Furniture Sofa

A Detroit nonprofit that received a no-bid, $1.2-million contract from the city to provide services to low-income people misspent $200,000 on furniture that ended up in city offices, the Free Press has learned.

The Human Services Department issued the contract last year to Clark Associates exclusively to pay its employees to assist with the city’s food and clothing assistance programs.

But records obtained by the Free Press show the nonprofit spent $210,344 of the contract on furniture that is now at the Human Services Department’s office at 5031 Grandy.

By using a service contract to buy furniture, the department violated a city ordinance that requires City Council approval for purchases of more than $25,000, said Greg Murray, vice president and administrative representative for the Senior Accountants, Analysts and Appraisers Association, which represents some of the Human Services employees.

“A department that gave a no-bid contract to a company gets more than $200,000 in furniture?… There’s something wrong,” said Murray, who made the council aware of the contract and purchase.

A division of the council is investigating the contract but hasn’t been able to get answers from the department, Councilwoman Brenda Jones said. The department didn’t respond to Free Press requests for comment.

As Detroit slashes wages, money spent on more office furniture

The furniture began arriving late last year.

Cherrywood desks, chairs and tables replaced older furniture on various floors of the Detroit Human Services Department.

Employees, whose wages were cut by 10% last year, were dumbfounded.

Turns out, the money used to buy the furniture was supposed to support programs for lower-income residents, according to records obtained by the Free Press.

The Human Services issued a no-bid, $1.2-million contract to the nonprofit Clark Associates in Detroit.

Although the contract required Clark Associates to spend all of the money on wages for employees to help provide food and clothes to struggling Detroit residents, the nonprofit used more than $200,000 of the taxpayer money to buy the furniture.

Whether all of the furniture ended up in city offices remains a mystery because department leaders declined to explain the purchase with the Free Press, saying they would reveal information only under the Freedom of Information Act.

In addition, neither Mayor Dave Bing nor officials with Clark Associates would comment on the contract and furniture purchase.

City Council members have called for an investigation by its research and analysis division, but the probe is being hindered by Human Services’ failure to respond to the complaints, Councilwoman Brenda Jones said.

“We’re still waiting for them to submit the report,” said Jones, who added that she hopes to have more details by next week.

The information came to light when Greg Murray, vice president and administrative representative of the Senior Accountants, Analysts and Appraisers Association — which represents some of the department’s employees — told council members that the department appeared to have violated city ordinances by hiding the furniture purchase in a service contract.

By doing so, Murray said, the department was able to make furniture purchases at a time when the city is slashing wages, employee benefits and services. The city is facing a $155-million deficit.

The city charter requires the council to approve spending that exceeds $25,000.

“This is an abomination,” Murray said. “It’s a no-bid contract that helped the department that issued the contract.”

Human Services issued another contract to Clark Associates late last year in the amount of $694,201 to provide the same services, records show.

From 2005 to 2009, Clark Associates received more than $125 million in the form of grants and contributions, according to its tax records. Those records do not indicate the origin of the funding.

Most of the furniture was purchased in September at Creative Office Interiors in St. Clair Shores for $182,078. The store owner did not return calls for comment, but an employee who answered the phone said she couldn’t remember a purchase that large.

More details are expected to emerge soon, but the city first needs the department’s cooperation, Elizabeth Cabot of the research and analysis division told council members.

The mayor’s office is in the middle of budget discussions with the council and has asked the city’s unions for concessions to fend off the possibility of an emergency manager being imposed by the state.

Councilman James Tate said he couldn’t comment on the contract because he hasn’t seen it, but he emphasized the need for an investigation.

“Anytime there is an allegation of impropriety, it is important to do whatever we can to be responsible with taxpayer dollars and ensure the integrity of city government,” Tate said.

Contact Steve Neavling: sneavling@freepress.com

Q: You’re both plenty busy with “Roadshow” and your other ventures. (Leigh owns a Manhattan auction house. Leslie is a director at Sotheby’s Auction House.) Why did you decide to create your own furniture line?

Leigh: We’ve been thinking about it for five years. We would look at a chair or a table and think ‘If only the leg were a little shorter or the back were less puffy.’ And in today’s world, furniture needs to be multifunctional because everyone’s doing six things at once.

