Christopher Peak Photo
English Station.
Mayor Toni Harp called for law enforcement to investigate a string of dicey deals that kept the shuttered English Station property dirty and undeveloped.
“Some authority should look into it,” Harp said in response to a listener’s question during her latest appearance on WNHH FM’s “Mayor Monday” program. “They went in there and robbed it of anything that was valuable.”
The question came from listener Aaron Goode: “Does Mayor Harp think there should be a federal investigation into possible money laundering, mortgage fraud, or other financial crimes involving the former English Station power plant, where numerous shady deals appear to have taken place.”
The question was prompted by this April 25 article by the Independent’s Christopher Peak, which detailed a series of failed deals hatched by alleged scammers with ties to each other.
Harp made a point of singling out the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, which controlled the process of the disposing of the property.
“PURA is a part of this in terms of their decision-making,” she said.
“The city had wanted to be involved in [decisions]. The state would not allow us to be involved. We thought at the time if we were involved, there would have been a local presence. We can blame PURA for that. We tried to have standing. They wouldn’t give it to us. It should start with PURA. They and the state should look at what they enabled … allowing them to still be involved even though they had no paid their taxes here or done the work they said they were going to cleaning up the facility.”
Click on the play arrow to watch the latest edition of WNHH FM’s “Mayor Monday.”
WNHH’s “Mayor Monday” is made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.
Yes, let's investigate whatever we cant fix and waste time and money doing it.