The AP reports:
The FBI is examining the ties between Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by Jackson's department as a construction manager in New Orleans, three federal law enforcement officials said Thursday.
Jackson's friend got the job after the HUD secretary asked a staff member to pass along his name to the Housing Authority of New Orleans, a spokesman for Jackson said in a statement.
At the time, the housing authority was in desperate need of a construction manager because there was a severe shortage of reputable local contractors after Hurricane Katrina, the spokesman for Jackson said.
The inquiry was first reported by The National Journal, which identified the contractor as William Hairston of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. The magazine's Web site said Hairston and Jackson are social friends and golfing buddies.
In desperate need of a construction manager? They weren't repairing anything, and they waited two years to start the demolitions of usable housing. What was William Hairston paid to do? Maybe he was the guy who went around putting locks and do not enter signs on the gates into the housing projects.
And what's with the comment about "reputable local contractors?" Sounds like a nasty insinuation, when local Black contractors have been complaining that they are routinely excluded from post-Katrina government contracts in New Orleans.
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