Will Robinson-Briggs lose favorite pay-to-play trick?

Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs has been hard at work for more than four years now trying to show her support for those who helped put her in office in the first place (Remington and Vernick comes to mind). But the favorite trick of Plainfield pols (and others) -- awarding highly lucrative contracts by the 'fair and open' process -- may be facing its demise.

In its July newsletter (see here, PDF), ELEC's chairperson Jerry Fitzgerald English argues that the 'fair and open' contract awards process should be dropped.

A huge loophole, 'fair and open' allows contracts to be awarded without public bidding to those firms on a list of vendors whose 'qualifications' have been solicited through advertising or on the municipal website, and which list has been adopted by the governing body. Although everything takes  place (theoretically) in public view, there is no public bidding.

The lists of 'qualified' vendors just happens to include major donors to the politicians, and it is all legal though it stinks to high heaven.

At least up until now.

ELEC chairperson English wants to see several changes made --

1. A SINGLE pay-to-play law covering state and local situations;
   
   
2. Eliminate the 'fair and open' contract-awarding loophole';
   
   
3. Lower the reporting threshold on contracts to $17.500 per year;
   
   
4. Raise the contribution disclosure level from $300 (to $1,000 is suggested).

All of these would help to further cripple New Jersey's notorious pay-to-play culture, of which the 'fair and open' abuse is a leading example.

Let's hope the Legislature sees it the way ELEC does.

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• ELEC:  "ELEC-tronic: July 2010" (PDF)
• DCA:  "Fair and Open Process FAQ" (PDF)

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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Council turns up heat on awarding contracts

With corruption very much in the air during the current campaign season, the administration of Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs may have wondered if it didn't smell gunpowder in the air as residents Harold Yood, MD, and Dottie Gutenkauf stepped to the microphone at Monday evening's Council meeting to exercise the citizen's prerogative of bumping items from the 'consent' agenda, in which a blanket vote covers items considered 'routine and non-controversial'.

The items so bumped were all contracts. And it is the awarding of contracts -- the doling out of large dollops to those nuzzling their snouts up against the public trough -- where the most obvious abuses occur.

Later in the same meeting, the Council signaled that the days of the Robinson-Briggs' administration's use of the 'fair and open process' (which is in reality anything but 'fair' and 'open') to award contracts may be coming to an end.

Councilor Storch raised the twin issues of open public bidding of contracts AND information on vendors' political contributions both during the series of resolutions on contracts for various attorneys offered by Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson, and the proposal by the Division of Public Works and Urban Development to give yet another contract (this one for $140,000) to engineering firm Remington & Vernick.

The discussion was inchoate and somewhat disjointed, mixing the two issues, which did not make it easy to follow (even for Council President Burney, who wanted to continue the discussion on halving the R&V contract even though a superseding motion to table the item had been made by Councilor Mapp and Councilor Storch withdrew his amendment to halve the contract amount).

Notwithstanding the confusion, this is an important breach in the manner of awarding contracts from the public purse that this administration has become accustomed to.

Perhaps, if the Council does some homework (Perth Amboy, Somerville and North Plainfield have taken or are considering actions that are pertinent; wheels are littering the landscape, no need to invent one's own here) on the campaign contributions disclosure issue, the Robinson-Briggs administration can see the wisdom of more disclosure and transparency.

It's a small but significant start.

---

-- Dan Damon

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Plainfield police contracts: A gamble won

Salary ordinances to implement the contracts negotiated with Plainfield's police rank-and-file and suprerior officers are ready to roll.

While the coverage has focused mostly on the salary ranges involved (see links below to previous stories), my eye was caught by a different detail.

I heard rumors last summer that a deal would probably be reached without going to arbitration.

The reason?

It was widely believed by union members that the extra medical plan, the fate of which had inflamed the negotiations over the previous contract, was a goner if these negotiations failed and an arbitrator was named to make an award. That was regardless of any salary award.

Looks like the cooler negotiating temperature paid off for the unions in another way.

The negotiated settlement with the city proposes to give union members an annual pay increase of 3.75% each year for the three-year contract.

Meanwhile, Union Township police -- after two years of mediation and arbitration -- finally landed a contract. The last two years of their contract award, which align with this year's and next year's Plainfield contract, give the Union Township cops increases of 3.35% and 3.5%. That's in contrast to Plainfield's 3.75% for each year.

I'd say the cops' gamble paid off.

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• Plaintalker (11/18): "Police Contracts Top Council News"
  
• Courier (11/19): "Plainfield, police union reach deal on 3-year contract"
• Ledger (11/20): "Police union reaches contract agreement"
• Ledger (11/28): "Union Twp. police have a contract at last"
  

-- Dan Damon

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Christie expands investigation of home renovation program like Plainfield's to Linden

A federal program that Plainfield has used for years to repair and renovate low-income homeowners' properties has been of increasing interest to US Attorney Christopher Christie.

