LR utility: Surplus pipe missing

Suspended manager said to let friend haul it off, official says

More than $70,000 of surplus pipe is missing from a Little Rock Wastewater Utility storage area, and sewer officials think the material was hauled off by a friend of a high-ranking manager already under police scrutiny in connection with questionable expenditures, a utility spokesman said Monday.

Debbie Williams, the utility’s accounting supervisor over capital projects, planned to have the pipe scrapped and sold at auction this year because it’s been sitting in storage at the Adams Field Treatment Facility since 1996, but when she sent workers to take photos Dec. 20, the pipe wasn’t there.

Williams said she questioned Eric Wassell, the last superintendent stationed at the wastewater-treatment plant. He told her that Operations Manager Stan Miller had a friend haul off the concrete pipe sometime in 2011, she said.

The missing pipe includes 1,255 feet of 42-inch diameter pipe and 416 feet of 60-inch pipe, sewer utility officials said.

For an idea of what the missing pipe is worth, Harrison received two bids in July for 645 feet of 42-inch pipe: $100 per foot and $75 per foot, or $64,500 and $48,375, respectively.

Miller and the utility’s chief executive office, Reggie Corbitt, were placed on paid administrative leave Dec. 10 after a Dec. 9 article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette revealed that Miller had been intermittently living rent-free in mobile homes he owned at separate treatment plants with Corbitt’s approval.

Documents obtained by the newspaper since then show that the utility has spent at least $15,944.12 in public funds in the past two years to place two of Miller’s trailers at two treatment plants and for a fenced-in area and heating pad for his dog.

Records 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 there.

Miller has previously declined to comment to the newspaper about the trailer expenses and didn’t return a voice mail left on his cellphone Monday asking about the missing pipe. Corbitt hasn’t returned several voice mails left on his cellphone over the past four days.

Administration and Community Outreach Director John Jarratt, who has been put in charge of executive duties while Corbitt is on leave, said Monday that he notified the Little Rock Police Department about the missing pipe and the the account from Wassell of how Miller had them removed.

Jarratt said he’s unsure of who moved the pipes or where they are. The utility doesn’t have the proper equipment to transport the large pipes, which are heavy and big enough for someone to walk through.

Williams said Wassell didn’t remember who hauled off the pipes or the exact date they were removed. Wassell said that he had asked Miller about it and that Miller told him Corbitt approved their removal.

Wassell was on vacation and unreachable Monday. Jarratt said he plans to ask him more questions once he returns to work.

Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas wouldn’t comment Monday about whether the missing pipe is a part of his department’s ongoing investigation into Little Rock Wastewater Utility.

Mayor Mark Stodola asked Thomas to investigate the trailer expenditures as well as the bullet holes and shell casings found at a treatment plant after the Democrat-Gazette’s first article.

Thomas originally expected that investigation to be completed by Monday, but now he expects to need another week or so to “wrap up some loose ends,” he said in a phone interview. He declined to say whether “loose ends” referred to the missing pipe.

“All I can say is that during the course of our investigation and discussions with wastewater personnel, we have developed other information that we feel is necessary to pursue,” Thomas said.

He plans to provide a summary report of the investigation to the city manager by sometime next week, he said.

The Sanitary Sewer Committee, which oversees certain operations and finances of Little Rock Wastewater Utility, is conducting its own investigation. An auditing firm has been hired to review the expenditures related to Miller’s trailers, committee member Jean Block said Monday.

The firm plans to begin its review of documents Thursday. The Sanitary Sewer Committee already set out a list of what the firm was to investigate, so in order for it to also look into the missing pipe, the committee will have to vote on that, Block said.

The committee’s next meeting was scheduled for Jan. 15 but has tentatively been moved to 4 p.m. Jan. 22 at Little Rock Wastewater Utility’s headquarters at 11 Clearwater Drive.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/31/2013

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