msd internal audit1

METRO EDITION LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY courier-journal.com SUNDAY, JULY 3, 2011 USPS 135560 $2.00 KY SUN FEATURES & TRAVEL | E1 THE SCOOP ON ICE CREAM THE SCOOP ON ICE CREAM Check out some hot spots for the cool treat Available for a limited time at participating locations. Prices may vary. ©2011 LCE, Inc. 30854 LARGE PEPPERONI, SAUSAGE OR CHEESE PIZZA $ 5 $ 5 $ 5 ORIGINAL ROUND CARRY OUT PLUS TAX CJ-0000302327 The heat index was 91 de- grees when Louisville Metro Police pulled into a strip club parking lot on the night of May 31 and found a 1-year- old boy soaked in sweat, sit- ting alone in the backseat of a car, while his parents were inside. Ten days earlier, help had come too late for Kenton Brown, 2, who died after being left alone in his mother’s car for several hours during the day. The coroner ruled his death was consistent with environmental hyperthermia, most commonly known as heat stroke. And on June 4, two boys, ages 9 and 12, were found sit- ting unattended in a hot car outside a Portland neighbor- hood Kroger. Despite a wave of media attention to all three cases and others like them, experts and law-enforcement officials say some parents still aren’t getting the message — children should never be left alone in cars, especially in the summer. “People need to under- stand that tragedy can occur in minutes,” said Sgt. Robert Deaths fail to halt kids being left in vehicles Hit panic button if child alone By Patrick Sullivan and Jessie Halladay The Courier-Journal By Joanne Meshew, The C-J Children left in cars Child “forgotten” by caregiver (253 children) 51% 30% 17% 1% Child playing in an unattended vehicle (150) Child intentionally left in vehicle by adult (86) Circumstances unknown (5) An examination of media reports about 494 child vehicular hyperthermia deaths for the period of 1998 to 2010 shows the following circumstances: See CHILDREN, A7, col. 1 An internal audit done three years ago by the Met- ropolitan Sewer District was sharply critical of the business practices of its outside attorney’s law firm at the time, but the audit’s findings and recommendations were apparently never shown to the MSD board. Neither the MSD board chairman, Arnold Celenta- no, who was on the board in 2008, nor the longtime outside counsel who was named in the audit, Larry Zielke, could recall seeing the audit dated April 2008 — until MSD officials made it available to The Courier- Journal last week under the Kentucky open records law. The audit, done by for- mer MSD internal audi- tor Connie Davis, said the law firm of Pedley, Zielke, Gor- dinier & Pence LLC, which did major work for MSD, lacked adequate corporate records, did not keep time sheets for billing and payroll, and in some cases charged the rate of a partner for work done by an associate. MSD audit criticized law firm Outside attorney disputes findings By James Bruggers [email protected] The Courier-Journal See MSD, A8, col. 1 AUDIT AND RESPONSE To read MSD’s internal audit of the Pedley, Zielke, Gordinier & Pence law firm and attorney Larry Zielke’s responses, see the online version of this story at www.courier-journal.com Zielke BREAKING NEWS ON YOUR CELL PHONE Text CJNEWS to 44636 (4INFO) for the local news alerts Louisville area: Partly sunny today with slight chance of rain. Partly sunny tomorrow with chance of rain. WEATHER | B2 93 73 36-HOUR FORECAST TODAY Arts I-1 Business D1 Class. F1, G1, J1 Deaths B6 Forum H1 Features E1 Lottery A2 Metro B1 Movies I-4 Racing C12 Sports C1 TV TV Week 92 PAGES INDEX OWENTON, Ky. — It didn’t take Kentucky State Police Detective Ste- ven Goodale long to decide what had happened at 417 Cubbage Ave. on the morning of Jan. 24, 2009: Charlotte Burke, the Owenton city clerk, had dropped by to vis- it her ex-husband, Danny Cobb, about 9 a.m. that Saturday. They chatted in the family room on the low- er level of his brick house. Without warning, Burke pulled out a .32-caliber revolver and shot Cobb in the side, then turned the gun on her- self, firing a bullet into her chest. An attempted murder, followed by a suicide — that’s what the in- jured Cobb later told Goodale, according to court records. And the detective saw no reason to disagree. “It looks pretty clear to me, but I still have to go through the investiga- tion,” he told Cobb the next day, according to an audio recording of his interview with Cobb at the Uni- versity of Kentucky Medical Center, where Cobb was being treated. “I may have some more questions when you’re better. Then we’ll put it behind us and be done with it.” But not everyone agreed that the events at Cobb’s house that morning were as cut and dried as Goodale seemed to believe. The foremost skeptics were Sharon and Russell Loaring, longtime friends of Burke’s, who immersed themselves in the de- tails of the case after becoming the co-executors of her estate. They became convinced the in- vestigation was shoddy, and in response to a damage claim Cobb filed against the estate in Owen County Circuit Court, they asserted he was responsible for Burke’s death. Cobb denies in court records that he killed Burke. He did not return a half dozen telephone messages left By Bill Luster, The Courier-Journal Sharon Loaring and her husband, Russell, longtime friends of the late Owenton city clerk Charlotte Burke and co-executors of her estate, aren’t convinced the events of Burke’s death are as cut and dried as authorities believe. Owen County By R. G. Dunlop [email protected] The Courier-Journal See SHOOTINGS, A6, col. 1 By Joanne Meshew, The C-J OWEN OWEN COUNTY COUNTY OWEN COUNTY Owenton Owenton OWEN COUNTY Owenton Frankfort Frankfort Frankfort Louisville N 127 71 75 227 64 “We may never know the truth.” DR. WILLIAM SMOCK, a clinical professor of emergency medicine at the University of Louisville who was hired by Burke’s estate to review the case what really happened in SUNDAY PRINT EXCLUSIVE Available only in your print edition today. In 2009, a city clerk was dead, her ex-husband shot. Questions linger on the official account of Time: 07-02-2011 21:46 User: mstollhaus PubDate: 07-03-2011 Zone: KY Edition: 1 Page Name: A1 Color: Cyan Magenta Yellow Black

msd internal audit1

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