Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones says the county is reexamining all contracts mentioned in the corruption charges filed Friday.
After the commission meeting this morning, I asked Jones to reiterate why the change order for Phoenix Cement was removed from the agenda.
"Phoneix Cement, though not expressly named, one can clearly conclude they were noted and referred to in the indictment through information," Jones said. "I thought we needed more time to undertake a thorough investigation of the circumstances to make sure nothing illegal or improper occurred." He added, "I have a feeling, when all is said and done, we’ll be able to move forward in that matter." (See this post for the reasons the Phoenix contract and change order appear legitimate on the face of it.)
I asked if the county would reexamine the awarding of the original Phoenix contract as well as the change order. He said yes.
I asked whether that would include an inquiry into whether Jimmy Dimora went to Las Vegas with a Phoenix executive and whether he accepted gifts from him there. Jones looked a little surprised but said, "We’re going to have to explore all the circumstances, to the extent that we can internally, to ascertain that that bid was not at all problematic." He said the results would be made public.
However, it will be hard for the commissioners to reject the change order. "My understanding is, the work has already been done, and they're merely waiting to be paid," Jones said.
What will happen when other contracts questioned in the prosecutor's charges come up?
"We are undertaking a review of all the contracts and companies that were referenced directly or could be clearly identified in the indictment by information filed last week," Jones said. County administrator Jim McCafferty and deputy administrators Lee Trotter and Rick Werner are conducting the inquiry.
I asked whether Jones and Hagan would specifically ask Dimora to recuse himself from voting on those issues. Jones said he and Hagan have a continuing objection to Dimora voting at all.
He told another reporter he was "disappointed" that Dimora did not take their advice to recuse himself from all votes.
Showing posts with label phoenix cement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phoenix cement. Show all posts
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Commissioners voted to expand contract the day before federal prosecutors questioned it
No wonder Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones don't want Jimmy Dimora to vote on county business anymore. A contract they all voted to expand on Thursday was cited in the prosecutor's charges against J. Kevin Kelley and others on Friday.
On Thursday, the three commissioners voted to approve large change orders expanding three contracts at the juvenile justice center project. Phoenix Cement, which is handling the concrete job, got its $4,576,000 contract increased by $459,000, to $5 million. News reports had already suggested that Phoenix Cement was under scrutiny by federal investigators as part of the county corruption probe.
{Update, 6/18: The commissioners authorized staff to prepare the Phoenix change order on the 11th, meaning it was a preliminary approval, not a final approval. I've changed the headline of this post to reflect that. Peter Lawson Jones now says the final vote on the change order, scheduled for today, will be postponed because the Phoenix contract was named in the corruption charges.}
Then, on Friday the 12th, the prosecutors' filing said this:
On or about March 20, 2008, the County Commissioners awarded Business 4 a $4,576,000 contract for the cement portion of the JJC project, PO1 having taken an official act to assist Business 4 in securing this contract.
An officer of Phoenix Cement allegedly paid for part of PO1's trip to Las Vegas. The dates of the Vegas trip in the court filing match a Vegas trip Dimora took (click here; scroll down to 3rd item).
Now, I should note that the feds' questioning of the concrete contract is not the strongest part of their charges. Phoenix seems to have won the concrete contract legitimately -- it was the low bidder. The prosecutor's filing never explains the "official act" that PO1 -- who is pretty clearly Dimora -- allegedly took to help Phoenix. (Earlier in the filing, it's alleged that PO1 asked county employees to assist Business Executive 1's companies, but the bid that was in trouble then was for another contract, from Phoenix's sister company, Blaze Building. Blaze didn't get that contract.)
Still, the Friday filing casts the debate at Thursday's meeting in a different light. The commissioners were poised to vote to approve the change orders without explanation when Perry Roberts -- a member of the Black Contractors Group, a frequent critic of county contracting decisions -- questioned the changes. Some contractors, he claimed, repeatedly bid low to get a job and file change orders later.
Hagan grew furious at Roberts. He dared him to go to the county prosecutor's office if he thought the change orders weren't legitimate. When Roberts suggested that not enough minorities are working on the juvenile justice center project, Hagan got hot again. He offered to resign if Roberts could prove county staff was turning in false numbers about the project's workforce. (Crain's wrote about Hagan's argument with Roberts here, while the Plain Dealer wrote about the change orders here.)
Jones and Dimora, trying to defuse the argument, politely justified the change orders to Roberts.
"We added an additional building, additional square footage,” Dimora said. "We enlarged the project, so that's what's creating some of the change orders on this project." (The additional building is the juvenile court tower, which will go next to the juvenile detention center.)
