In the past year, we've seen Detroit sink further and further into financial ruin.
We listened to months of testimony on how our former hip-hop Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick fleeced the city and lined his pockets.
And we've watched the city council implode. We've seen its president, Charles Pugh, become a fugitive of sorts.
You'd think all that would be enough to end the tolerance for impropriety.
But nooooo.
The Detroit Free Press reports that two trustees were tapped to lead one of Detroit’s pension fund boards on Wednesday. That comes less than two months after they took an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii for a conference.
Joe Guillen of The Freep reports:
Cedric Cook and John Riehl will lead the Detroit General Retirement System as chairman and vice chairman, respectively. The two of them, along with two other Detroit pension trustees, went to a Hawaiian beach resort for an educational conference in May that cost the city’s taxpayer-backed pension funds an estimated $22,000. . . .
A spokesman for Orr declined to comment Wednesday on the General Retirement System’s new leadership but said Orr remains concerned about whether the pension boards are taking Detroit’s financial crisis seriously and managing the funds prudently.
“He still continues to have those concerns. It doesn’t matter who is chairman of that organization,” Orr spokesman Bill Nowling said.
-- Allan Lengel
