Back in September we pointed out that another Nixon-backed business loan had backfired in spectacular fashion: Kirksville company Wi-Fi Sensors – which had secured a $1 million loan from the geniuses at the Department of Economic Development as well as a dog-and-pony show in the form of a priceless Jay Nixon photo-op – had apparently gone belly-up, missing their first payment on the loan and laying off their employees.
Now, it seems, much like the Mamtek scandal that Nixon and the DED have been embroiled in for months, the due diligence on Wi-Fi Sensors was nothing if not sub-par when it came to vetting the project that would receive a million taxpayer dollars.
The Kirksville Daily Express reports that when Wi-Fi Sensors sought the loan from the Missouri Department of Economic Development, the state of California had a lien against a former company that was operated by Wi-Fi's president.
Peter Fuhr and David Fuhr were listed as "active owners" for Wi-Fi Sensors on the company's loan application. A tax lien was filed in January 2006 against Peter Fuhr's former company, B4HI Inc., for $1,067.15 in unpaid taxes from 2003.
Not to mention that…
The business' address matches the home address listed for a 2004 federal tax lien for $126,467 against Peter and Moira Hutchins-Fuhr. The federal tax lien was released in December 2006, [but] the Santa Cruz County, Calif., recorders office said no release or satisfaction had been filed for the lien against B4HI Inc.
“Due diligence” is apparently not in the vocabulary of the people in Nixon’s administration who are responsible for, well… due diligence.
The Fuhrs [stated] that Missouri officials did not raise the issue when they applied for the loan.
Of course they didn’t raise the issue. They’re morons.
And isn’t it comforting to know that they are in charge of the sole governmental body literally tasked with giving our money away?
Oversights like these, if you can call them merely ‘oversights’, are not isolated incidents. They show a clear pattern of incompetence on the part of everyone in the Dept. of Economic Development all the way up to Jay Nixon himself, and they are an embarrassment to the state of Missouri.
The people of Missouri should now do their own ‘due diligence’ regarding the state’s executive branch and hold the responsible parties accountable.
- B.H.
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