Former tourism deputy director reacts to Swadley's Foggy Bottom Kitchen controversy
OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — Fox 25 continues to uncover new details in the investigation into the contract between the Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department and Swadley's Foggy Bottom Kitchen restaurants.
One of the people at the center of the controversial State Fire Marshal's report about building permits and inspections is speaking out. Former Tourism Department Deputy Director Gino DeMarco tells Fox 25 that his comments on the report were taken out of context.
On Wednesday, Fox 25's Wayne Stafford attempted to call DeMarco for his reaction. He did not speak to Fox 25 then, so we wanted to give him another chance to explain his comments in the report. The next day, Stafford caught up with DeMarco at his home.
"Hello, Mr. DeMarco. We wanted to see if we can get you to comment on some of the issues that have come up between Swadley's and OTRD?" said Stafford. "This statement right here in regards to the Fire Marshal quotes you saying, 'You know the laws of Oklahoma don't really apply to the State of Oklahoma itself and they don't have to permit or submit plans to the State Fire Marshal by order of the general legal counsel.' Do you have any response to that?"
"That was his (Fire Marshal agent) characterization,"DeMarco answered. "That was a question for him; does that apply to the State of Oklahoma or does it only apply to private businesses?"
"Why didn't any of the Swadley's locations have the proper permits before they started renovations?" Stafford asked.
"They thought that they did and if you read in that report we talked to the fire marshal and explained the project to him. As far as he knew, he said we didn't have to have the permits for it," said DeMarco.
"Anyone who is involved in construction knows that that would never be the case that any type of major remodel requires a permit. It just seems ridiculous that anyone would ever say that" said Stafford.
"Those were... that was... what he said and they called the city of Watonga and came out of Roman Nose," said DeMarco.
Stafford responded, "But that's outside of city limits."
"I didn't know if that was true or not," said DeMarco.
"Well it is true," said Stafford. "I want to say this direct quote right here and this is from the agent... it's quote, 'Mr. DeMarco then stated several times 'what are we really after here, are we really after code compliance, what will it take for this to be taken care of, and satisfy all parties? Can we just have an inspector verify that the violations you noticed are correct and not worry about the plans?' Were you trying to skirt around?"
DeMarco quickly responded, "We were absolutely asking him, 'Is it possible to get this done without getting plans done? What are we after? Are we after code compliance? Great."
"We have emails saying that you were trying to get the approval process going faster of these invoices trying to get several invoices approved quicker," said Stafford.
"If I remember right we were sitting on a lot of invoices from them. They were saying, 'We need working capital. Is there any way we can get these done?' So I inquired with the finance department. Is there any way we can get this done faster?" said DeMarco.
"Were you ever concerned that Swadley's was being disingenuous at any point?" asked Stafford.
"That didn't really occur to me then," said DeMarco.
"Does it occur to you now?" asked Stafford.
"There are audits going on right now. So I guess they'll tell of anything happening or not," said DeMarco.
The State Fire Marshal's report also details, Brent Swadley, owner of the restaurant chain saying quote, "Governor Stitt reached out to me to put my restaurants in his state parks."
"How involved was the Governor in this Swadley's contract?" Stafford asked.
"Not at all. I mean, he had nothing to do with it. We were an agency. This was state parks," said DeMarco.
Fox 25 also reached out to Governor Kevin Stitt about Swadley's claim.
His office sent this statement: "The Governor does not have any relationship with Brent Swadley and he has not talked with him about the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation’s state park restaurant contract. Swadley’s statements to the contrary are absolutely not true."
We will continue to stay on top of this developing story.