Christie has now expanded his inquiry into abuses of the program into Union County with the subpoena of Linden's records of the program going back to January 2002.

There were always rumors of shoddy repairs and cronyism in how contractors were selected in the Plainfield program until the late Mayor Al McWilliams hired Al Restaino -- who now manages Plainfield's program -- away from a similar job in Essex County.

Will Christie score a coup in Linden like the one in New Brunswick, where his investigation netted at least two corruption convictions? Will he turn his attention to the Plainfield program's pre-Restaino practices?

Stay tuned.

---

More info --

• "U.S. Attorney subpoenas Linden home program records for grand jury"

-- Dan Damon

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Questionable contract on Council's plate tonight?

A running theme with the current Administration has been coming to the Council with short or no notice at all on important items.

Monday's agenda session was no exception.

Councilor Don Davis, conducting the meeting in the absence of Council President Van Blake, was a bit testy with the Administration over its request to push a bid contract for the renovation of the 4th floor of City Hall Annex for construction of a new data center.

Pushed to explain the need for such haste -- the discussion item was basically an alert that the Administration intended to have a contract up for adoption tonight (Wednesday) -- Dashield said it was because the Council has an abbreviated summer schedule and the project is urgent.

What caught my ear was that City Administrator Dashield stumbled a bit over what exactly it was the city was expecting to open on Tuesday morning -- a 'bid' or an 'RFP' (Request for Proposals) response. In any event, he said that "there is only one coming in," so the Administration would be able to expedite getting the contract resolution into the Council's packets in a timely fashion.

Huh?

The Administration knows in advance that there is ONLY ONE coming in? Are we witnessing an attempt to circumvent the Open Public Bidding law?

Surely the renovations to the Annex will exceed the bid threshold of $25,000?

Did the City go out to bid? Or is the contract being awarded to an insider who was alerted to submit a proposal in response to an RFP?

Why am I having that déjà vu feeling all over again?

Is it because of the massive ripoff that Carlton McGee -- Mayor Robinson-Briggs' handpicked first City Administrator -- tried to perpetrate on the citizens? (For more on this, see the links below. Bottom line: the City was ripped off.)

You might want to come out tonight and ask some questions.

---

INTERESTING SIDE ISSUE: Organizations that live in the real world (like businesses, nonprofits and churches) would have to make their upper floors accessible -- as in installing elevators -- if they did an expansion or renovation that caused construction permits to be issued. The Annex currently does not meet ADA requirements -- if you're in a wheelchair, you are S.O.L. Will the City get to avoid 'paying the piper' on this project?

The QuadTech 'Deal'

• (1) A 6-figure contract-less deal
• (2) What was it the City wanted?
• (3) What was QuadTech to deliver?
• (4) The 'extra' page - sloppiness or fraud?

-- Dan Damon

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QuadTech: That extra page - sloppiness? or fraud?

Today, PT will look more closely at the ACTUAL DOCUMENTS submitted to the City for clues to sloppiness or, worse, fraud.

But first, let's review. What we have learned so far is that this project was the Mayor's initiative, and that QuadTech would provide a methodology and tools to implement the Mayor's vision.

Fair enough. To be thorough, PT slogged his way through both the City's RFP (47 pages) and QuadTech's proposal (52 pages). No, make that 53 pages.

Reaching the end of the proposal packet, PT thought he had gotten the pages out of order, as the page after page 52 (the last page) was page 47.

Going back, however, he found there ALREADY WAS A PAGE 47 in the packet. So, the copy machine just generated a second copy of the page? Happens sometimes. If so, why was it at the END of the packet and not RIGHT AFTER THE FIRST COPY?

Why indeed. Upon closer inspection, the signatures on the two page 47s DO NOT APPEAR TO BE THE SAME. Take a look for yourself --



This is a scan of the signature on page 47 in the packet.



This is a scan of the signature on the 'extra' page 47 at the end of the packet.

See what I mean? Now, the second, extra, page appears to be on the same stationery as all the others in the packet and is NOT a fax. Is it the signature of a City employee? A QuadTech employee? Was it the ORIGINAL SUBMISSION, and was the CORRECT SIGNATURE submitted to the City AFTER THE BID PACKAGE WAS OPENED?

If so, that would be a violation of the public bidding law. There is to be no 'FIXING' of the contents once they are submitted, sealed, in the bid process.

All of this caused PT to go over other pages with signatures more closely. ALL THE OTHER PAGES appear to bear a signature identical with that on the page 47 that is in sequence.


Scan of signature on the Non-Collusion Affidavit page.



Scan of signature on the Mandatory Affirmative Action Compliance statement.