I'm not saying Phoenix got the contract or the change order in a shady manner. There are legitimate explanations for both decisions.
But imagine how angry Hagan and Jones must have felt when they read the federal charges and saw the contract they had just voted to expand in there. Or when they read, on the same page, an allegation that an executive with that contractor gave Dimora free casino chips in Vegas two weeks after the contract was approved.
In the 11 months since the FBI raids on the county building, Hagan has expressed plenty of public outrage when he thought critics or the press were "questioning the integrity" of county officials or staff. He angrily scolded the press for its coverage of the raids, citing the justice system's presumption of innocence. He expressed very little anger (in public, at least) over the possibility that the feds might've been on to something, that the county government might have actually been corrupted.
I'm curious to see how he reacts to the prosecutors' charges at the commissioner's meeting this Thursday.
Update, 6/17: Hagan sure sounds different in the print edition of the Plain Dealer's Dimora story this morning. He even uses the word "outrage."
"I made a strong case that it would be in the best interest of the county government to have him recuse himself until the resolution of this investigation," Hagan told the PD's Joe Guillen. "I think what Peter and I are expressing is the outrage that everybody feels about what has been so far put on the public record. If it's true, it's a damning indictment of people who have lost their moral compass."
Jones says Dimora should recuse himself to address public skepticism about "whether or not Jimmy, for example, has any improper interest in any of the issues or contracts that are under consideration."
For instance, the Phoenix contract?
Update, 6/18: Yes, Jones has the Phoenix contract in mind.
On Thursday, the three commissioners voted to approve large change orders expanding three contracts at the juvenile justice center project. Phoenix Cement, which is handling the concrete job, got its $4,576,000 contract increased by $459,000, to $5 million. News reports had already suggested that Phoenix Cement was under scrutiny by federal investigators as part of the county corruption probe.
{Update, 6/18: The commissioners authorized staff to prepare the Phoenix change order on the 11th, meaning it was a preliminary approval, not a final approval. I've changed the headline of this post to reflect that. Peter Lawson Jones now says the final vote on the change order, scheduled for today, will be postponed because the Phoenix contract was named in the corruption charges.}
Then, on Friday the 12th, the prosecutors' filing said this:
On or about March 20, 2008, the County Commissioners awarded Business 4 a $4,576,000 contract for the cement portion of the JJC project, PO1 having taken an official act to assist Business 4 in securing this contract.
An officer of Phoenix Cement allegedly paid for part of PO1's trip to Las Vegas. The dates of the Vegas trip in the court filing match a Vegas trip Dimora took (click here; scroll down to 3rd item).
Now, I should note that the feds' questioning of the concrete contract is not the strongest part of their charges. Phoenix seems to have won the concrete contract legitimately -- it was the low bidder. The prosecutor's filing never explains the "official act" that PO1 -- who is pretty clearly Dimora -- allegedly took to help Phoenix. (Earlier in the filing, it's alleged that PO1 asked county employees to assist Business Executive 1's companies, but the bid that was in trouble then was for another contract, from Phoenix's sister company, Blaze Building. Blaze didn't get that contract.)
Still, the Friday filing casts the debate at Thursday's meeting in a different light. The commissioners were poised to vote to approve the change orders without explanation when Perry Roberts -- a member of the Black Contractors Group, a frequent critic of county contracting decisions -- questioned the changes. Some contractors, he claimed, repeatedly bid low to get a job and file change orders later.
Hagan grew furious at Roberts. He dared him to go to the county prosecutor's office if he thought the change orders weren't legitimate. When Roberts suggested that not enough minorities are working on the juvenile justice center project, Hagan got hot again. He offered to resign if Roberts could prove county staff was turning in false numbers about the project's workforce. (Crain's wrote about Hagan's argument with Roberts here, while the Plain Dealer wrote about the change orders here.)
Jones and Dimora, trying to defuse the argument, politely justified the change orders to Roberts.
"We added an additional building, additional square footage,” Dimora said. "We enlarged the project, so that's what's creating some of the change orders on this project." (The additional building is the juvenile court tower, which will go next to the juvenile detention center.)
I'm not saying Phoenix got the contract or the change order in a shady manner. There are legitimate explanations for both decisions.
But imagine how angry Hagan and Jones must have felt when they read the federal charges and saw the contract they had just voted to expand in there. Or when they read, on the same page, an allegation that an executive with that contractor gave Dimora free casino chips in Vegas two weeks after the contract was approved.
