$150,000 FOR PARKING LOT HURRICANE REPAIRS?

The Polk County Opportunity Council continues to amaze me. They applied for, and received, $150,000 from Uncle Sam for emergency hurricane repairs on the small parking lot of one of their Head Start centres in Bartow...a repair that at least a couple of engineers say shouldn't cost more than $20,000 to 25,000.

One of the agency's attorneys claims the six-figure amount was based on a written quote from an engineering firm...but PCOC could not provide the quote in question.

And the truly telling quote comes from former PCOC Finance Director Ed Leon, who left the community action agency for a similar position in North Florida:

"How does a hurricane cause $150,000 in damage to a little parking lot?" Leon asked. "It defies logic. But with PCOC there doesn't have to be any logic."

In September, PCOC applied for federal emergency funds to repair hurricane damage to it's facilities totalling $723,000, and Uncle Sam forwarded PCOC $318,000 a week later.

Leon said Executive Director Carolyn Speed had to sign the application after neither he or his assistant would do so, claiming the claims of damage were severely undocumented.

Speed also signed a similar application for funds the following month, and received all of the $304,000 requested. The $150,000 for the parking lot repair was in this application.