But wait, SOMETHING ELSE caught PT's eye. The signature on page 46, the Non-Collusion Affidavit -- meant to prevent BID-RIGGING, requires NOTARIZATION. Curiously, this item is dated as notarized on September 5th, the due date for the proposal, while other items in the packet attest a September 1st date.

Notaries public perform a valuable function in many legal processes, particularly in affirmations that the person signing the document is who she says she is. PT's personal experience includes hundreds of real estate transactions where contracts and mortgage applications had to be notarized, as well as petitions for public office, in which the individual petitions need to be notarized.


Scan of signature space of the "Notary" on the Non-Collusion Affidavit.

In no case did PT ever see a notary fail to include the JURAT, which identifies the jurisdiction granting the notary's commission and that the person who appeared before the notary affirmed the truth of their statement or identity.

Curiously, the notarization of the Non-Collusion Affidavit here contains no JURAT, just an indication of an expiration date. Also, curiously, there is no signature for the notary, only a PRINTED name. So we CANNOT CONCLUDE from it by what authority the person who signed as Notary Public was allowed to do so, nor by what jurisdiction, nor even that they are a bona fide Notary Public. A fatal flaw? Evidently not in Plainfield.

So, are we witnessing sloppiness in violation of the statutes? Or fraud?

Let's hope the Prosecutor, to whom this matter evidently has been referred, got to see ALL the pages.


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What was QuadTech to deliver?

So the Mayor's goal, stated in the City's RFP, is "to position the City of Plainfield for success to provide a means for measurable goals and projected success. To this end, the Project Management office will be charged with assisting the Mayor...in reaching this objective."

What did QuadTech say it would deliver? Let's see.

From QuadTech's Executive Summary --

The scope of this proposal is to assist the City of Plainfield with the develoment of a Project Management Office (PMO). QuadTech Systems understands the requirement and the necessity in developing a PMO, which will allow the City of Plainfield to establish Best Practices methodologies.

QuadTech Systems have** experiences in the development and refinement of a PMO. Our experiences are both board [sic] and deep in the areas of Overall Program Management, Secured Architecture networks, Application development methodologies and Six Sigma Quality Assurance practices.

QuadTech Systems have** managed and developed many PMO's on the city, county and state level. We have the ability to develop and trained [sic] the staff in the operations of developing, managing and enhancing " Best Practices" which will provide the City of Plainfield with a detailed Governance Model.

Like the City of Plainfield, QuadTech Systems is** a diversified Black owed [sic] firm that understands the importance of practicing diversity.

Our response to this RFP describes our methodology model known as the Center of Excellence. This methodology has been proven to be an effective tool in assisting organizations with implementing "Best Practices" into their day-to-day activities. It is the goal of QuadTech systems [sic] to provide the City of Plainfield with a "Best Practices" methodology that will provide the City of Plainfield with the necessary tools and training to establish and maintain a Project Management Office.

Had enough?

An Executive Summary is the high-level view of a proposal. It is called the EXECUTIVE summary because many executives responsible for making the decision do not read any further -- that is, they do not bother themselves with the nuts-and-bolts of a project and the deliverables expected. After all, they are EXECUTIVES, right?

The Executive Summary is the equivalent of what the porn industry so felicitously calls "the money shot" -- where the 'actors' are supposed to get when all is said and done.

So, you've read what our executives read. Are you ready to sign off to the tune of $408,000?


NEXT INSTALLMENT: WHAT'S THAT EXTRA PAGE ABOUT, ANYWAY?

**QuadTech Systems seems to be confused over whether it is a singular entity (the American construction) with verbs that agree or a plural entity using plural verb forms (the English construction). Foolish consistency, though, as we all know is "the hobgoblin of little minds."

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QuadTech: What was it the City wanted?

Now that we know what the Administration was WILLING TO PAY ($408,000) and ACTUALLY paid ($153,000+) WITHOUT A CONTRACT, for 'Project Management for Information Technology,' what was it the Administration WANTED?

Evidently, a lot, if you look closely at the Executive Summary in the City's RFP.

The EXECUTIVE SUMMARY outlines the who, what & why of the RFP

First off, this is THE MAYOR'S INITIATIVE -- "It is the goal of the Mayor to position the City of Plainfield for success to provide a means for measurable goals and projected success. To this end, the Project Management office will be charged with assisting the Mayor...in reaching this objective."

Secondly, it is part of A PROJECTED FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN. (Not that we're counting any chickens before they're hatched.)

Thirdly, the CREATION OF A NEW BUREAUCRACY -- a Project Management Office -- is contemplated. Cost? Not specified. Funding? Resources? "[T]o position the [city] with necessary funds to ensure the...organization is equip [sic] with the proper resources."