In the 11 months since the FBI raids on the county building, Hagan has expressed plenty of public outrage when he thought critics or the press were "questioning the integrity" of county officials or staff. He angrily scolded the press for its coverage of the raids, citing the justice system's presumption of innocence. He expressed very little anger (in public, at least) over the possibility that the feds might've been on to something, that the county government might have actually been corrupted.
I'm curious to see how he reacts to the prosecutors' charges at the commissioner's meeting this Thursday.
Update, 6/17: Hagan sure sounds different in the print edition of the Plain Dealer's Dimora story this morning. He even uses the word "outrage."
"I made a strong case that it would be in the best interest of the county government to have him recuse himself until the resolution of this investigation," Hagan told the PD's Joe Guillen. "I think what Peter and I are expressing is the outrage that everybody feels about what has been so far put on the public record. If it's true, it's a damning indictment of people who have lost their moral compass."
Jones says Dimora should recuse himself to address public skepticism about "whether or not Jimmy, for example, has any improper interest in any of the issues or contracts that are under consideration."
For instance, the Phoenix contract?
Update, 6/18: Yes, Jones has the Phoenix contract in mind.
Friday, June 12, 2009
What do corruption charges add up to?
What do today's charges against J. Kevin Kelley mean for those higher up?
If "Public Official 1" and "Public Official 2" in the prosecutor's filing are Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo, then the feds are likely eyeing at least three possible charges against the county commissioner and four against the county auditor.
The prosecutor's filing suggests that Public Officials 1 and 2 went to Las Vegas in April 2008 and had parts of their trip paid for by officials with the halfway house Alternatives Agency and the contractors Blaze Building and Phoenix Cement -- businesses with county contracts that had recently been approved by the county commissioners or were pending before them. The feds allege that Officials 1 and 2 used their influence to benefit the companies, or tried to.
Official 1 allegedly got to use a condo in the Stonebridge development and use a limo 22 times in connection with the Stonebridge owner's purported efforts to hold onto the county engineer's office as a tenant.
Official 2 allegedly gave J. Kevin Kelley a raise and reduced hours to reward him for not running for mayor of Parma. Also, it's alleged that Official 2 got cash in exchange for helping a company acquire a subcontract on the county's geospatial information systems project.
I've added comment from Alternatives Agency and a lawyer for K&D to previous posts here and here. I've put calls in to lawyers for Dimora, Russo, Kelley, and Blaze and Phoenix. If I hear from any of them, I'll post about it.
If "Public Official 1" and "Public Official 2" in the prosecutor's filing are Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo, then the feds are likely eyeing at least three possible charges against the county commissioner and four against the county auditor.
The prosecutor's filing suggests that Public Officials 1 and 2 went to Las Vegas in April 2008 and had parts of their trip paid for by officials with the halfway house Alternatives Agency and the contractors Blaze Building and Phoenix Cement -- businesses with county contracts that had recently been approved by the county commissioners or were pending before them. The feds allege that Officials 1 and 2 used their influence to benefit the companies, or tried to.
Official 1 allegedly got to use a condo in the Stonebridge development and use a limo 22 times in connection with the Stonebridge owner's purported efforts to hold onto the county engineer's office as a tenant.
Official 2 allegedly gave J. Kevin Kelley a raise and reduced hours to reward him for not running for mayor of Parma. Also, it's alleged that Official 2 got cash in exchange for helping a company acquire a subcontract on the county's geospatial information systems project.
I've added comment from Alternatives Agency and a lawyer for K&D to previous posts here and here. I've put calls in to lawyers for Dimora, Russo, Kelley, and Blaze and Phoenix. If I hear from any of them, I'll post about it.
Feds: Berea contractor paid for part of trip to Vegas, got help with bid and his choice of inspector
The complaint against J. Kevin Kelley and others also alleges that a business executive paid for parts of PO1 and PO2's April 2008 trip to Las Vegas.
Last year, Phoenix Cement of Berea got a $4.6 contract for a concrete job at the new county juvenile justice center. Blaze Construction, which shares an address with Phoenix, got a $2.8 million contract to resurface part of Snow Road in Parma. Blaze also bid on a $36 million general trades contract at the juvenile justice center, but didn't get it.
All three of those contracts are mentioned in the charging document against Kelley, though Phoenix and Blaze are referred to as Business 4 and Business 3.
An executive of both companies, "BE1," is alleged to have spent $4,500 on the Vegas trip "entertaining KELLEY, PO1, PO2, and PO2's travel companion." The document says: "On approximately seven occasions during the April 2008 Las Vegas trip, BE1 gave gaming chips to PO1."
