Hell hath no fury like liars and deceivers questioning the integrity of honest people, as the City Council proved once again Tuesday.
They accused LAX officials of favoritism in awarding a $271 million contract for a new heating and air conditioning system, implied one of the nation’s largest and politically powerful contractors was blackmailed into dropping out of the bidding and accused the winning bidder of being a bunch of white racists.
They even got their daily laugh mocking Tom LaBonge for a rare moment when he actually made sense when they didn’t have a single fact to call into question the integrity of LAX officials or the bidding process.
After nearly two hours of an attempted public lynching of Airport Director Gina Marie Lindsey, only Alarcon, Cardenas, Perry and Reyes remained so oblivious to the facts that voted to nullify the contract.
Just before the 9-4 vote, Lindsey looked them in the eye and told them sharply in so many words to go to Hell where they belonged.
Still, the point was made to every bureaucrat in City Hall that they need to make sure that contracts go to the pals of the City Council like Tutor-Perini and its principal owner Ron Tutor or they too will face the humiliation of a public inquisition.
Tutor himself and his now famous lobbyist Veronica Becerra were absent as was the man she is dating, Dennis Zine, who was forced to recuse himself because of the obvious conflict of interest.
So if you wonder sometimes why so much of what City Hall does is poorly managed, wonder no more: Why would smart, capable managers stick around the moral sewer at City Hall if they could get another job.
Here’s coverage in the Daily News and the LA Times.
So, with this Council, there is only “integrity” if their contractor of choice wins-even if that contractor has a history of legal actions taken against them from another city, had flaws in their proposed design, etc.
Question: What did Wesson mean by “diversity”?
This exposes the corrupt process of lobbying. Originally Dennis Zine’s potential conflict stuck out like a sore thumb. He was not there for this vote on Jan 4, 2011.
The answers provided by Ms. Lindsey and Mr. Johnson of LA Airports (LAWA) were enlightening which provided business and technical reasons why Tutor was eliminated:
1. The $30 million lower price claimed by Tutor is not accurate since they were not a proposer in the final process and there is not a way to determine if they met specifications. Also, since the final bids were sealed, if the $30 million number was released after the opening, it was meaningless and phony.
2. Tutor voluntarily withdrew both their proposal and bid. There is no current protest and yet Alarcon spoke as if there was a CURRENT protest.
3. Tutor “cheated” in their initial proposal by using different ambient temp data which made their proposal more efficient than it would have been with the correct data.
One question, could Tutor sue? – Answer from the City Attorney – NO, because Tutor signed a settlement agreement in which they waived all their rights including the right to sue.
That is why no one from Tutor gave a comment during the meeting and had No Comment for the media.
LAWA handled this very well during the meeting except, in Ms. Lindsey’s statement that she would recommend bidder number 2 if the City Council rejected Clark/McCarthy.
Ironically, Clark would have a standing to sue, if that happened.
One series of questions which at first were troubling was “were notes (or minutes) taken during technical discussions?” Answer no.
But on later follow up by Reyes, Mr. Johnson from LAWA pointed out that notes were read verbatim AND they were about 50 people present including the City Attorney. Which meant if there were any doubts what was said (which was part of Reyes’ series of questioning) during the technical discussions, there were about 50 witnesses including the City Attorney who could back it up.
For the most part the questioning was legitimate, but it was obvious that all these questions were raised because Tutor fed those questions to the Council members despite Tutor’s settlement agreement.
Some Council members clearly didn’t like the answers that they got from LAWA representatives because those answers clearly showed that LAWA did the right thing.
Of the four “No” votes, Cardenas was the smartest. He knew exactly what the issue was regarding the Temperature constants given by LAWA to Tutor and understood how Tutor “cheated” And yet he voted against the bid – What a disappointment.
Those four No votes were fought for very hard by Tutor.
Alarcon (who got a $1,000 donation by Ron Tutor for his legal defense fund); Perry; Reyes; and Cardenas all voted No. We need to look into the lobbying firm and see if any of the 3 got money or get money in the future.
I would ask – Did Tutor’s “behind-the-scenes” lobbying in any way violate their settlement agreement?
La Bonge displayed his usual bufoonishness by saying he should trust the staff – The Council does have a right to raise legitimate questions.
But La Bonge missed out on some great points made by LAWA and could have pointed that out to his colleagues or further drilled the staff to clear up any questions.
In that sense, La Bonge could have learned by the line of questions presented by Hahn and Rosendahl. (I’m not a big fan of either Hahn or Rosendahl, but they did the right thing on this item and deserve kudos for it).
On another note, the only way to bring Tutor back would have been to reject all bid and re-start the process.
