First it was drug smuggling, sex acts between workers and inmates, and maggots near the prison food. Then, two weeks ago, we found out that Gov. Snyder’s office not only tried to silence the controversy surrounding Aramark’s blunders in March, but they pulled some strings and had the widely-publicized $98,000 fine quietly revoked.
It can’t possibly get any worse than that, right? Wrong.
Today, the Detroit Free Press reported that an Aramark food service worker at a prison in the Upper Peninsula is suspected of approaching an inmate there about arranging to have another inmate killed.
That’s not all.
We released an email today that we obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request showing the Dennis Muchmore, Governor Snyder’s chief of staff, asking the Treasury Department to conduct a “quick analysis of the investment value” of Aramark. The email shows that Muchmore requested the analysis because of concerns over “recent controversies” related to the Aramark contract.
We have numerous questions about the Snyder administration’s relationship with Aramark:
- Why is the governor’s Chief of Staff concerned with the investment value of Aramark?
- Does the governor or his top staffers such as Rich Baird and Dennis Muchmore have investments in Aramark?
- Are personal investments or political donations driving the refusal to hold Aramark accountable by cancelling the contract?
We’re holding the Governor accountable and demanding that the administration immediately release all documents about the Aramark contract with the Department of Corrections to the public. If the Aramark contract was really based on what’s best for Michiganders, like the Snyder said, then he should have nothing to hide.