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Tampa company offers services for probe
By MATTHEW WAITE, Times Staff Writer PORT RICHEY -- The qualification that got Fed-Tech Investigations Inc. its interview with the Port Richey City Council was right there on the cover of its fax. The Tampa company "had no allegiance to any party in Port Richey," the sheet said. On Tuesday night, Fed-Tech president Dan Witowski told council members that his firm's background in fraud and criminal cases would make it well qualified to look into the allegations of misdeeds in the city's building department. Witowski said the firm would use a "team concept" with two other investigators in the firm. Witowski and Roger Leff are both retired postal investigators. Judith Brown worked as an investigator for the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation. "We use a team concept," he said. "Some people have strengths, some people have weaknesses. Three heads are always better than one." Brown's experience with DBPR intrigued the council. DBPR is investigating matters in the building department now. The council did not reach a decision Tuesday night on whom to hire for its investigation. And the building department probe still is very much undefined. In the past, the council has disagreed whether the action is an investigation or an administrative review. The only solid agreement the council has been able to muster so far was to invite Michael Quill, a former Gulfport police lieutenant commander, and Leff to come for interviews. Quill, who was hired earlier this year by city administrators to investigate the building department, interviewed for the job last month. However, he told the council "I'd have to think about it" when he was asked if he wanted the job. In one way or another, council members have agreed that they needed to look at past actions in the building department. Allegations have included homes built in violation of building codes, city projects completed with unlicensed contractors and missing public records.
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From today's Pasco Times Editorial Letters |
