BPU boss keeps job for some reason

The Kansas City Kansan reports that Board of Public Utilities General Manager Don Gray gets to keep his $170,000-a-year job for at least the next 18 months.

Pitch staff writer Justin Kendall has written extensively about the BPU, which provides water and electricity services. His stories — and the eventual indictments against BPU officials — depict a place where functionaries live like kings and accountability is virtually nonexistent. Sort of like the athletic department at Kansas State University.

Gray promoted Marc Conklin to chief administrative officer a few months before Conklin and another lawyer, Rodney Turner, were indicted on charges that they had looted $400,000. Conklin killed himself in March.

Click here for Kendall’s orignal story about Conklin’s fine dining habits, and here for Gray’s cavalier attitude about same. This story described the nature of Conklin’s allegedly criminal enterprise, and this story told of Gray’s tolerance for no-bid contracts.