The Macon finance probe

The latest on the city's Safe Schools Initiative grant. Bottom line, it's a cluster you-know-what.

Last month, officials from the city spent two to three days at Wood's office sifting through boxes of evidence the feds said support their claim. The city has had trouble finding most of its own documents, which were turned over several years ago in response to subpoenas from the Bibb County district attorney and federal officials.

In a letter to Wood, City Attorney Pope Langstaff and Assistant City Attorney Christine Helms wrote that limited review time and lack of specific information has made it difficult to analyze the accuracy of the U.S. attorney's figures.

"Not only are most of the expenditures being kept a secret, but the regulations which the city is alleged to have violated have not been identified with any useful particularity. ... We believe this is because many of the standards applied were created after the fact," the letter states.

Sweet. One day I hope to find out how much the U.S. Attorney's Office has spent on this probe, which of course we'll add to the $400,000+ the Bibb County District Attorney's Office spent.

To say nothing of the fact that investigation into this particular grant followed the federal government's normal auditing procedures, which I've seen records of and appeared to be extensive.

We've had four years of these investigations, and I've yet to see any findings substantially more detailed than what this newspaper has managed to uncover without the benefit of subpoena power or the resources of the local and federal governments.