Michael T Whitlow's law office in Coatesville was and still is a sort of hot traffic spot for several city council members including Patsy Ray and Kareem Johnson.
Patsy Ray publicly stated at a city council meeting that she gets out of bed every morning at eleven thirty and drives to PA State Rep. Tim Hennessey's office in Coatesville. She stated that she spends the afternoon at Hennessey's Coatesville Office with her friends, Tim Hennessey's Legislative Assistant, Linda Lavender and Kareem Johnson’s sister; Lisa Johnson, Hennessey’s Administrative Assistant.
Lavender also had an alleged association with Whitlow. I have even witnessed Lavender and Michael Whitlow going in and out of her employer Rep. Tim Hennessey's office each carrying cardboard file boxes. I could not tell what was in the boxes.
Tim Hennessey's Legislative Assistant Linda Lavender also allegedly spent many days in Whitlow's office in Coatesville at 118 E Lincoln Highway.
Tim Hennessey's Legislative Assistant Linda Lavender also sat in at least one Executive Committee Meeting at City Council Meetings.
So we have at the very least an alleged person to person link between Tim Hennessey's office staff, at least two Coatesville city council members and Michael Whitlow.
There is also an alleged person to person business link between Michael Whitlow and Mosaic Development Partners, LLC's owner, Leslie Smallwood. Leslie Smallwood was disbarred in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for "knowingly misappropriating clients' trust funds in the amount of at least $139,500. Smallwood's co-council representing that unfortunate client was alleged to be Michael T Whitlow.
So allegedly, Smallwood and Whitlow had a business relationship well before the creation of Mosaic Development Partners, LLC on July 7, 2008.
Did Smallwood, Lehr, Walker, Johnson, Ray and Lavender know each other through Whitlow before Mosaic was created?
Mosaic Development Partners, LLC was created on July 7, 2008 at 4950 PARKSIDE AVE STE 506, PHILADELPHIA PA 19131 just two weeks before they made their pitch to develop the flats at the Coatesville RDA meeting on July 21, 2008.
Was Mosaic Development Partners, LLC created for the purpose of buying the "flats"?
Did Andrew Lehr or Harry Walker or Linda Lavender or Patsy Ray or Kareem Johnson have a hand in the creation of Mosaic?
I really feel Coatesville should strike Mosaic from the roster based on just this information alone. There are more reliable companies with better and longer track records.
ReplyDeleteWhy sell the property at all? Why not rent it or lease it?
The property is a contaminated industrial brownfeild. It has a zoning overlay ordinance over heavy industrial zoning to allow business and residential development. If it was leased it would have to be to a heavy industry.
ReplyDeleteThere was a proposal to build an electric generating station there. The problem with the electric generation plant was that its presence would end the possibility of linking the West End and East End of Coatesville with shops and homes where a steel plant once divided the city in half.
The main attraction that brought developers to the city is the empty brownfeild in the center of Coatesville on very, very busy roadways.
I do agree that Mosaic's credentials seem to be mostly ephemeral.
I was just told Whitlow passed away; is this true?
ReplyDeleteAttorney Michael Whitlow of Downingtown passed away on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007.
ReplyDeleteThe “Bloc of Four” took office in January of 2006.
Well before he passed away, Patsy Ray, Linda Lavender, Lisa Johnson, Kareem Johnson and several other people connected to the Coatesville City Council and Walker Administration were allegedly “regulars” at Whitlow’s office.
I had wondered (in print) why Linda Lavender and Whitlow were moving what looked like cases of files (they were the type of cardboard boxes used for files) from Representative Tim Hennessey’s office into a car out front of Hennessey’s office. I still don’t know what was in the boxes. I witnessed if myself. Because of the response from Lisa Johnson and Linda Lavender about Whitlow, Lavender and Hennessey’s office; I think I hit a sore spot. I was a little bit concerned about my safety when the two of them followed me (yelling at me) out of the Coatesville City Hall meeting room to take a phone call.
Whitlow’s office was almost a branch of the Coatesville City Hall. The connection with Mosaic Partners is that Whitlow was a partner of Leslie Smallwood in the case that led to her disbarment in 2002.
The fact that he passed away has no bearing on an alleged connection between Smallwood, Whitlow and the City of Coatesville government. The only thing that matters is they knew each other very well. I am not saying that it happened this way but there would have been plenty of time to hatch a plan to develop the flats in Whitlow’s office and like I said some of Coatesville public officials were seen going in and out of Whitlow’s office many times over. Michael Whitlow may have had nothing to do with Mosaic’s plans for the flats; but he could have introduced Leslie Smallwood to the Coatesville Administration and Coatesville public officials.
I discovered that the power plant, the one that we almost had instead of Smallwood’s development, was allegedly discussed and roughly planned by Walker, Lehr and other Coatesville area residents even before the “Bloc of Four” took office. The real money in the power plant comes through the “Coatesville Power Authority” that would need to be formed to sell electricity on Exelon’s lines. The "Coatesville Power Authority" would have local people and power plant people running it. I’m just guessing but maybe Smallwood’s plan was plan B in case the power plant did not work.
Lehr and Walker seemed to deny knowing each other when Harry Walker started as Coatesville City Manager; but they allegedly were partners along with Ed Scrivens, Pat Sellers and Ernie Campos in a plan to renovate Scott Middle School into a trade school in the late 1990’s. The plans collapsed when in April of 2000 the Coatesville Area School District decided not to sell the property.
None of this would be directly used as evidence by a Federal Prosecutor in a RICO case. But it is what investigators call “good to know” information. Maybe good enough for further investigation.