Serious allegations have
been made against the City of Lawrence Vocational
School director, David Howshan. Allegations by
former and current employees of Mr. Howshan range
from fraudulently submitting bills to outright
theft of money and materials from the Vocational
School. Is Mr. Howshan guilty of theft and other
criminal activity? Or is he the victim of
disgruntled employees?
The problem here is that we are probably never
going to know the answers to these questions. It
has been widely reported that there is an
"investigation" being conducted into
the allegations against Howshan, but the question
is who is doing the investigating?
Supposedly, the Personnel director for the city
of Lawrence has been "investigating"
the situation and several politicians are
"investigating but the one entity missing in
all these talks of investigations is law
enforcement.
If there is any evidence at all, even
circumstantial evidence, which points to the
possibility that Mr. Howshan was stealing money,
materials, services or submitting fraudulent
reports to the City or State this issue should
not be in the hands of politicians it should be
in the hands of law enforcement.
Has the Mayor asked the police chief to conduct a
criminal investigation into he allegations
against Mr. Howshan? No, he hasn't. Has any city
official requested the ethics commission, state
police or any other law enforcement agency to
look into this? No they haven't.
In fact, the only real movement by any city
officials to try and get to the bottom of this
was the City Council. At a recent sub-committee
meeting councilors asked for a fraud audit of the
expenditures at the CLVS, but were told that the
city couldn't afford $25,000 to hire the auditing
firm to do the work. Some councilors are adamant,
vowing to find the money, while other councilors
oppose the idea of an audit.
With no evidence except the allegations of former
and current employees, as it stands right now Mr.
Howshan is still the director of the CLVS. He has
not been suspended pending the outcome of the
allegations. He has not been removed. He insists
the allegations are untrue saying he has
documentation to back up his claims. The truth is
we just don't know what is true and what is
fiction.
And at the rate this issue is being ignored by
local officials I have no faith at all that the
public will ever get answers to the questions
surrounding the CLVS and whether or not our money
was misappropriated or stolen outright.
The people have the right to know if their money
is being stolen or spent properly. Allegations of
this magnitude deserve an independent fraud audit
and a full investigation by a neutral law
enforcement agency. And while the matter is being
looked into, Mr. Howshan should be on paid leave
until the matter is cleared up.
If Mr. Howshan is guilty of some (or all) of the
charges against him it will be much tougher to
prove if he is still working there every day with
access to documents and the ability to alter,
destroy or confiscate damning evidence. If he is
guilty he should not be in a position to do more
damage while the police are gathering evidence.
If Mr. Howshan is not guilty, however, an audit
and law enforcement investigation will vindicate
him because a neutral party will be able to say
for sure that he is not guilty of the many
serious allegations made against him. Either way,
allowing the situation to continue the way it is
with no safeguards of the publics money is
foolish and breeds contempt for the taxpayers
money.
We cannot wait for the sordid details to come out
in civil court as the result of actions taken by
former employees. Mayor Sullivan and the City
Council should demand the intervention of the
Attorney General, State Police or District
attorney's office immediately. If they don't,
this so called scandal will be a faded memory and
the public will never know for sure if a good man
was muddied by the political process or a guilty
man got away with stealing taxpayers funds.
The way things work around here; I have no faith
at all that a real investigation will be
conducted. I have no confidence at all that we
will ever know for sure what happened or didn't
happen at the CLVS. And that is a tragedy. At a
time when the state is cutting funds to the city,
the mayor is talking about laying off employees
and the possibility of our property taxes going
up next year, Lawrence can hardly afford to be
wondering if millions of dollars were misspent by
a city worker with no oversight.
We need a real investigation at the CLVS. We need
it now. And if our elected officials are
unwilling to expose this issue to the light of
day we should hold them responsible for looking
the other way while questions went unanswered.
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