UPDATE Hope Boonshaft, head of Hill & Knowlton’s L.A. office, said in an email that Steve Sugerman and his P.R. firm are not involved at all in the contract with the Harbor Department and will not be involved in any H&K dealings with the city or county of Los Angeles. “We have an alliance with The Sugerman group to help in our general public affairs and other offerings such as real estate and transportation …but nothing in the City of Los Angeles…nor so far with any government,” she said.
t seems like only yesterday that the city banned public relations
contracts with private firms after the uproar over the
DWP/Fleishman-Hilliard scandal but it’s been three years so I guess the
statute of limitations has run out.
What other explanation could there be for the recent approval by the
Harbor Commission of contracts worth $1.3 million, and probably more
over time, to well-connected public relations firms Hill & Knowlton
and the Rogers Group. Insider connections and looking after pals? Money
to burn with a $4 billion port expansion in the works?
I know $1.3 million doesn’t sound like much these days but it’s 50
percent more than the city could scrounge up to keep some parks in
tough parts of town open until midnight this summer — a program
critics mock as an economic stimulus by spurring late-night drug sales
by gang members.
And why shouldn’t gangsters get rich if City Hall is going to pump
money into P.R. firms that are going through a rough time during the
economic downturn.
It makes me wonder if the hoodlums have the same kind of insider
influence that helped the Rogers Group and Hill & Knowlton land the
port contracts to do what sounds like pretty routine tasks properly
done by the executives and officials of the Harbor who are handsomely
rewarded for whatever it is they do.
Supposedly, these firms will “develop a public outreach and education
program to promote its new Clean Air Action Plan…(and) develop
additional efforts, and create an informational program to help the
port get more federal funds for its programs,” according to Rick Orlov’s story in the Daily News.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is going to have to decide whether to go back to the bad old days and end the ban on these P.R. deals that was imposed after the DWP’s sweetheart
contract with Fleishman Hillard led to criminal investigations and the
conviction of three of the P.R. firm’s executives and a $6 million
settlement from the company.
I attacked the Fleishman-Hillard contract with DWP long before it got
swept into the Hahn administration’s pay-to-play scandal and led to the
conviction of a longtime friend, Doug Dowie.
He got nailed because the executive in charge of the DWP account, after
repeatedly denying wrongdoing, rolled over and told federal
investigators that he interpreted things Dowie said as meaning he was
supposed to fabricate bills to show the P.R. firm earned its $250,000 a
month payday.
Sugerman pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors and got probation
but things have turned out good for him. Right after the deal, former
mayoral candidate Steve Soboroff renewed his contract to help promote
the massive Playa
Vista development on the Westside. Now a registered City Hall lobbyist,
Sugerman has parlayed that into other
contracts that have taken him back inside the game while his cohorts, Dowie and John Stodder, are struggling to pay their bills while
appealing their convictions.
Sugerman’s
connections run deep in City Hall. He was a deputy mayor in the Riordan
Administration before joining Fleishman-Hillard. He was tight with DWP
General Manager S. David Freeman, which helped him land the
lucrative P.R. contract with the utility.
Maybe it’s only coincidence that Freeman heads the Harbor Commission
that approved the new contract just six months after that Hill &
Knowlton proudly announced it had formed a strategic partnership with
Sugerman for the specific purpose of providing a short-cut for
expanding into the public sphere, as H&K’s local general manager
Hope Boonshaft told the L.A. Business Journal.
“Steve is not only really smart, he’s a good guy, a good practitioner,”
said Boonshaft. “People make mistakes and it’s time to put those behind
and move on.”
The Business Journal reported the agency alliance breaks down
geographically. Sugerman brings expertise in dealing with politicians
and bureaucracy in Southern California, while H&K has offices
nationally and internationally that can provide service to his clients
.
Both companies will maintain their independence but “for the most part,
we’ll be collaborators” instead of competitors, Sugerman said
It’s safe to say that Sugerman’s being pals with Freeman didn’t hurt.
