At the next meeting, when Cummings was awarded the contracts, Wexler said: "I'm concerned that I didn't do the right thing last week." Kraft wonders if the entire board as a whole didn't terminate Church and Tower for the "wrong reasons," that is, because of pressure from Cummings and de la Feuilliez.
"I don't know whether they orchestrated it or they just jumped in when the time was right," Kraft says. "I was afraid that this might look like the board was specifically doing this to give the work to Cummings, and I wondered if it was really happening."
The school board policy forbade former school construction chief Ray de la Feuilliez from using his insider status to improperly drum up contracts for a new employer. The policy was promptly broken.
Miami Herald
The school board policy forbade former school construction chief Ray de la Feuilliez from using his insider status to improperly drum up contracts for a new employer. The policy was promptly broken.
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Budnick is still fuming over the vote and says she believes the school board will end up doling out a multimillion-dollar settlement. "We didn't have enough time to make a decision," she says. "There was so much money and liability being bandied about…. It's like we gave away the ball in the fourth quarter, and now we're going to lose the game."
As for her friendship with de la Feuilliez, Budnick says, "I'd rather give him clean money from new projects than dirty money from old ones."
Charlotte Greenbarg, who represents Independent Voices For Better Education and the Broward Coalition, spoke of money -- clean or dirty -- at the meeting of April 7, 1998, when Church and Tower was awarded the contracts. She doesn't take issue with the termination of Church and Tower. What she said, however, loudly resonates in light of what was to come.
"It is all about money," an outraged Greenbarg said, "which is why both of our organizations recommend that this obscene process stop! That this abuse of taxpayers and board members and children and teachers stop! That you get out of the building business because the discussion obviously shows that you don't know what you're talking about for the most part, that you're not competent no matter who does the building."
It didn't take long for James A. Cummings, Inc., to get some more "clean" money. In May his company was awarded a $43.5 million contract to renovate Dillard High School. In less than a year since de la Feuilliez joined his firm, Cummings has gotten $80 million worth of business from the school board -- bringing his grand total over the past decade to nearly $200 million.
