HEAVY LIFTER (WILL NOT BE DENIED!)

Editorial

Tell it to Bobb or tell it to the judge


With a half-billion dollars about to flow into the Detroit Public Schools for new buildings and renovations, it’s past time to tell the truth about what really happened to the $1.5 billion voters ap proved for school construction in 1994.


But apparently, some folks still don’t want to talk.


DPS lawyers will be in court today seeking to subpoena school board member Anthony Adams, former DPS appraiser Sharon Harbin, and Andrew and David Farbman, principals in the South field- based Farbman group, to answer questions about transac tions in which the school district bought and leased office space from the Farbmans and gave one of their subsidiaries a lucrative no-bid contract to make improvements. Adams, who served as deputy mayor under former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was the school district’s general counsel when some of the controversial transactions took place.


Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb is pursuing the subpoenas as part of a series of public hearings designed to shed light on what happened to the $1.5 billion, and specifically on a clus ter of shady real estate deals.


So far, Bobb’s crusade has unearthed some real head-scratch ing decisions and possibly corrupt dealings. So far, everyone else called to testify has shown up.


But Adams, Harbin and the Farbmans have resisted. Thus, Bobb’s trip to court today to compel their testimony.


Given his well demonstrated tenacity, it probably goes without saying, but Bobb shouldn’t back down here. If the four witnesses’ only objections to testifying under oath are technical ones, as their lawyers have indicated, the court should be able to clear any proce dural roadblocks quickly. If the real problem is “the arrogance of those who … hold public funds and believe they can remain unac countable to the public,” as Bobb contends, we trust the court will disabuse the four witnesses of that conceit with similar dispatch.


Either way, taxpayers who agreed to indebt themselves for the betterment of the school system need to know exactly who got their money and whether anything of comparable worth was of fered in return.


It’s time for those with answers to put up their right hands, take a seat on the witness stand, and start talking.