Results tagged “justicedepartment”

Had things gone differently on the beaches of Normandy, some government organization may have gone after your grandfather in some generic German suburb.

The U.S. Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation of the Port of Seattle, following a recent state audit that accused the Port of wasting public money and raised the specter of possible fraud in construction contracts.

And our all-time favorite for sleaze, graft, and stupid, all packed into one shotgun-blast of a summary in the P-I:

The audit found that former Port Chief Mic Dinsmore and Aviation Director Mark Reis broke state law by negotiating a $125 million third-runway embankment contract with a TTI Construction principal at a steakhouse, keeping its cost within the port's procurement policies through cosmetic changes in order to avoid notifying the commission that the sole bid was vastly over the port's estimate -- and leaving the commission of the loop.

Doing multi-million dollar business in a steakhouse! That is so awesome, and just what we've come to expect from Mic Dinsmore. His credibility does nothing but skyrocket every time we hear news about his management style.

Not since Joe's Asprin Stacking Blog joined forces with Alexis's Rice Crispe World Blog to form Joe & Alex's Little House of Horrors Blog has a merger of this magnitude so shaken Seattle's media environment. Villiage Voice Media, owner of The Seattle Weekly, has announced a merger with alt-weekly publisher New Times Media.

We go on and on about how great it is that Seattle has two strong alternative weekly papers. Ok, maybe not "on and on", but we've said it at least a few times. Once for sure. We're saying it now: It's great that Seattle has two strong alternative weekly papers. What we have probably been a little quieter about is that fact that our city is also served by two strong daily papers and, truth be told, Seattlest might link to a story from either the Seattle Times or the Post Intelligencer's from time to time. Every day. Several times every day, actually, and rarely are their praises sung around here. Praising the PI just doesn't get you the same points that talking up The Stranger does in Seattlest's circles.