Otherwise, as Ms. Lindsey pointed out their other option would be to award to the 2nd lowest bidder, Burns McDonald/Turner.
But there was no reason to award to Burns McDonald/Turner: 1. It would have been a higher bid; 2. Clark/McCarthy would have a ground to sue.
Finally, Wesson is also entering the category with Mr. La Bonge of buffoonery when he brought up diversity. It shows that he didn’t read the full report from LAWA, instead he judged a book by the cover seeing only the color of the people present for Clark/McCarthy.
Clark/McCarthy in fact exceeded City guidelines for supplier diversity. Mr. Wesson would know that if he read the staff report.
But to his credit, Mr. Wesson voted right on this one. Perhaps the amount of money or favors offered by Tutor wasn’t high enough.
Sierra – Thank you for an enlightening synopsis.
Would/could you please tell us what the City guidlines for supplier diversity are?
Politics of Pillow Talk
L.A. Times: … Zine decided to step aside from voting but insisted that his relationship with Becerra does not constitute a conflict of interest.
If that doesn’t constitute a conflict of interest, then nobody knows what a conflict of interest is.
Even this dog can smell that rotting bone from a mile away.
Bruno’s Pal G.
Is G Shepard referring to Dennis Zine’s old rotting “bone” for that over-the-hill sleaze hag from Tutor? My God, she looks like warmed over seconds of a tryst of Villaraigosa…..
Supplier diversity: It probably means that suppliers must make political contributions to the mayor, all city council members and the district attorney and city attorney to insure that they win all their law suits.
Who else has contributed to Dickie Alarcon’s Legal Defense Fund?
“Tutor Perini is based in Sylmar, which is part of Alarcon’s district. Ronald M. Tutor, Tutor Perini’s chief executive, contributed $1,000 in August to Alarcon’s legal defense fund, which helps pay for the councilman’s defense in an ongoing felony voter fraud case. That case alleges that the councilman lied about his residence.” From the LA Times.
OMG!!! Never in the history of this city have we had a bunch of lying, sneaky, unethical assholes. City council members are the worse group of politicians including the Mayor, Controller, City Attorney this LA has seen. The Mayor has changed City Hall with the Mexican Mafia thugs running around and the low class of people. Even top power players in the City have said City Hall is nothing more then a haven for bad. Why did Homeboy, the sham of a gang program get this contract after the owner of the old cafe was there for decades? Now Antonio and his clowns Mexican Mafia thugs like Cardenas, Huizar, Reyes, Alarcon have brought the gangsters into City Hall. Watch the grafitti inside City Hall, lock up your valuables with gangsters now able to run free inside. Homeboy gets tons of money yet they don’t have ONE gang intervention/prevention guy out in the streets working with gangs as other programs do. HOMEBOY as Wendy Greuesome’s audit stated along with all the gang programs didn’t have ONE documented success story. HOMEBOY needs to be investigated and AUDITED to find out how much of the millions they get have gone to political campaigns. If they are hurting so much why did they buy a $10 MILLION building. Read how low their rent will be. City Hall is prime real estate why only $900 per month>>>>
“”"”Homeboy Industries will be opening up a Homeboy General Store on the second floor of City Hall under the terms of CF 10-1862. The 577 square feet will be leased for $900 per month or 4% of gross receipts, whichever is greater.
Okay–good one Sandy. In reality, that’s probably the correct answer. What is it on paper? Does someone have a link to it in a code or something?
To January 5, 2011 5:51 AM: Diversity guidelines are related to goals set by the City for MBE and WBE participation usually expressed in a percentage of the contract amount.
If I get an opportunity, I will look up a link that gives you those percentages.
I really took an interest in this contract. I stumbled across it on the City’s Channel 35 when the protest was lodged by Tutor at the Airport. A video of that is available on Channel 35′s website. And of course Ron Kaye did an excellent job covering the Dennis Zine element.
But we tend to forget the past wrongs and this story is Deja vu all over again for me. Under Mayor Hahn, the Airport Commissioners tried to over ride the staff on a concession contract. This was the “pay to play” scandle.
But in this contract we had a contractor try to influence the City Council instead of the Commissioners.
OH NO NOT AGAIN. OH LORD! ONE BAD APPLE SPOILS THE ENTIRE BUNCH. AND ZINE IS PLAYING WITH SOME PUSSY ON THE SIDE, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON. YOU CAN ALWAY FIND ZINE ON THE TARMAC
Administrative: YES you do need to review each and every contract, in place, look at the pro’s and con’s for the City and review the way the City scores and awards contracts. Our leader pretend like they don’t know anything which I find very insulting. EACH councilman including the so called good ones all have one thing in mind; their retirement – how many checks they get: they make more money than when they actually worked.
