Tuesday, April 25, 2006

More Corruption In Lake County Politics?

The U.S. Department of Labor is investigating how Dozier Allen, Jr., the former Calumet Township Trustee and most-recently, Gary's interim mayor, spent $170,000 in workforce grants. Calument Township Trustee Mary Elgin tells the AP she thinks she knows what happened to the money. "I think they wanted to know what did we do with the money versus what did the (Dozier) Allen (Jr.) administration do," said Elgin, who defeated Allen in 2002. "We put the money into training; they paid the money to themselves."

Allen admits he and three other employees were paid out of the grant money over and above their regular pay. "It was done with the permission of the governing body," Allen said. "It was not an exceptional procedure." Allen pocketed $28,000 of the grant money in 2002 according to the AP. Apparently Allen's $80,000 a year salary wasn't enough to live on. Maybe it was a good thing that Democrats chose Rudy Clay to replace Mayor Scott King, who hand-picked Allen as his replacement when he resigned his office last month.

No comments: