A one-sided look behind the curtain

Gossip has it that Ferguson pulled thestrings that culminated in the City Council vote last week thatdelivered the fatal blow to the proposed swap championed by the Berneroadministration. The Council rejected giving the plan a public hearing,and Davenport pulled out not only of the plan but probably out ofLansing altogether.

Now comes Ferguson to respond. Hisversion may or may not be the truth, but it has the advantage of beingon the record, which none of his detractors have been willing to be,from City Hall to Mason.

Ferguson and I spoke for an hour byphone on Friday. He answered every question I asked him, he chuckled attimes as I brought up one theory after another about his alleged role,and he provided new information — some of it surprising.

Let’s start with his views on theproperty deal that would have had Davenport trading its two buildingsand 7-acre Lansing campus for Oliver Towers and the city parking lotnext to it.

One rumor was that Ferguson influencedCarol Wood, Brian Jeffries, Eric Hewitt and Derrick Quinney to cast theprevailing votes against advancing the deal to a public hearing — adecision that sent Davenport packing after its president declared theprocess too political.

Ferguson said they opposed it not because he was against it but because “it was a bad deal.”

“Davenport is in a flood plain,”Ferguson said, adding “The Housing Commission will only use 20 percentof the space.” The commission’s offices are on the first floor ofOliver Towers, a one-time senior citizens apartment building that hasbeen otherwise closed since a 2000 fire.

Ferguson thinks the deal might have gonethrough had Council had more time to discuss it — and had the mayorworked with the entire Council.

“Here’s the real problem in Lansing.Virg has a lot of good ideas for how to move the city forward,”Ferguson said, citing the Accident Fund development and, more importantto him, the clean-up of Grand Avenue it spawned. But Bernero “doesn’tlike certain Council members” and only talks to those he likes.Ferguson is confident that if the mayor had talked to all Councilmembers, “they could have worked something out” and the Davenport dealwouldn’t have gone south.

The Wood, Jeffries and Hewitt votesagainst the Bernero plan were predictable. The Quinney vote was not.Conspiracy peddlers say it happened because Quinney listens toFerguson, or perhaps more.

Sure he listens to me, says Ferguson,citing a friendship going back to the days when Quinney played littleleague football on the city playground Ferguson oversaw. Ferguson saysQuinney does listen to him. And, as Ferguson says unabashedly, “I havea lot of political influence.” So do most big-time developers —Ferguson says his city of Lansing property tax bill last year was $1.5million. Moreover, he is an important political figure around thestate, which translated into a seat on the Democratic NationalCommittee (until out of loyalty he supported Hillary Clinton). And notjust behind the scenes: He was the first black person elected to theCity Council and is an MSU trustee, a statewide elected position.

The personal and political reasons addup to this, says Ferguson: “All I have going with Derrick is the rightto make a speech to him. He’s not going to do what I want if he doesn’tagree with me.”

Could it be that some conspirators lump them together because they are both black?

“Everybody thinks I’m friends with everyblack person,” Ferguson says, leaving me to ponder the obvious racismmotivating such thinking.

Which leads to his relationship withLisa Webb Sharpe, a black woman who indeed has a connection to Ferguson— but he says not in the way people think.

Before Webb Sharpe was vice president atLCC and the spokeswoman for the school’s effort to buy Oliver Towers,she was the director of the state Department of Management and Budgetunder Gov. Jennifer Granholm when the Michigan State Police buildingdeal went through. Despite howls of protest, the administration agreedto lease a state police headquarters from Ferguson in downtown Lansing.The conspiracy believers had Webb Sharpe delivering that deal and nowsomehow carrying water for Ferguson in the Oliver Towers deal.

The problem with that theory, saysFerguson, is Webb Sharpe fought him hard on the State Police deal.“There are plenty of witnesses to the shouting matches we had,” hesays. It wasn’t until she left the state for her LCC job that Fergusongot his way, he adds.

So, did Ferguson get her out of the way by helping her get her job at LCC?

Nope, he says, it was a former stateemployee of hers, Ed Woods. Ferguson helped him onto the ticket for theLCC board with Jerry Hollister and Deb Canja, who all won. A yearlater, Woods successfully championed her for the LCC job, Ferguson adds.

Another rumor: Ferguson is acquiringproperty from the Catholic Diocese around Oliver Towers and it wouldbenefit him in some development scheme if LCC won Oliver Towers.

Ferguson says he owns one building hebought 12 years ago from the Catholic Conference, which is a blocknorth and separated from Oliver Towers by two LCC parking lots andLCC’s University Center. That’s it.

Not that he didn’t want to own anotherone: Oliver Towers. He said he and Chuck Clark, CEO of ClarkConstruction Co., think it could make good housing for students whocannot afford Ferguson’s downtown complex Capital Commons. Moreover,he’s not convinced Oliver Towers needs to be torn down just because ofa fire in one unit.

But he declines to get into a biddingwar with LCC, which has offered $2.5 million. Besides not thinking he’dwin, Ferguson — an LCC alumnus as well as MSU — doesn’t want to becausehe thinks LCC has more important plans for the site.

Nor, he says, would the city “want to get into a biddingcontest with me like the ramp,” referring to another important piece ofthe conspiracy, the North Capitol Parking Ramp, across the street fromOliver Towers. After City Council voted down a Bernero plan to sell itto LCC because it wasn’t enough money, Ferguson and LCC entered into abidding war for it. But the Council, in a 4-2 vote, refused to considerLCC’s offer unless it could consider Ferguson’s as well. (The four?Quinney, Wood, Jeffries and Hewitt.)

What’s the connection to Oliver Towers?Supposedly, the deal was that Ferguson wouldn’t stand in the way of theDavenport deal if he got the parking ramp. Then, supposedly a weekbefore the Council vote, the city asked for more money than the $2.9million Ferguson was offering. Ferguson balked and withheld his supportfor the Davenport deal.

Ferguson says the ramp deal is on holdfor a reason having nothing to do with Oliver Towers: City AttorneyBrig Smith told him the city won’t sell him the ramp because Fergusonis suing the city over what it charged him for building permits for theState Police headquarters. That suit is scheduled for court in April,Ferguson says.

As I said, Ferguson told me all that onFriday, and I figured I’d exhausted all the rumors. Not so: On Mondayan elected official told me Ferguson wants LCC to get Oliver Towers sohe can develop the property for the school and make 20 percent on that.

And the beat goes on … .