Deborah Bowie Profile
Gainesville City auditor, Carlos Holt scheduled the Reichert House audit while, then City Manager, Anthony Lyons was under pressure to resign by the commission. Lyons sent in his letter of resignation on Dec 11, 2018, which ended his tenure in February, 2019. The City Commission unanimously approved the resignation two days following the resignation letter from Lyons. To date, no attempt has been made to link Lyons' resignation to the serious deficiencies exposed by the City auditor. Pwerhaos ther should be.
Holt completed the Reichert House audit in November (2018), and it was released on April 12 (2019). He found a lack of standard business processes, lack of transparency, grants being obtained and managed outside the city’s oversight, inaccurate and inadequate procedures for performance metrics and poorly documented purchase transactions.
With Holt's audit underway before Lyons resigned it becomes curious as to how the decision was made to promote Bowie to interim City manager when County NAACP President Evelyn Foxx said "Bowie would not be the best choice to try to heal divisions in the city." Also, Former city arborist Meg Niederhofer claimed, "the problems the city is facing with neighborhood redevelopment, police dissatisfaction and other issues could be better addressed by Varvel or Park." It was most notably commissioners David Arreola and Gail Johnson who favored Bowie for interim city manager despite the NAACP recommendation. In the end, the commission voted unanimously to promote Bowie to the position of interim City manager when Varvel joined the commission's preferences to promote Bowie.
Deborah Bowie (then, Bowie Vance-Bowie) was fired from her job as in 2009 as Chief of staff by Interim Birmingham Mayor Carole Smitherman when Bowie failed to report a $20 million dollar shortfall in the City's budget under then Mayor, Larry Langford.
With broad community distrust of the current Gainesville commission and interim city manager, it's fair to speculate that Bowie's history of association with financial coverups could have played a factor in the commission's decision to reject a less controversial candidate in order that Bowie could apply dirty tricks and defamation to oust City Auditor, Carlos Holt.
SCANDAL: Birmingham Mayor, Larry Langford:
(WBRC) Langford was convicted in October (2011) on 60 felony charges of bribery and conspiracy that took place while he was president of the Jefferson County Commission. Prosecutors said Langford sent more than $7 million in county bond business to Bill Blount's investment banking firm. Langford, in turn, received $235,000 in cash, jewelry and clothing from Blount via Alabama Democratic lobbyist Al LaPierre. Prosecutors said most of the financial business Langford funneled to Blount involved bond and swap transactions related to Jefferson County's multi-billion dollar sewer debt.
Bowie was at the center of the Langford scandal headlined as:
"The Incredible Story Of The Jefferson County Bankruptcy -- One Of The Greatest Financial Ripoffs Of All Time" (Business Insider)
More:
$20 million shortfall revealed after mayor’s conviction
City leaders disclosed a $20 million budget shortfall Tuesday just days after the bribery conviction and ouster of Larry Langford as Birmingham mayor, and his successor said officials are trying to determine whether any crimes occurred.
Vance-Bowie said she received confirmation of the $20 million shortfall from the finance department days before the start of Langford’s trial and informed Langford of the problem.
“He said he’d deal with it,” she said. Langford instead was convicted and immediately removed from office.
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