Public Contracts (Office Of The City Manager)

Dan Rubins filed this request with the Office Of The City Manager of Santa Rosa, CA.

It is a clone of this request.

Tracking #

18-229
Multi Request Public Contracts
Submitted July 12, 2018
Est. Completion None
Status
Fix Required

Communications

From: Dan Rubins

Subject: California Public Records Act Request: Public Contracts (Office Of The City Manager)

Email

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: Office Of The City Manager

Subject: PRA 18-229

Email

The City of Santa Rosa ("City") is in receipt of your request for public records, which was received by the City on July 18, 2018. A copy of your request is enclosed for reference.

Under the California Public Records Act (Government Code Section 6250, et seq.), the City is obliged to comply with a request for a public record so long as the requester makes a specific and focused request for records, the record is maintained by the City in its ordinary course of business, the record is disclosable, and the records can be located with reasonable effort. The Public Records Act provides for the inspection or copying of existing identifiable public records; it does not compel the City to create new records, lists, or reports in response to a request, nor does it compel the City to answer questions.

Please contact our office at your earliest convenience to clarify/focus the request.

Executed Employment Contracts/MOUs are available on the City's website at: https://srcity.org/468/Employment-Contracts-MOUs

Many of the City's contracts are available for review on the City's website. Please follow the instructions for searching legislative records below.

Record search instructions:
For future reference on how to search for legislative records for the City of Santa Rosa items<https://santa-rosa.legistar.com/Legislation.aspx>:
Results are highlighted in the Title section.
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You may also do research on our public documents page<https://srcity.org/2220/Public-Documents>, to find resolution(s):
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If you would like to receive electronic notifications on specific agenda items, you can create an account in the Legislative portal (santa-rosa.legistar.com<http://santa-rosa.legistar.com>) and type in the key words. You will have an email of those agendas sent automatically when the agenda has been published.

1. Go to santa-rosa.legistar.com<http://santa-rosa.legistar.com>
2. Create an account by selecting Sign Up

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1. Once you sign in, then select the Alerts tab

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2. Select Add New Legislation Alert and/or Add New Calendar Alert

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3. Read the instructions and complete the alert message.

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Sandi Bliss, CMC | Administrative Technician
City Clerk's Office|100 Santa Rosa Ave, Room 9 | Santa Rosa CA 95404
Phone (707) 543-3007 | Fax (707) 543-3030 | sbliss@srcity.org<mailto:sbliss@srcity.org>

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From: Office Of The City Manager

Subject: PRA 18-229

Email

Good afternoon

Please contact our office at your earliest convenience so that we can clarify/focus your request.

Thank you.

Sandi Bliss, CMC | Administrative Technician
City Clerk's Office|100 Santa Rosa Ave, Room 9 | Santa Rosa CA 95404
Phone (707) 543-3007 | Fax (707) 543-3030 | sbliss@srcity.org<mailto:sbliss@srcity.org>

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From: Office Of The City Manager

Subject: PRA 18-229

Email

Good morning

I'm following up to see if you obtained the information you required from the search instructions provided below? Please contact our office to clarify/focus your request if additional records are needed. If I do not hear back from you by August 15th I will consider this request complete.

Sandi

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