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Cloudy transparency on RFP & bidding —Barbara Stratton

Received today on

Transparency by a County Commission. -jsq

I don’t know how you found this example, but good work & thanks for
the research. This is a real genuine effort to produce government
transparency. Anything short of this is faux transparancy. Can you
find out how the citizens were able to get this good faith transparancy
enacted?

I am expecially concerned with the cloudy transparancy on RFP &


bidding procedures within our county. Having spent 12 years in
government construction contracting I know the detailed safeguards
that have been enacted to protect the taxpayers from contracting fraud
& crony capitalist back door agreements. It is my observation that
these safeguards are being bypassed by end around tactics & the current
popularity of public/private partnerships has a plethora of possiblities
for good old boy system abuses.

Recently a local contractor started
work on

an unfunded, unawarded government project that was exposed


by the local newspaper. The city’s answer to the illegal contracting
procedures was to issue a contract change order for $143,807 with a 10%
contingency. It has been my experience that anytime a contractor starts
work on an unfunded project said contractor eats the cost of any work
completed & all contractors are aware of this rule.

In addition it is a dis-service to taxpayers for that amount of money
to be

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Transparency by a County Commission

Here’s what local government transparency via the web looks like.
Our county commission could do this.

Here’s how the

Commissioners of Travis County, Texas
do it:



Video files of commissioners court meetings are available online. Agenda
items are available by noon the day after the meeting.

For example:


Voting Session Agenda

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Complete Agenda Backup Materials, 120 MB

This web page version is derived from a manual conversion of the
official document of record for the convenience of the user. Travis
County has posted this notice and agenda in good faith, in compliance
with Government Code section 551.056. Please note that, in the event of
a technical problem beyond the county’s control that prevents the county
from posting here or that results in an erroneous posting, notice of
this meeting and agenda posted at the courthouse remains valid

By “Backup Materials” they mean the packet the Commissioners got.

The rest of that web page fior their 13 December 2011 meeting
has video and text for ciizens communications and consent items,
plus each item that had its backup information in the Commissioners’
packet is separated out with video, text, and backup links.

And for

next week’s meeting, 20 December 2011,
the complete agenda with links to

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