Corey L. Alston resigned as the city manager of South Bay,
Florida in the wake of a grand theft charge against him. He also stepped down
as chairman of the FAMU Foundation, but remains on the board.
The Palm Beach Post editorial board writes that Alston “had the
makings of the worst kind of thief.”
From the editorial: “Will South Bay survive its former city
manager?”
South Bay’s former city manager had the makings of the worst
kind of thief. Not only is he accused of stealing and misspending tax dollars
hand over fist, he inflicted needless suffering on its residents at the same
time.
Corey Alston’s three-year reign over the Glades town of
5,000, one of Palm Beach County’s poorest, was awful for many reasons. But the
full extent of his corruption only now becoming fully known. Investigators at
the state attorney’s office are examining an audit by the county’s inspector
general, and the findings are stunning.
To review, Mr. Alston resigned in February after being
charged with grand theft over a backroom deal that allegedly netted him $25,000
in unearned pay. That investigation prompted misdemeanor charges against three
city commissioners, resulting in their suspension from office by Gov. Rick
Scott. Outrageous as this allegation of thievery was, it was even worse, since
at the time Mr. Alston was forcing residents to keep paying the county’s
highest rates for water to further his political agenda.
The audit by the Office of Inspector General has revealed
years of misspending by Mr. Alston and his staff. Mr. Alston ran up more than
$56,000 in charges on his city credit card – even after being questioned about
earlier sketchy spending. Not only that, auditors found that he kept open the
credit card account of the city clerk after her retirement and made purchases
in her name.
Among the dubious expenses the audit tied to him and his
staff: more than $6,000 for free lunches and parties for city employees; nearly
$1,000 for flowers; $600 for a company to make automated phone calls to Glades
residents promoting certain political candidates; more than $4,000 to rent
temporary construction fencing for Mr. Alston’s private business; and $500 to
pay for someone not even on city staff to attend a high school reunion.
In just a three-month span in 2009, Mr. Alston billed the
city almost $2,000 for meals. The twist? Auditors say almost all of them took
place in restaurants near his home in Broward County, more than 60 miles from
South Bay. City officials actually caught these and thousands of dollars in
other expenses and asked Mr. Alton to repay them. He repaid just a portion –
and then ran up tens of thousands of dollars more on his city credit card.
Read the full editorial here.