DETROIT – Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon wants the Count Commission to renew a $700,000 security contract with Wayne County Community College District.
The college's attorney says it is paying for deputies to protect students.
Read more: Wayne County Sheriff's college contract draws questions
However, tucked inside the contract is this: "The community outreach component will be throughout the county of Wayne and in accordance with the strategic initiatives of WCCCD to provide educational support, outreach and services and in accordance with the outreach strategy plans and efforts of the Wayne County Sheriff's Department."
Napoleon used a couple hundred thousand dollars from the contract to hire two Sheriff's Office appointees and a company owned by Inkster Mayor Hilliard Hampton to do the outreach. Hampton, by the way, hired Napoleon's brother as a police chief in Inkster.
Wayne County Commissioner and Public Safety Committee Chair Ilona Varga calls this community outreach bogus.
"Seeing this kind of contract come out of it is very alarming," said Varga.
Varga drafted a letter on Thursday asking WCCCD to sever the community outreach from the deal.
"It is a shady deal because they tried to hide something in the contract that wasn't so and deceiving the Commission is not a good thing because now the trust is gone and now that it is gone that has to be earned back," she said.
County Commissioner Ray Basham has reservations about it, too.
"The Sheriff should be doing police work and WCCCD should b e doing their own community outreach if they want it," he said.
The college only wants security and claims the community outreach is something it neither needs nor is asking for. It's the Sheriff who apparently feels the need for the community outreach.