Court upholds secretly negotiated no-bid, below-market sale of Michigan school to mosque

The building was sold by Farmington Public Schools for $1.1 million in June 2011.

But some West Bloomfield residents don’t want to live so close to a mosque and Sternfeld and Greenstein tried to stop the sale by filing a lawsuit in Oakland County Circuit Court. A Circuit judge dismissed the case.

Rightfully so. Here’s what Detroit News doesn’t want you to know:

New Evidence of Corruption Involving Sale of Michigan Public School to Islamic Association

ANN ARBOR, MI – A stunning new development has come to light surrounding allegations of public corruption over the sale of Farmington Public Schools (FPS) property to the Islamic Cultural Association (ICA). On Wednesday, August 8th, Reverend Bruce D. Burwell, Senior Pastor of Light of the World Christian Center in West Bloomfield, read aloud a prepared statement on how the person in charge of FPS properties told him the property was not for sale when he expressed an interest in purchasing it for his church. FPS subsequently sold the vacant Eagle Elementary school property to the Islamic Cultural Association.

Records submitted to the Attorney General’s office included more than 400 pages of documentation supporting the TMLC allegations that FPS disregarded the recommendations of its own legal council, a specially convened internal committee and district residents in steamrolling through the secretly negotiated no-bid, below-market sale of valuable public property.

Among allegations of corruption, the TMLC filing details the district’s representations to several parties that Eagle Elementary School was not for sale and was slated for demolition. All the while, records show, the district had discriminatorily granted exclusive consideration to and protected the bid of the ICA, with whom it was negotiating for months behind closed doors.