Jamie Page has a solid investigative piece in Sunday’s daily paper. Through public records requests, Page got the cell phone records and message logs from the Escambia Commissioners.
There are four troubling points about this fiasco.
1. All the commissioners–Grover Robinson, Wilson Robertson, Gene Valentino and Kevin White–that voted to initially rebid the Maplewood project failed to mention at the BCC meeting that they had been contacted by Roads, Inc. It wasn’t until Page starting digging did they admit Roads had attempted to lobby them.
2. None of the commissioners took the time prior to the vote to sit down with Claudia Simmons, in the County’s purchasing department, to understand the competitive sealed bid process and read the procedures about mistakes in unit price. Had they done this, they might have voted differently. As I’ve stated in other posts, the rules are very clear.
When the BCC rescinded its rebid vote, Robinson, White and Robertson admitted their error and agreed staff did nothing wrong.
“On this issue, I stand my ground that the bid process was violated,” Valentino said. (PNJ, “Commission reverses rebid,†Jan. 14)
3. The only commissioner to meet with Cody Rawson and Russell Weaver of Roads, Inc. about the Maplewood project was Valentino. We had heard and read several versions of what transpired at the Nov. 24 meeting. Rawson initially denied it happened, later described it as lasting only about five minutes and finally said it was longer.
Valentino and Rawson have now given the PNJ written accounts of the meeting (Valentino’s was published as a viewpoint), which are similar. Ed Fleming of McDonald, Fleming Moorhead represented Valentino in his email case last year. Fleming’s partner Stephen Moorhead represents Cody Rawson. Valentino and Rawson have had ample time to compare notes.
With both Valentino and Rawson saying that the campaign support was not discussed in the meeting, the election laws don’t appear to have been violated.
Valentino received two phone calls from Roads on Jan. 5, spaced five minutes a part, for nine and five minutes respectively. The vote to rebid was on Jan. 7. Valentino told Page that he doesn’t recall what was discussed. Even if Valentino told Roads that he was making the motion to rebid that project, that wouldn’t be illegal —as long as it wasn’t tied to campaign contributions.
However, Valentino should have been more open with his fellow commissioners and the public about his reason to want to rebid the contract. Blaming staff or claiming the bid process was breached wasn’t correct and damaged public trust and confidence in the county purchasing department and the bid process.
After reviewing the procedures, there was no such breach. It appears Valentino’s real motivation was to suspend the purchasing department procedures for mistakes made by bidders to give a local contractor a better chance to win the contract and possibly save the county money. The vote would have left the county open to a lawsuit by Gulf Equipment, but he would have been more honest about his motives.
The lack of transparency and initial misstatements by Valentino and Rawson made this situation worse.
4. Grover Robinson is the only commissioner to accept campaign contributions from Rawson and Roads during the weeks prior to the rebid vote. He should have taken extra care to be sure he understood the competitive sealed bid process before voting. Though I doubt the contributions influenced his vote, Robinson had the obligation to remove any hint of impropriety. Again transparency should be the rule.