Suit Alleges Conspiracy Between City and Developers
A scandal two years in the making over at Austin City Hall may finally be reaching critical mass.
On July 20, one Bill Moriarty, the former head of the Austin Clean Water Program, filed a lawsuit against a virtual who's-who list of local urban developers: Development firms PBS&J, Malcolm Pirnie, Owen Consulting, CH2M Hill Inc., Parsons Engineering Science, K Friese & Associates and Hey Cister! Consulting. Also named is attorney David Armbrust, Moriarty's former legal representation, and his firm Armbrust & Brown. Last but not least, we have defendant lobbyist and former Mayor Bruce Todd. This scandal, as Moriarty frames it, may well go all the way to the top.
Moriarty was charged with bringing Austin's ailing sewer system up to federal standards, a $200 million upgrade project (that's a lotta money). However, after Moriarty had made a large amount of forward movement on the project, City Manager Toby Futrell initiated an internal investigation against him. The report on the investigation stated that Moriarity had failed to disclose his personal relationship with a woman whom he'd hired for the sewer project, and that this had created an intolerable "appearance" of impropriety. On these grounds, Moriarty was summarily fired back in 2005.
But Moriarty insists that there was something far more sinister at work here. According to him, this "investigation" was nothing more than a front for a conspiracy against him between the City and development firms. In his legal filing, Moriarty alleges that he was fired by City Hall because he instituted cost-saving measures that interfered with the contractors' feeding frenzy on the $200 million sewer renovation project. Specifically, he alleges that the defendants met "with a specific agenda of joining forces to develop a strategy to remove Moriarty from the ACWP."
If this case goes to court, we should get a rare view of the way City Hall does business. And we may not like what we see . . . but at least we might get a better explanation for the multitude of condo towers sprouting up all around our city and the many more that are on the way.
For further information, see the Austin Chronicle's coverage of this issue.
Image of Austin City Hall courtesy of ju_urrutia on flickr.
