Exec: Mayor forced Ferguson hire

Detroit ? Bobby Ferguson was foisted upon a contractor by Kwame Kilpatrick in a "forced marriage," a former executive said Friday, with the former Detroit mayor and a top aide paying close attention to the relationship.

Kathleen McCann, a former senior vice president for Soave Enterprises, the parent company of Inland Waters Pollution Control, backed up testimony from her former boss, Tony Soave, that Kilpatrick told them in 2002 to hire Ferguson for a $50 million sewer repair project.

"We were essentially in a forced marriage," McCann said. "Mr. Ferguson's company was chosen by Mayor Kilpatrick as our subcontractor."

McCann said Kilpatrick and his former aide, Derrick Miller, told her they were aware of negotiations between Inland and Ferguson. Miller approached McCann during a public gathering on Mackinac Island in 2002, she said.

"It was an anxiety-increasing moment," McCann said. "It let me know again that negotiations had to be completed before the contract was let."

Miller later struck a plea deal and agreed to testify against Kilpatrick during the City Hall corruption trial.

Now chief executive officer of an automotive transport company, McCann detailed how she met Ferguson and came into contact with his company. Inland had won two $25 million sewer contracts with the aid of another minority contractor in 2001. But after hearing rumors that the work ? later rolled into a single, larger contract ? was being stalled, Soave went to the mayor.

Soave testified this week that when he asked Kilpatrick about the contractor, the mayor told him he "had the wrong subcontractor." Soave, who completed his testimony earlier Friday, said Kilpatrick identified the "right one" as Ferguson.

McCann said Ferguson was "troubling," demanded a 3 percent profit and would have been dumped if he wasn't tight with the mayor.

The "marriage" was so toxic McCann said she and colleagues documented threats and pressure from Ferguson in a diary, figuring some day "we would be telling the story."

That day was Friday. McCann returns to the stand on Monday.

mwilkinson@detnews.com

(313) 222-2563

Source: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121208/METRO/212080332/1409/rss36

cispa baltimore ravens space shuttle new york courtney upshaw russell wilson catch me if you can delmon young arrested