The Poway Taj Mahal -a peek at how Wilkes spent our money

[Rose Siding]

This is an account from someone Laura Rozen trusts enough to publish at War and Piece-

I am SO not surprised at the Wilkes scandal. I had a business connection with him in San Diego about two years ago and came away thinking that sooner or later I'd be reading about him on the front page, and not in a good way. I've toured the ADCS facility in Poway. It's like a corporate Taj Mahal, everything is super high-end. Lavish flower arrangements in the lobby, toilet paper in the bathrooms folded like a hotel room, marble everywhere. Weird thing is NO ONE seems to actually work there! Brent showed us his production floor and it was completely empty. Tons of huge, elaborate, obviously incredibly expensive equipment and no one using it. (Can you say "your tax dollars at work"?) This was when he'd just done the Panama mapping project and he was telling us about that. The only people I saw there were 4 or 5 20-something women wearing club clothes and fetching coffee and water for the all-male meetings. Every single one of them was in a tight-fitting, completely office-inappropriate outfit with major cleavage showing. It was so striking and so weird. They were like Bond girls, only not as classy. (Prediction: a sexual harrassment lawsuit or two in addition to his other problems. I'm sure those gals could tell some tales!)

Brent was known as a major wheeler-dealer and bragged about his lobbying connections a lot. He was hard to contact because he was always flying back to Washington. He promised a lot in the situation I knew him from but never delivered, just kept everyone hanging endlessly. I can't elaborate any further but suffice it to say, he lost all credibility with us and wasted a lot of our time. One other weird thing was that for such a high-roller his business advisors were not quality, talented people. Mostly yes-men and oily salesmen as far as I could see

Check out all his "businesses". The special events one is especially interesting. He'd throw a party in an elaborate, high-tech room at ADCS and give the catering business to his special events firm rather than paying for it directly. I'm not sure how this worked but it seemed very fishy at the time and seemed like he could make the company look successful this way. ...

From an archetectural site-

http://www.sca-sd.com.nyud.net:8090/media/ADCS%20-%20complete.jpg
ADCS
Location: Poway, California
Client: Owner build-to-suit
Desc: 99,370 square foot corporate headquarters with 9,600 square foot pavilion
http://www.sca-sd.com/ProjectDetail.asp?ID=952

[annabanana]

1. the pics look like

an elaborate backlot set up. Strictly for show.....

[Rose Siding]

2. Yeah- I guess the parking lots could have been empty on a wknd

but wouldn't a company flush with, or primed for, govt contracts have some kind of crew there?

-And you'd think that portraying it as a bustling company would have been better promo for the architect.