Public Contracts (Office Of The City Manager)
| Multi Request | Public Contracts |
| Submitted | July 11, 2018 |
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Communications
From: Dan Rubins
To Whom It May Concern:
I. Background Information
Contract administration is frequently a source of concerning behavior in the public sector. For example:
- In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, a company with only two employees (Whitefish Energy) was hired hired by PREPA, Puerto Rico's public utility company, to restore power to the island at a cost of $300M. The contract had audit-proofing clauses and left little recourse for PREPA due to nonperformance. After 8 months, Puerto Rico did not have power fully restored and now Congressional and FBI investigations are pending.
- During an internal audit of the City of San Diego's contracting practices, the contract with office products supplier Staples was found to exceed the City Council's approved $2M annual threshold by a full $1M. Auditors found found insufficient financial controls and produced a further 60 pages of recommendations.
- The US Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) found sustained exceptions for incurred costs audits 28.6% of the time in its 2017 Report to Congress.
- From 2010 to 2013, a Maryland Transit Authority employee allegedly used poor contracting oversight to siphon $6.3M from the state coffers.
- The City of Vallejo, CA was recently the victim of an alleged contracting kickback scheme run by the city's landscape maintenance manager, only uncovered in an FBI investigation. The kickback scheme occurred only a few years after the city was in Chapter 9 bankruptcy because of ballooning contractual obligations.
- In recent years, officials in the southern California cities of Bell, Irwindale, La Puente, Monterey Park, Pico Rivera, Temple City, and Vernon have been brought up on various public corruption charges.
While the vast majority of public contracting is done with integrity, bad actors and a lack of public knowledge have a disproportionate effect on the fiscal wellbeing and public trust of every level of government.
II. Requested Records
Pursuant to the { law }, I hereby request the following records:
1. Any and all executed contracts, memorandums of understanding (MOUs), and other equivalent agreements that are currently active, or were active within the last two years, other than standard employee agreements. Please provide a copy of the executed document as well as any addenda, amendments, attachments, exhibits, materials, and schedules.
2. Any and all contract template documents, for example, employee agreements, vendor agreements, master services agreements, nondisclosure agreements, or interagency cooperation contracts.
3. General policies and procedures for contract administration, including training materials and records used to instruct members of your agency in contract administration.
4. Any available process narratives, audit reports, or findings regarding contract administration covering the last two years.
I am happy to discuss any issues or suggestions to make fulfillment more manageable for your office.
III. Fees
If there are any fees for searching or copying these records, please inform me in advance of fulfilling the request.
I would also like to request a waiver of all fees in that the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest and will contribute significantly to the public's understanding of how governments manage public money and the obligations to which they are entrusted.
Neither I, nor my company (Legal Robot), has any commercial interest in obtaining the requested information. Rather, we intend to use software to analyze and disseminate the requested information free of charge so that the public may identify patterns of bad behavior that, when eliminated, will benefit governments and the public alike.
We plan to enrich and cross-link the information we receive from multiple jurisdictions, and provide an exploratory interface for the public on the internet, for free. Because we consider this work to be Data Journalism, and we further expect to provide our analysis to other media organizations for additional print and online publication, I ask to be categorized as a representative of the news media. Upon request, I am happy to provide our analysis and any articles we write based on our analysis in advance of publication, though I cannot speak for other media outlets.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 calendar days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Dan Rubins
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following California Public Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on . Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From:
To whom it may concern,
We received your Public Records Act request (see attached) in our office on
July 17, 2018. This request is over broad as there maybe 1000's of
contract in the potential response. We are requesting a shorten time frame
of a year as opposed to two years. Please let me know if you are agreeable
to this time frame.
Also, we were curious if your business has a "Dropbox" or similar style
link to drop the responses as this would help facilitate the delivery to
you.
Thank you in advance for your response.
Sincerely,
Alicia Salas,
Legal Secretary - City Attorney's Office
City Hall, Monterey, CA 93940
salas@monterey.org
(831) 646-3915
(831) 373-1634 fax
*Confidentiality and Privilege Notice*: This email transmission, and any
documents, files, or previous messages herein,
may contain material that is confidential, privileged and/or attorney work
product for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, reliance,
or distribution by others or forwarding without express permission is
strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact
the sender and delete all copies.
From: Office Of The City Manager
Please see the attached letter regarding your Public Records Act request.
Thank you.
*Karin Krattli Salameh*
Assistant City Attorney
City of Monterey
(831) 646-3915
*Confidentiality and Privilege Notice*: This email transmission, and any
documents, files, or previous messages herein, may contain confidential
information that is legally privileged. If you are not the intended
recipient, or person responsible for delivering it to the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying,
distribution, or use of any of the information contained in or with this
message is strictly prohibited. Interception of e-mail is a crime under the
Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2510-2521 and 2107-2709.
If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately notify
me by replying to this email or by telephone and destroy the original
transmission and its attachments without reading them or saving them. Thank
you.
From: Muckrock Staff
Thanks for the update on this request; we do have an upload link, it should appear at the bottom of this email but if you need a new one please just let us know!
Sincerely,
MuckRock Staff
From: Office Of The City Manager
Good afternoon,
This responses is from the City of Monterey, CA. Your Public Records Act request number is #18-122. This is the first part of our response. I will continue to upload documents until I have fulfilled your request. I estimate that I should have all the documents uploaded by Friday, 08/10/18. I will let you know when I have uploaded the final responsive documents that will satisfy the request.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Alicia Salas, Legal Secretary - City Attorney's Office
salas@monterey.org
831-646-3915
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From: Office Of The City Manager
This is part 2 of the response from the City of Monterey, CA.
Thank you,
Alicia Salas, Legal Secretary - City Attorneys Office
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From: Office Of The City Manager
This is part 3 of the response from the City of Monterey, CA.
Thank you,
Alicia Salas, Legal Secretary - City Attorneys Office
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From: Office Of The City Manager
This is part 4 of the response from the City of Monterey, CA.
Thank you,
Alicia Salas, Legal Secretary - City Attorneys Office
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From: Office Of The City Manager
This is part 5 of the response from the City of Monterey, CA.
Thank you,
Alicia Salas, Legal Secretary - City Attorneys Office
From: Office Of The City Manager
Good morning,
This is part 6 of the response from the City of Monterey, CA.
Thank you,
Alicia Salas, Legal Secretary - City Attorneys Office
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From: Office Of The City Manager
Good afternoon,
This is part 7 of the response from the City of Monterey, CA.
Thank you,
Alicia Salas, Legal Secretary - City Attorneys Office
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From: Office Of The City Manager
Good afternoon,
The 7th part is the final part of our response to your Public Records Act request #18-122. This competes our uploads and fully satisfies your request.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Alicia Salas
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Files
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