Q: Describe the Keno Bros. Collection.

Leigh: Sensual. Many have S-shaped curves, the beautiful serpentine line we see in nature that is pleasurable and sensual to look at.

Leslie: They’re pieces that we would want to live with, and the finishes invite you to touch it. We decided not to put handles on our pieces. We didn’t want to interrupt the beautiful form.

Q: Why did you choose a modern aesthetic?

Leslie: People were really surprised when they saw the line at the home furnishings market at High Point last year. People couldn’t believe we were doing modern because we’re associated with 18th- and 19th-century furniture.

It would have been easy to replicate Chippendale and Queen Anne furniture, but we wanted to come up with something that is fresh and not reproductions. We like the element of surprise.

Q: Are any of the pieces in the new line inspired by antiques?

Leigh: As auctioneers, we have handled and catalogued thousands of pieces from Europe, America and Asia. We’re not inspired by a specific piece but by all we’ve seen and owned, like a 20th-century Italian table in our apartment that we like the curve of.

We took the saber leg, which has been around for centuries, and used it in the Slope mahogany armchair. Our Dance side table is inspired by 18th-century French furniture. We have modernized it with tremendous parquetry.

Q: How is your knowledge of furniture evident in this line?

Leslie: We have an innate curiosity about woods, craftsmanship and history. We take the best of what we’ve seen – line, proportion and sculptural form – and condense it into pieces we would like to wake up to each morning.

Q: What kind of furnishings do you have in your homes?

Leigh: I live in a Manhattan townhouse upstairs from my auction house. It’s really a mixture of ancient to modern. I have an 11th-century Khmer goddess sculpture, next to a tribal war shield, next to a modern sofa from 20 years ago.

Q: How do you get the right mix in any room?

Leigh: In today’s world, we mix modern and old and there’s no such thing as a period room anymore.

Once I was in an art collector’s English country manor home. Each room was beautiful. She told me her secret – she placed one ugly thing in every room. In this perfect room with her Chippendale sofa was a weird 1950s thrift shop lamp. It’s the imperfections that make life interesting.

Q: Your Sampler cocktail table is a real head-turner. What’s it made of?

Leigh: That’s one of our favorites. There are over 12 exotic woods used in that piece. It samples the beauty of wood – zebrawood, lacewood, rosewood. It’s very modern with cast brass legs and a wooden grid pattern in the middle.

Q: What was collaborating on a line like? Did you clash over design ideas?

Leigh: If we disagreed on the shape of a leg, one of us usually talked the other into it. We get along pretty well. We’re twins.

Q: Do you think your furniture will become family heirlooms like the ones you appraise?

Leigh: We hope someone will bring one to an “Antiques Roadshow” of the future and a couple of blond kids will tell everyone that it’s from the Keno brothers from back in 2011. We like to think that in this era of disposable items, it’s nice to have something that really will last for generations, and hopefully be cherished.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – On Tuesday evening, fire crews were still at the scene of a big fire near downtown Grand Rapids, more than 24 hours after the fire began.

That fire started around 12:30 pm Monday afternoon at the old Kindel manufacturing facility at Cottage and Division.

Crews were still on the scene Tuesday chasing down a few hot spots. Meanwhile trains are running at reduced speeds on the tracks nearby because there are some cracks in the walls of the building. The reduced speeds are a precaution to make sure the building doesn’t collapse from vibrations caused by a passing train.

Fire investigator Ric Dokter says investigators have walked the entire building and are starting to gather preliminary data for their investigation.

Fire investigators say the fire likely started when sparks from a saw ignited lacquer residue. Everyone was able to get out of the building safely. As for the sprinkler system in the building, it now appears the system may have been working after all, though Dokter says more investigation is needed.

Dokter says the fire alarm came in from an alarm company that senses water pressure being released in the sprinkler system, so some sprinklers appears to have been activated. He says more analysis is still needed, but it’s possible there was a build-up of dust and residue on the sprinklers, especially on the west end of the building, which may have cut down on the effectiveness of the sprinklers.

Dokter says investigators are checking to see if there was water coming out of the pipes or not.

Dokter says the contractor who may have sparked the fire is out of Indiana. Investigators are checking to see if they had proper permits. If they did not have the proper permits, they could face some sort of fine.