The former construction manager for the City of Pontiac filed a whistleblower lawsuit Thursday, alleging the city's emergency manager and the head of the building department fired him after he alerted state and federal officials to what he said were bid-rigging and environmental violations. He is seeking more than $25,000 in damages.
The emergency manager and building department head are both named in the suit. Also named in the suit is Wade Trim Associates, a Detroit construction consulting firm where the building department head works. He is contracted out to the City of Pontiac.
The suit claims the defendant was hired in May, in part to help supervise the cleanup and demolition of some of the city's aging housing stock, according to Minneapolis Whistleblower Lawyers.
He said he became aware that the city was violating laws in how it handled demolitions and asbestos disposal. He said he reported the violations to the federal office of Housing and Urban Development and to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
He also claims the building dept. head interceded in the city's bidding process to award business to a contractor who had been previously banned because of poor work.
The city was eventually cited for violations, the suit says. When the involved parties learned that the defendant had been reporting to state and federal agencies, they fired him, the suit says.
The involved emergency manager is well-known in municipal finance circles. Before the state governor appointed him as emergency manager in September, he was the executive administrator for the City of Warren. He also worked as the court-appointed receiver for the City of Ecorse, and the emergency manager for Hamtramck.
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