there, I find myself helping reporters, investigators and industry insiders almost constantly, to stop the bleeding of school funding into the pockets of a few greedy needy manufacturers (three, specifically).
And it’s not just going on in roofing. Facilities is an ingenious way to hide contracts for kickbacks and other payoffs to those “facilitating” the scams – for all kinds of reasons.
I have had no life because of trying to find work when blackballed heavily in the SF Bay Area (ALLL the architects are involved in the scam here, according to insiders - and I believe it!)
I could find a life again if only the story were told, laid out and laid bare for all to see.
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For the laws that got changed under the 20-year rule of the former Assembly Leader - ruining checks and balances in California, see:
http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2008/02/in-california-who-is-stopping.html
and read under Item No. 3
For the California State Auditor's Report in my case, read:
http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/I2003-2.pdf
and look at Chapter 5, or download off here:
http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2008/02/california-state-auditor-report-re.html
For more links, go to:
http://www.quicklinksschoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/
reprinted below.
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Who's interested and able to do something about the scams, if state agencies can't or won't?
ONLY the FBI. Anyone corruptible by political contributions or controlled by those who are elected can be involved.
See the FBI webpage dedicated to corruption in schools at:
http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2008/11/corruption-matters.html
orhttp://www.fbi.gov/page2/aug06/corruption82306.htm
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Who sees the problem and has issued orders and completed investigations, attempting to solve the problem?
1. Purchasing Agencies used for Construction "Competitive Bidding" contracts ruled illegal by the Indiana State Attorney General in Construction Products such as roofing:
http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2008/11/indiana-state-attorney-general-rules.html
Manufacturer Involved? Tremco
2. Massachusetts Inspector General's Offices rules against "tight" or "restrictive proprietary" specs:
http://www.mass.gov/ig/publ/proprpt.pdf
Manufacturer(s) Involved? Unknown.
3. New Jersey State Commission of Investigation Report, 2000, "Waste and Abuse in School Roofing Projects":
http://www.state.nj.us/sci/school.shtm
Manufacturers Involved? Tremco, Garland and W.P. Hickman (all from the Cleveland, Ohio area).
4. For California State Auditor Report (limited to one set of specifications on over 20 years' worth found for a 110-building campus, the University of California San Francisco):
http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2008/02/california-state-auditor-report-re.html
or
http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/I2003-2.pdf and read Chapter 5, four short pages. It's blistering....
Manufacturer Involved? Tremco
5. Albuquerque Task Force impacted the Albuquerque School Board's competitive bidding procedures:http://ww2.aps.edu/cgi/displaypress2.cgi?136
Manufacturer Involved? Garland
6. Los Angeles' District Attorney's Offices issued a Consent Order - an Injunction - against Garland for:
Bid Rigging
Vertical Price Fixing
Horizontal Price Fixing
Unlawful, Unfair or Fraudulent Business Practices
Unfair, Deceptive, Untrue or Misleading Advertising
Commercial Bribery
See:
http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2009/04/garland-roofing-caught
and the actual Consent Order:http://roofingscam.blogspot.com/2009_04_19_archive.html#7929549341180344241
(first Post)
Manufacturer Involved? Garland
7. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Education has ruled that a School District has to obtain their own roofing, not through a manufacturer and the purchasing agencies organization.
See:
http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=19431938&BRD=2724&PAG=461&dept_id=563781&rfi=8
Manufacturer Involved? Tremco
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A list of just some of many articles and four+TV articles on the scam:(See also http://www.roofingscam.blogspot.com/ )
Newspaper Articles:
Published in SF Weekly, San Francisco, California, cover story, “The Fix Is In”, Feb. 26, 2003 (distribution over 600,000). Located here: http://www.sfweekly.com/2003-02-26/news/the-fix-is-in/
Published in The Valley Advocate, Massachusetts, “ Through the Roof”, Dec. 12, 2002. Located here: http://old.valleyadvocate.com/articles/throughtheroof.html
Published in the Dayton, Ohio Daily News, “Ohio Companies Figure in NJ Bid Probe”, Sunday Front Page, Oct. 22, 2000,: First national link in story on the roofing scam targeting schools. Story was on the New York Times Newswire for 17 months. Located here:
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=0F51F469C6E54365&p_docnum=1
Published in the Albuquerque Journal, "APS Roofing Costs Sky High", January 19, 2003.
Located here:http://www.stopthewarmachine.org/events/jan18pdf.pdf (front page only)
or go to:
http://www.abqjournal.com/ and search for the story - paid subscriiption or per piece.
Trade Magazine Articles:
Published in the Roofing Contractor Magazine, “Shut Out: New Jersey Strikes Down Suspicious Bidding". Located here: http://www.roofingcontractor.com/Articles/Feature_Article/fbe40cf520c58010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0
Multiple Articles in the Midwest Roofer, magazine of the Midwest Roofing Contractor's Association, seen here: http://www.roofingscam.blogspot.com/
Television News Stories:
NEW MEXICO:
Albuquerque Task Force Recommended using more suppliers than Garland:
http:/www.kobtv.com/archive/2001/may/23/4wtk-roofing.htm
NEW YORK CITY - RE: NEW JERSEY:
Eleven Public Officials caught taking bribes for roofing contracts in Public Works Contracts:
http://www.nysun.com/national/legislators-mayors-arrested-in-new-jersey-bribery/62077/
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/09/11_nj_officials_arrested_on_br.html
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=nj&id=5640158
OHIO:
On NBC Network News Hidden Camera, WLWT NBC TV, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 21, 2001 and February 27, 2003 in two stories on the roofing scam in Cincinnati Public Schools. Located herein:
"Roofers May Cash In at Local Schools: Schools Spend Millions on New Roofs", at: http://www.wlwt.com/news/790350/detail.html
and "Ohio School Projects Not Competitively Bid", at: http://www.wlwt.com/news/2010987/detail.html
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