Brief History: How Grant Money for Morristown College Ended Up in Downtown Morristown in the Hands of the Millennium Partners

Here is a short history of the Millennium Square Grant that we present to give a brief overview of the topic before embarking on an in-depth review of the project with documentation of numerous conflicts of interest and bid shopping as obtained through open records requests and through conversations with various persons involved directly and indirectly with this project, here is a short history of what is now known as the Millennium grant:

Today's Millennium project actually began in 2005 as a $1.2 Million dollar TDOT grant for use at and around the historic Morristown College site. After plans with the private developer of the college site fell through, the City re-scoped the original project and asked TDOT to let it change the grant to various improvements such as sidewalks, lighting, and a greenway trailhead at an existing park near the College site. TDOT allowed the change in scope, and the City signed a new contract with TDOT in 2007.

Around 2009, the City got into financial trouble including shifting sewer funds to the general fund and failing to obtain required state approval for various financial actions. The City was robbing Peter (sewer fund) to pay Paul (general fund) in order to cover up the financial mess within all its major funds (general, stormwater, sewer). In the meantime, the sewer system was crumbling and the City found itself under a state order to fix its sewer system. It also ended up under a federal court order to fix the Witt sewer line to reduce or eliminate odors and overflows.

Just about the time that the City's financial neglect and mismanagement was being exposed, the City received a letter from TDOT reminding the City about the Morristown College grant funds and imposing a deadline for the project to be completed or there would be a loss of funds.

The City searched to find a way to keep the grant.

City officials and employees approached the Millennium Square Partners (MSP) about forming a public-private partnership to use the $1.2 Million in grant funds to build retail shells on the privately-owned downtown MSP property. To qualify for the TE grant funds, there would have to be a rooftop parking deck on top of the retail shells and the rooftop parking deck with 22 spaces would be called a "greenway trailhead."

By calling the parking deck a greenway trailhead and designating two spaces for greenway parking, the privately-owned retail shells and the remaining 20 public parking spaces adjacent to the MSP Office building became part of the taxpayer-funded TE grant. Since the MSP group had planned to build parking on its property anyway, having taxpayers build the parking deck and include taxpayer-funded retail shells was like hitting the lottery.

The Millennium group quickly signed on to become the beneficiary of the $1.2 Million dollars former Morristown College transportation grant and, of course, agreed to pay the City's local match since MSP would now get not only the parking it had wanted all along but retail shells, too.

Then greed set in and conflicts of interest and bid shopping became the norm.  [UPDATE: For a short summary of "bid shopping" by the City of Morristown acting on behalf of the Millennium Square Partners, click here.