Liu Cancels NYCDOE Contract Signed By Joel Klein With A Company Now Run By Joel Klein

Good:

City Controller John Liu has rejected a $2.7 million contract for a company overseen by former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, the Daily News has learned.

The contract with Wireless Generation - now owned by News Corp., where Klein works - was approved by the city Department of Education in October, when Klein was still chancellor.

But it was rejected earlier this month by the controller's office because Klein had not provided a letter recusing himself from involvement in the contract, which is necessary to approve the deal, officials in the controller's office said.

"Clearly, there remains some outstanding issues with the DOE's submission," said controller's office spokesman Michael Loughran. "It clearly does not meet the requirements, and it still does not meet the requirements."

But Education Department officials said yesterday they consider the deal finalized because the controller's office had not rejected the contract on proper legal grounds.

They also provided a letter to the controller's office dated yesterday from Education Department General Counsel Michael Best. In it, Best writes that while in office Klein recused himself from any work on Wireless Generation contracts as soon as the company was acquired by News Corp. in late November

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Liu is going to have to take the DOE and Bloomberg to court to force them to not make payments in this contract.

That much is clear.

As is usual with a Bloomberg administration, the law is always second to financial considerations for cronies and political ideology.

In this case, Bloomberg wants to pay off Klein for his past work and promote more online school instruction so that eventually he can fire thousands of teachers and replace them with computer programs.

That's the goal here.

But I suspect Liu will be up to the challenge of fighting the DOE and Bloomberg on this.

It surely helps him to take the city to court to force them to not make payments in an illegal contract signed by Joel Klein when he was chancellor at the DOE with a company now run by Joel Klein.

I mean seriously, how does Bloomberg defend that?