The only question left is whether the mayor will take the risk of
approving this deal and overturning the ban on hiring private P.R.
firms for city business.
Mayoral spokesman Matt Szabo told the Daily News the plans are being
reviewed to ensure they comply with city policy on community outreach
contracts. Szabo said the mayor wants to study the contracts and talk
with harbor officials about the need for outside firms
PR spin: “…People make mistakes and it’s time to put those behind and move on.”
Truth: It wasn’t a ‘mistake.’ They purposely stole city money. Sugarman admitted it. Why in the world would the city throw more money at crooks?
I’m all for allowing convicted felons to get on with life after doing their time. But common sense tells you that you dont hire a bank robber to manage cash, or a drug dealer to manage a pharmacy, or a car thief to manage valet parking.
Sugarman, Dowie and Stodder were convicted of stealing money from the city with phony PR work. Dowie and Stodder may still be appealing, but Sugerman admitted that he made up phony bills for fake PR work.
These PR contracts have always been a boondoggle. Why does the city need outside PR spinners when it has so many in-house marketing and PR minions? Heck, why does it even need so many inside spinmysters?
But beyond that it’s just stupid crazy to throw more taxpayer money at someone for the same kind of work they phony-ed up before to steal money. The money they stole could have gone to fix my streets or hire more code enforcement officers or lower my water rates. The money their getting now could do the same.
If his cronies in the mayor’s office want to help Sugarman “move on,” then give him a real job with a fixed salary where he’s not handling billing. Teach him how to filla pothole and put him on a city crew.
But don’t give him a blank check and a license to invent billed hours for PR spinning!!!
The only clear distinction between Sugerman and the city’s drug peddlers would have to be the tax bracket they fall under…
Although i don’t think most drug dealers invest much of their day’s time in reading political blogs, if in fact they did, I would have to assume they would be more then embarrassed by being compared to a lackluster go between like Steve Sugerman…
Although i personally love the comparison because it gives everyone a perfect opportunity to examine Sugerman in the light he should have been viewed in all along…
The cliche, “Its not what you know, its who you know” may very well be stitched into every suit Sugerman owns. The simple fact of the matter is Sugerman has seemed to make a living by smiling and feeding a healthy dose of bull-shit through his pearly whites to benefit himself and his “GREAT” friends he works for. And now, it seems the jaw soreness and horrible taste of shit in his mouth has paid off again, possibly granting him another huge city contract.
You have to wonder if Steve was smiling when federal agents began asking questions about his practices and billing techniques, probably at first. But when they came back again, and again, I’m sure the smile faded and the schmoozing died down. He was probably thinking, “This could have all been avoided if i was good friends with someone in the F.B.I”.
So as Sugerman rides the wake of his close call with Fleishman & Hilliard, his sins seemed to have been absolved by all of his friends in high places and the prospect of millions has his jaw getting more sore by the second, not a bad turnout for the only one who admitted to being a criminal…
Being involved in this world of bitter handshakes and fake smiles I have met all three of these men, all of them before any indictments. Still to this day, Stodder and Dowie are the only ones i would ever consider working with.
A fake smile only gets you so far in this business, actually, it seems to get you millions.
H&K’s position today regarding Sugerman is clearly at odds with its original forgive-and-forget announcement about their partnership. I’d like to know if he participated in the firm’s efforts in securing the contract. Maybe someone should get the proposal and all the emails, evaluations and other records under the California Public Records Act.
If my memory serves me correctly, the environmental awareness efforts pertains to clean trucks moving in and out of the ports.
Unless the public at large is driving and maintaining those trucks, their need-to-know is minimal, and so is an awareness program.
I’m sure the PR team of Kaye & Sand would be more than willing to bid on a contract for this five-minute job and pocket the excess $1,495,000.
Re: Sandy Sand’s comments about cutting pollution to and from the ports: the public’s “need to know is minimal, and so is an awareness program.” WOW!!! More from the jurassic set that is still fighting the westside subway and Expo II line, arguing that carpooling and wider roads is the only answer.
