{"id":1203,"date":"2011-12-18T16:08:46","date_gmt":"2011-12-18T21:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/cloudy-transparency-on-rftp-bidding-barbara-stratton.html"},"modified":"2011-12-18T16:08:46","modified_gmt":"2011-12-18T21:08:46","slug":"cloudy-transparency-on-rftp-bidding-barbara-stratton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/cloudy-transparency-on-rftp-bidding-barbara-stratton.html","title":{"rendered":"Cloudy transparency on RFP & bidding —Barbara Stratton"},"content":{"rendered":"Received today on\n\nTransparency by a County Commission<\/a>. -jsq\n
\nI don’t know how you found this example, but good work & thanks for\nthe research. This is a real genuine effort to produce government\ntransparency. Anything short of this is faux transparancy. Can you\nfind out how the citizens were able to get this good faith transparancy\nenacted?\n

\nI am expecially concerned with the cloudy transparancy on RFP &\n\n<\/a>\nbidding procedures within our county. Having spent 12 years in\ngovernment construction contracting I know the detailed safeguards\nthat have been enacted to protect the taxpayers from contracting fraud\n& crony capitalist back door agreements. It is my observation that\nthese safeguards are being bypassed by end around tactics & the current\npopularity of public\/private partnerships has a plethora of possiblities\nfor good old boy system abuses.\n

\nRecently a local contractor started\nwork on\n\nan unfunded, unawarded government project<\/a> that was exposed\n\n<\/a>\nby the local newspaper. The city’s answer to the illegal contracting\nprocedures was to issue a contract change order for $143,807 with a 10%\ncontingency. It has been my experience that anytime a contractor starts\nwork on an unfunded project said contractor eats the cost of any work\ncompleted & all contractors are aware of this rule.\n

\nIn addition it is a dis-service to taxpayers for that amount of money\nto be\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\nawarded as a change order with no public\ndiscussion & no bidding process to make certain the work could not be\ndone at a cheaper rate. Nothing personal to the contractor envolved,\nbut if we citizens sit back & allow this type of end around to legal\nsafeguards for bidding procedures then we are enabling possible\ncrony capitalism (AKA good old boy system) abuses. At least one city\ncouncil person questioned if bids had been obtained & was shut down\nby the statement that it was a change order. How many more multiple\nthousand dollar change orders can be expected to be tacked on?\n

\nI think interrogatories of all bidding & contracting procedures for\nall governmental entities within our county need to be made public so\ncitizens can be aware of how their interests are being protected. In\naddition if it is brought to the attention of public officials that it\nis possible for an existing contract to be rebid at a cheaper rate then\nsaid officials should be\nrequired to issue proper RFPs instead of issuing blanket change orders\nor contract extensions.\n

\nCitizens need to get a handle on how contract awards are being managed\nlocally before public\/private partnership permanently cloud the issues. In\naddition no public\/private partnership should be entered into without\nfull public disclosure & opportunity for public discussion. Once\na public\/private partnership is enacted open record transparancy is\nhistory because the private entity envolved can & will claim proprietary\nexclusions. Conflict of interest & kickback abuses can easily be hidden\nunder these proprietary exclusions.\n

\n-Barbara Stratton\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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 […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,48,40,2,3165,88,54],"tags":[3260,257,3261,1081,3255,3258,8701,3256,7,3257,1601,237,3259,8700,238,234],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-code-enforcement","category-community","category-government","category-lcc-13-december-2011","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-valdosta-city-council","tag-backup","tag-bid","tag-commission-packet","tag-conflict-of-interest","tag-county-commission","tag-county-court","tag-georgia","tag-kickback","tag-lowndes-county","tag-proprietary-exclusions","tag-rfp","tag-texas","tag-text","tag-transparency","tag-travis-county","tag-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-jp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}