MR CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Legal: You can not have your girlfriend on the SIDE as you recuse yourself,”WHAT THE HELL IS IN IT FOR YOU”?
A World Class Airport
How wonderful it is to announce today we will be remodeling LA’s INTERNATIONAL Airport as Tom Bradly “toasts” to a New Begining.
Fatal Flaw in the design? Such a purposeful oversight is a conflict of interest. Just like the awarding of Contracts to LAHD Executives. Its Bullshit FROM top to Bottom. #completebullshit.
Here we go again. Building a World Class Airport. I got Salvitori Fiarelli over here. Tutor, sounds like a dogs name. Throw the bone to Zine’s girlfriend.
HUMPERVILLE SAID: “Tutor Perini is based in Sylmar, which is part of Alarcon’s district. Ronald M. Tutor, Tutor Perini’s chief executive, contributed $1,000 in August to Alarcon’s legal defense fund, which helps pay for the councilman’s defense in an ongoing felony voter fraud case.
Finally someone is exposing Homeboy Industries corruption. Good one.
More corruption from Council members.
LA councilwoman wants to study impact of downtown NFL stadium on convention center. ” her request for a briefing, Hahn noted that the city pays $46 million annually on debt incurred from the last major renovation of the convention center. She also said the city’s top budget official was considering asking outside companies to present proposals for privately managing the convention center. Hahn has had extensive political ties to AEG in recent years. That company was the biggest donor to a ballot measure that rolled back term limits, allowing her to successfully seek a third four-year term. In addition, that company’s lobbyist is Chris Modrzejewski. His wife, Denise Modrzejewski, has been a fundraiser for two of Hahn’s reelection campaigns. Between 2005 and 2009, Hahn’s council committees paid Denise Modrzejewski’s company, Niko Consulting, nearly $75,000, according to Ethics Commission records. Niko also raised money for Proposition A, Hahn’s 2008 anti-gang ballot measure, which fell just shy of the votes needed for passage in 2008. Hahn said through a spokesman Tuesday that she no longer retains Denise Modrzejewski as her fundraiser. She also said that she made the motion on her own, without prompting from the Modrzejewskis.
New Contracts for HVAC should include Green Technology, Including Solar Panels, Wi-Fi for the Internet and many wonderful outposts for travelers to make LAX enjoyable.
Is Green Technology part of this process, aside from the dog-and-pony show, as always at LA City Hall?
New Contracts for HVAC should include Green Technology, Including Solar Panels, Wi-Fi for the Internet and many wonderful outposts for travelers to make LAX enjoyable.
Is Green Technology part of this process, aside from the dog-and-pony show, as always at LA City Hall?
Please this group going GREEN. Have you seen the huge SUV’s many of them drive. How many council members had 4th of July Fireworks shows in their district hurting the environment and animals? How many allow illegal vendors to bbq all over the districts? How many times have you been invited to a meeting to try and give examples on how to save the environment or help in your household? Never
You should be able to look up the contract on-line – Go to Clerk Connect on LACITY.org, then search for LAWA CUP.
In terms of the presentation, the Central Utility Plant does have environmental features – It uses co-generation and is 60% more efficient than the existing 1962 plant according to the Jan 4th presentation.
You will have to look LAWA’s report, up but typically co-generation involves using a gas turbine-gernator, recovering the heat to make steam for the heating and cooling while producing electicity.
LAWA may also have separate solar projects in the works, but again, you will have to do some research (which isn’t hard) yourself if you are really interested.
They will continue to be shameless as long as they are not put behind bars. The Mayor’s Ticketgate disappeared, and he continues to run around doing no work at taxpayer’s expense. Get used to it.
Ok “Green Expectations”, this contract has “Green” or environmentally friendly features. The contact which is about 54 MB and 507 pages is here (may take a long time to download (right-click and save as): http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2008/08-2827-S1_rpt_bac_11-17-10.pdf
@Sierra, I looked into donations for Cardenas, and it turns out he has received a total of $16,000 in the past 10 years from Tutor-Sabila (Tutor Perini is the new name of the company) and people employed by Tutor Sabila:
$15,500 (from employers) + $500 (from Tutor- Sabila itself)
$1500 of those from employers are from Ronald Tutor in 2001 and 2002. That probably helps explain his support for Tutor’s interest by voting “no” to give Clark/McCarthy the votes.
If anything, this might be a way for him to garner support and raise some nice cash from them this coming election. We shall see.
@Investigator, Thanks for looking that up.
Question: Since Tutor signed a settlement agreement that included a waiver of all rights and agreed to withdraw their bid, was it illegal for Tutor to try to influence the Councilmembers to vote against the contract with Clark/McCarthy?