Just ask Janice Hahn, who represents the area, to tell you why it’s important. Read stats reprinted in the Times and elsewhere, about the thousands of people who die every year from particulants directly from Port traffic — the Ports of LA/ San Pedro and Long Beach receive almost half the imports for the entire country, and trucks carry it from there cross country to Targets, Wal-Marts and every other store. This all goes past the residents, and wears down our roads and highways, for which the government does not adequately reimburse us. There sure IS a need to educate state and local government about why we’re not getting our fair share of funding for these environmental and health problems, something we’re taking a “hit” for, for the whole country. Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney couldn’t be any more dismissive or uninformed about these issues than is Sandy Sand.
Although I don’t generally like Hahn and oppose her proposed property tax for more gang programs under her aegis, the facts involving the ports are indisputable and dire.
You’re point is well taken, Sandy. These PR contracts are rarely if ever awarded to the lowest bidder. The amount of the contract is in the RFP, so the bidders come up with programs to justify the amount.
Four years ago, as Jim Hahn was preparing to run for reelection, Fleishman Hillard was eviscerated by the media for its city contracts in articles and broadcast reports, with Laura Chick leading the charge. Lost in the onslaught was the fact that Fleishman won the largest of those contracts, the DWP, in a similar competitive process during the Riordan administration and the amount was set by the department, not the agency. Dozens of firms fought for the work.
Critics claimed the contracts were not only a waste of money and that city employees could do the work more cheaply, but that Fleishman’s success was somehow connected to its political contributions – “pay to play.”
Didn’t I recently read on this blog that Sugerman was hosting a fundraiser for mayoral ally Jack Weiss, who is running for City Attorney? I suppose Hope Booneshaft Lewis of H&K will now claim that also has nothing -nothing! -to do with its success at the port. Just a coincidence. Maybe she was out of the country in 2004 when Fleishman made the same argument.
Actually, if she was around four years ago and watched what happened to Fleishman, she wouldn’t want the damn contract in the first place.
Anonymous 6:28, bidding on the contract was irony.
As far as getting in on the graft and corruption, why shouldn’t we? For years we’ve been the faceless, nameless payers, so maybe it’s time to become payees.
All in the fun of being sarcastic to make a point.
Dismissive. I hardly think so.
One of the main thrusts of the article was pollution from the trucks coming and going to the harbor.
Spending one-and-a-half mil in violation of being ordered not to hire outside PR firms is outrageous enough on the face of it.
But to spend that kind of money to tell the public “oh, what wonderful guys we are to police the trucks” is equally outrageous.
That’s something for the AQMD to handle, and that’s what they get the big bucks to do.
For only the cost of my time, I can email the media a press release touting what a wonder, civic-minded organization the port authority is.
And if you weren’t spending so much time listen to Rush and the rest of the bloviators, you’d know that very soon the Port of Los Angeles will join the dinosaurs.
Once Mexico completes it massive, state-of-the-art port just below San Diego, we won’t need a port; it will be as dead as smilodon.
When Mexican truck pour over the border delivering goods from their port, belching their toxic fumes you really won’t have anything to smile about.
The air will be so thick, you not only will be able to cut it with a machete, you won’t be able to see the ocean.
Last point. Sane people have every reason to fight a subway in earthquake country. Want to be buried alive and suffocate to death during the big one? Be my guest. I’d rather take my chance with elevated if you’re looking for an alternative suggestion.
They fall down in quakes, you say. So do freeways and tall buildings. No plan is perfect.
Steve Sugerman got his juicy PR/lobbying contract with Playa Vista right when he jumped from Fleishman-Hillard as the ship was sinking. Nice that Soboroff gave Sugerman that juicy little plum. However, Soboroff forgot to remind Steve to register as a lobbyist for Playa Vista. So for like 5 years, Steve Sugerman was doing stuff to lobby all kinds of City Hall people on Playa Vista and its entitlements and never reported his income to the City Ethics Commission. Now an investigation is underway. I wonder if Steve’s probation officer over at the Federal Courthouse is paying attention to Steve’s latest Crimes and Misdemeanors.
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