Fourthly, Mayor Robinson-Briggs has responded to 'citizen desires' with "A CONCEPT OF 'ONLINE GOVERNMENT'" -- allowing you, dear taxpayer, 24x7 access to government. Of course you remember expressing those desires, right?

It is not at all clear from the RFP what any of the proposed work by the vendor has to do with the goal of 'online government.' In fact, PT has been a student and advocate of this concept for years -- dog's years, actually.

What is usually meant by 'online government' is ONLINE ACCESS to the following --

• Permit and license application forms
• Zoning regulations
• The Master Plan
• Agendas and Minutes of the Council and Boards and Commissions
• Resolutions and Ordinances of the Governing Body
• Details about volunteering for Boards and Commissions
  
• Emergency Notices (Road closings, Snow/Flooding alerts, Parade routes, etc.)
• A Phone Directory (had one online up to this Administration, actually)
  
• A Community Events Calendar
• Constantly updated Department/Division news
• Online payment of traffic fines (NJ has already instituted this statewide)

The interesting thing about all of these services is that they are already READILY, EASILY and CHEAPLY availabe as turnkey solutions from established New Jersey providers who exhibit annually at the municipalities' convention in Atlantic City.

Some of these items WERE ALREADY AVAILABLE ON THE CITY WEBSITE AND TAKEN DOWN. Some need only a COMMITMENT to use EXISTING TECHNOLOGY ALREADY IN PLACE. A few would involve CONTRACTING FOR A TURNKEY SERVICE. The entire kit and caboodle would fit on -- and could be run from -- the laptop on which I am writing this post.

No way would all of this cost $400,000 to STUDY and SET UP.

MONDAY: WHAT WAS IT QUADTECH WAS GOING TO DELIVER?


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QuadTech: 6-Figure Contract-less Deal

As PT noted earlier, an OPRA request netted considerable information about the ill-fated information technology deal that began outside the purview of the Council and expended considerable amounts of taxpayer dollars -- yours, dear reader -- before running off the rails upon the departure of the previous City Administrator, Carlton McGee. This is going to take several posts. Today: THE MONEY.

One phrase that entered the American consciousness as a result of the Watergate scandal and the subsequent resignation in disgrace of President Richard M. Nixon is 'follow the money'. Follow the money we will, indeed.

On August 23, 2006 the city ran a legal notice requesting proposals for 'Project Management for Information Technology'.

The city's 47-page RFP is dated August 24. Below are are scans of the Notice and the Executive Summary from the RFP. (Note: Click on any image to enlarge it for printing; documents have been set at 8 inches wide and will fit on one sheet of paper.)

The NOTICE constitutes the first page of the RFP



The EXECUTIVE SUMMARY outlines the who, what & why of the RFP

The due date for submission was September 5, 2006.

QuadTech Systems' 52-page submission is dated September 5th. For today, PT reproduces the COSTS of the project as proposed by QuadTech, by MILESTONE and by RESOURCE:

QuadTech Systems COST PROPOSAL -- By Milestone & Resource

To this point, all appears in order.

Until we compare things with the record of PAYMENTS made to QuadTech. PT reproduces below a scan of the printout of vendor activity for QuadTech, aka Vendor #55295.

Disbursements to QuadTech by the City of Plainfield

You will note that until the termination of the payments at the end of October, 2006, QuadTech received a total payment of $153,650 from the City -- $36,650 of that amount BEFORE the vendor was even BROUGHT TO THE ATTENTION OF THE COUNCIL.

PT's OPRA request had been for the City's RFP and for the vendor's CONTRACT. After lugging the documents home and starting to go through them, it was noticed that the materials contained the vendor's PROPOSAL, but no contract. Schlep to Clerk's office, point out the request had been for the contract. As a staff member was explaining to PT how the package was assembled, Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson came into the Clerk's office. The staffer pointed out to him that PT was looking for the CONTRACT. Mr. Williamson said there was NO CONTRACT.

Hmmmmmm.

Tomorrow: WHAT WAS IT THE CITY WANTED?

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Previous posts on PT about this topic:

• Tuesday, 10/17/2006 - "A regular Mad Hatter's Tea Party". The first inkling of what was going on.
• Friday, 12/1/2006 - "Fresh fallout from McGee financial finagling". The pickle the City was left in getting rid of QuadTech.

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Chamber meeting this AM

Short post this morning -- I'm off to the Chamber of Commerce 'State of the City's Business' meeting. Everyone's invited -- 8:30 AM (8:00 for coffee and mingle), The Incubator, 320 Park Avenue.

TEASER: Picked up my OPRA request materials yesterday. Among the items to digest -- related to the mess the city's website and email is in -- the documents surrounding Quad-Tech, the firm hired to do information technology work for the city: the City's Request for Proposals, Quad-Tech's submission, and a record of payments made to Quad-Tech.

More later.


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