When a problem developed with Blaze's bid on the $36 million contract, the complaint against Kelley alleges that "PO1 and PO2 talked on the telephone to each other and to other County employees concerning the problem with BE1's bid and instructed County employees to research bids, collect documents, contact other County employees, and take other actions with the intent of assisting BE1's companies."
Blaze didn't get the contract. It went to competitor Panzica Construction in April 2008. It got the Snow Road contract in May.
The feds allege that BE1 requested to have a certain inspector assigned to the Snow Road project. They say Kelley managed to make that happen. The charges say Kelley did that at PO1's urging -- to carry out BE1's request to have a certain inspector assigned to the Snow Road project:
--
KELLEY told PAYNE that PO1 again asked KELLEY if the particular inspector had been assigned to the Snow Road project. PAYNE said, "Why is that a big f-king deal to him [BE1]?" KELLEY responded by telling PAYNE about BE1 losing the general trades contract for the Juvenile Justice Center and mentioning that since PO1 could not help BE1 with the general trades contract, POI said to KELLEY, "I really want to get this done for this guy."
--
This charge is interesting for what PO1 allegedly did and what he didn't do. The feds say PO1 got part of his Vegas trip paid for by the Blaze/Phoenix official, that he successfully pushed for the inspector to get assigned to the Snow Road project, and that he tried to help Blaze with its bid on the juvenile justice center trades project.
But the trades contract went to someone else. There's no allegation that either concrete contract was steered.* And PO1's defense might easily include pointing to this line:
--
"It is going to be $35 million [POI] instead of $22 [million]. You going to be able to award it to me if I am low?" PO1 responded, "Yeah."
--
Here, PO1 could say he is just following the law: the low bidder usually gets a construction contract.
*Update, 6/17: Actually, the charges do suggest PO1 helped the Phoenix concrete bid in some way, but how is not clear. See this post for details. And again, Phoenix was the low bidder.
Last year, Phoenix Cement of Berea got a $4.6 contract for a concrete job at the new county juvenile justice center. Blaze Construction, which shares an address with Phoenix, got a $2.8 million contract to resurface part of Snow Road in Parma. Blaze also bid on a $36 million general trades contract at the juvenile justice center, but didn't get it.
All three of those contracts are mentioned in the charging document against Kelley, though Phoenix and Blaze are referred to as Business 4 and Business 3.
An executive of both companies, "BE1," is alleged to have spent $4,500 on the Vegas trip "entertaining KELLEY, PO1, PO2, and PO2's travel companion." The document says: "On approximately seven occasions during the April 2008 Las Vegas trip, BE1 gave gaming chips to PO1."
When a problem developed with Blaze's bid on the $36 million contract, the complaint against Kelley alleges that "PO1 and PO2 talked on the telephone to each other and to other County employees concerning the problem with BE1's bid and instructed County employees to research bids, collect documents, contact other County employees, and take other actions with the intent of assisting BE1's companies."
Blaze didn't get the contract. It went to competitor Panzica Construction in April 2008. It got the Snow Road contract in May.
The feds allege that BE1 requested to have a certain inspector assigned to the Snow Road project. They say Kelley managed to make that happen. The charges say Kelley did that at PO1's urging -- to carry out BE1's request to have a certain inspector assigned to the Snow Road project:
--
KELLEY told PAYNE that PO1 again asked KELLEY if the particular inspector had been assigned to the Snow Road project. PAYNE said, "Why is that a big f-king deal to him [BE1]?" KELLEY responded by telling PAYNE about BE1 losing the general trades contract for the Juvenile Justice Center and mentioning that since PO1 could not help BE1 with the general trades contract, POI said to KELLEY, "I really want to get this done for this guy."
--
This charge is interesting for what PO1 allegedly did and what he didn't do. The feds say PO1 got part of his Vegas trip paid for by the Blaze/Phoenix official, that he successfully pushed for the inspector to get assigned to the Snow Road project, and that he tried to help Blaze with its bid on the juvenile justice center trades project.
But the trades contract went to someone else. There's no allegation that either concrete contract was steered.* And PO1's defense might easily include pointing to this line:
--
"It is going to be $35 million [POI] instead of $22 [million]. You going to be able to award it to me if I am low?" PO1 responded, "Yeah."
--
Here, PO1 could say he is just following the law: the low bidder usually gets a construction contract.
*Update, 6/17: Actually, the charges do suggest PO1 helped the Phoenix concrete bid in some way, but how is not clear. See this post for details. And again, Phoenix was the low bidder.
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