The Proverbial Tip

The Proverbial Tip

We enjoyed Eric Jackson's article in AGENDA ("Trouble at EMU, Sept. 1992). We are EMU administrators who know that you have uncovered only the tip of the iceberg but you have a good start. Anyone who looks deeper will find ever so much criminal activity at EMU. The path will ultimately lead to Gary Owen. Wilbanks is Owen's puppet. Owen is insanely ambitious and ruthless and greedy. As administrators we cannot exposé what needs to be exposed. The risk to our careers is too great...

Anonymous

Eric Jackson responds:

Your letter is like other responses that I have received since AGENDA published the story on EMU's troubles, and even before that, when I was researching the story. Indeed , a cloud of abuse and corruption has fallen over EMU. This coincides with the arrival of an entourage of former Michigan House of Representatives Speaker Gary Owen's friends, into staff and administrative posts with the university.

The list of those well-connected individuals who are feeding at the EMU trough, yet who were not mentioned in the September article, begins with Gary Owen. He is Eastern's Lansing lobbyist. The university's "in house" lobbyist is Doris Komblevitz, whose husband was head of the Ypsilanti Chamber of Commerce, which several times named Gary Owen as its "Man of the Year," and whose members were a principal source of Owen's political and financial support.

The EMU patronage system extends to Ypsilanti city officials. Besides former Ypsilanti Township trustee Roy Wilbanks, two high-profile local activists now occupying EMU posts are Ypsilanti city councilmember Al Robinson and former Ypsilanti school board member Marcia Harrison Harris. Robinson came to EMU in the Risk Management Program, and now holds another supervisory post. Harris heads the Corporate Education Center, which is slated to be put under the control of the EMU Foundation, whose chair is her brother John Damoose. Former Ypsilanti High School principal and local bar owner George Beaudette, an old buddy of Owen and Wilbanks, now heads EMU's alumni relations operations. The "Who's Who" could go on and on.

To me, the most obnoxlous Owen-EMU connectlon Is the Gary Owen College of Business. In my opinion, it is an uncouth exercise in self-aggrandizement for a living politician to have his or her name put on a public building. On the other hand, the most Important Owen story is his lobbying for Envotech, whose proposed Augusta Township toxic waste incinerator may cover us all in toxic ash.

You raise the issue of criminality. It appears, particularly in the case of international travel by EMU administrators and regents, that crimes may have been committed. However, we avoid dwelling on the crime question for two major reasons.

First, violation of the law is but one marker of impropriety. What's wrong is wrong, and just because somebody does not get indicted or convicted of a criminal offense for it does not make it right.

Second, questions of criminality typically revolve around the Intention of the actor. Accusations of crime require assumptions about mindset that responsible journalists usually avoid.

Finally, there is the frustration of hearing from people like yourselves, who are rightly afraid of retaliation for blowing the whistle. (Yes, we know that there is a Whistle Blowers' Protection Act, and we also know that if they come after you, it will probably be done so subtly that you'll never know what hit you.) Yet we will not publish all of the rumors, innuendoes and unconfirmed stories about EMU that we have encountered. Which is not to say that there is nothing to them. However, AGEMDA maintains journalistic standards which keep us from printing what we do not know to be true.

Do you have information that would complete our story about EMU? Come to us with it. We will protect sources' confidentiality, even to the point of going to jail rather than revealing identities. Even if you can not document what you believe or know to be true, it may be possible get confirmation from another source.

The EMU story, and the Gary Owen story, are complex and multi-faceted. AGENDA intends ot pursue these matters in future issues. With the help of people like you, we might do a better job of it.

AGENDA Ann Arbor's Alternative Newsmonthly

EDITORS

Laurie Wechter

Phillis Engelbert

Ted Sylvester

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Eric Jackson

ETCETERA EDITOR

Stephanie Harrell

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

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AGENDA is an independent, nonaligned newsmonthly published by Agenda publications, 220 S. Main st., Ann Arbor, mi 48104, 313/996-8018, ISSN 1047-0727. Vol. 7, No. 6, October 1992, Copyright © Agenda Publications, Subscriptions: $15/year U.S., $30/year international.

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