A former Little Rock Wastewater Utility employee said he alerted City Manager Bruce Moore about the utility’s operations manager living rent-free at a sewage-treatment plant back in 2011 - a housing situation that continued until early this month.
The matter of thousands of dollars of public funds being spent to accommodate the stays of Operations Manager Stan Miller on utility property - pointed out this month in articles in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette - is now the subject of an independent audit and a Little Rock Police Department investigation. It also resulted in Miller and the utility’s Chief Executive Officer Reggie Corbitt being placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigations.
The mayor and members of a committee that supervises certain aspects of Little Rock Wastewater Utility said they were unaware that Miller stayed on-site until the newspaper articles and said they were alarmed at the allegation.
But Moore confirmed Friday that he did meet with Perry Thornton, a former wastewater employee, in 2011 regarding Miller and said he passed the information along to Corbitt, who as the utility’s CEO is responsible for investigations into complaints about his employees.
“I did relay all of that to Mr. Corbitt in the appropriate fashion,” Moore said in a phone interview. “They’re a separate entity [from the city.] I don’t have any authority over their employees.I reviewed [Thornton’s] allegations. I alerted who I think were the appropriate officials. And at that point … I turned it over; I alerted Mr. Corbitt.”
Thornton, who was the former superintendent of the Adams Field Treatment Plant, said he told Moore that Miller lived at Adams Field in his mobile home from time to time, had female guests and showed off his weapons to employees.
When initially asked about being informed of Miller staying in his trailer on utility property, Moore didn’t deny being told that by Thornton. But when he was asked to specifically confirm which complaints Thornton relayed to him, Moore said he couldn’t remember.
“I’d have to go back, and to be honest, look at my notes,” Moore said. “I think I talked to him multiple times, maybe even via phone. But again, I felt like the allegations he made were serious and we did try to determine if there was any type of [federal] investigation going on. That had actually been rumored, and we were not able to determine that officially.”
Thornton told Moore that he had notified local FBI agents about the matter, Moore said, adding that city staff members weren’t able to confirm any investigation took place. It was ultimately Corbitt’s responsibility to follow up on the allegations, Moore said.
“He is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the utility. And I don’t, I had no authority over Mr. Corbitt. And I think we made all the appropriate notifications of what we had been told,” he said.
Documents obtained by the Democrat-Gazette through a Freedom of Information Act request this month show that Little Rock Wastewater Utility spent at least $15,944.12 in public funds for work done to place two of Miller’s trailers at two treatment plants, and for a kennel and a heating pad for his dog, since 2012. Documents dating back further were unavailable, but according to several utility employees, Miller had been living on-and-off in his trailers at treatment plants for a number of years while public funds paid for the utilities he used at the trailers.
After the newspaper’s first article about the expenses Dec. 9, Mayor Mark Stodola ordered a Little Rock Police Department investigation into the expenditures. The Sanitary Sewer Committee called for an investigation by an independent audit firm.
Contacted Friday evening, Stodola said he was unaware that Moore or anyone else from the city knew of the allegations about Miller and his trailers before the articles this month. Stodola said he wouldn’t speculate about whether more should have been done by city officials back in 2011, citing that he does not know what was said in the conversations Thornton, Moore and Corbitt had.
Corbitt didn’t return multiple voice mails left on his cellphone Friday.
The mayor added that the utility is a semiautonomous operation and that Moore was correct in that Corbitt has the responsibility of handling complaints about his employees.
“Should more have been done? I don’t know. When I found out, I called [Sanitary Sewer Commission Chairman] Ken Griffey immediately and advised him of it … they’ve taken action and I have the police looking into it,” Stodola said.
Police Chief Stuart Thomas said his detectives’ investigation into the trailer expenses and the shell casings and bullet holes found at sewage plant property is wrapping up. The bullet holes in signs and shell casings on utility property were taken to the attention of the utility’s administration in September, but Corbitt instructed the utility to handle it internally rather than notify police, utility spokesman John Jarratt has said.
Thomas will provide city directors a summary of the police investigation within a week, he said.
Jarratt, who has been appointed to oversee executive duties while Corbitt is on leave, said Friday that Corbitt never told him that Moore had taken the allegations about Miller to Corbitt in 2011.
Thornton’s main reason for meeting with Moore in April and March of 2011 was to have someone look into the reason for his termination, which he contends was unwarranted, but also to draw attention to what he felt were concerns of Miller living and having visitors a his mobile home at the plant. Thornton was fired by Miller in January 2011 for “unsatisfactory job performance” and “withholding of information,” according to a termination letter signed by Miller.
Moore suggested he go through the appropriate appeals process, and Thornton ended up filing grievances and meeting with Corbitt, but the CEO ultimately upheld the firing.
“I personally think Mr. Moore should have looked into [the trailer and other matters] a little bit more,” Thornton said Friday. “It seems to me that maybe all he did was handed it off to Reggie. I felt like he could have done more investigation on it and checked it out. To me, [living on-site with a nonemployee] is a concern. I don’t know what response Reggie had [to Moore], but I know the response he gave me was, ‘Oh,’ and that’s it. Obviously all that went through and nothing was ever done.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/28/2013