The City of Irvine has posted Stu Mollrich‘s 263 page Great Park deposition.
Stu’s testimony affirms that Larry Agran imposed an odd management structure in 2006 that gave Larry effective sole control, that the Great Park design was initiated with little attention to budget or “constructability,” and that Larry is “passionate about Public Restrooms.” Stu’s lawyer was quite combative about the lack of billing records supporting the $100,000/month No-Bid retainer. Expect a contempt hearing as the Auditor seeks these records and certain emails between Forde & Mollrich and Gafcon that Stu bizarrely claims are protected by attorney-client privilege.
The main point of the deposition was to get documentation concerning Forde & Mollrich‘s $100,000/month retainer that had been awarded on a non-competitive basis. In the midst of an otherwise co-operative full day of testimony, Stu’s lawyer David Elson of Mannat, Phelps, & Phillips fought vigorously, even arguing the request itself was unreasonable and possibly illegal. (pages 170-175 of the deposition, and again on pages 181-185). Auditor Anthony Taylor makes clear that he is considering a formal contempt hearing ( p 259), that he doubts Gafcon and F&M can claim client-privilege (p 210), and that False Claims Act may come into play ( p 183).
Scattered amongst the two-hundred-sixty-three pages of lawyerly prose are morsels and seven bathroom breaks. Below are some highlights drawn from my eight pages of notes.
UPDATE: Voice of OC and OC Weekly report that the contempt charge is formally moving forward.
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Gafcon’s billing system, SharePoint 360, was a fiasco. Even Stu Mollrich was late in getting paid ( p 117). However, the billing system may have served its true purpose. SharePoint 360 isn’t a GafCon product, but instead is owned by Pam Gaffen, Gafcon co-founder and wife of Gafcon owner Yehudi Gaffen. Ford & Mollrich bought a license to be able to use the system. You read that correclty: getting access to the billing system used by the Great Park facilities manager involved cutting a check to Yehudi Gaffen‘s wife. The love flowed both ways. A 2011 IRS audit reveals Stu Mollrich hired Gafcon for “construction management” on Stu’s personal residence for work done in 2007 and 2008 . ( p 211 )
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Stu corroborates that the planning process was not oriented towards producing an affordable, constructible park.
Q There was no budget for this competition, correct, in terms of construction budget?
A No
Q There was not budget scrutiny ?
A No. (p 153)
…
Q In terms of constructability analysis, do you recall any constructability analysis being done during the design competition?
A During the design competition? No. That was not something that was suggested by anyone involved.
So, unsurprisingly, few useful plans resulted from the design process. (p 153)
“So the sports park will be completed. .. Perhaps not exactly — there was never a specific development plan for the sports park” (p 145)
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Stu does not like Mike Ellzey: “Sometimes I think Mr Ellzey is the star of his own movie, one that mostly exists in his mind” (p 155)
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The oddest question of the deposition:
Q I heard, as part of this Audit, that Chairman Agran sometimes asked people to send documents to his wife or his daughter. Do you recall ever receiving a request like that?
A No (p 235 )
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The oddest claim of the deposition: that F&M didn’t negotiate their own contract with the city– that they were only Design Studio sub-contractors. They never asked for more than $100,000/month, and the city never asked documentation about how the money was spent. ( pp 253 – 256)
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Stu agrees it was “No Bid” contract.
Q “ I want to get your understanding of what went out to competitive bidding”
A” I guess it would depend on how you define competitive bidding” As for the annual renewal, attached to the Design Studio contract, “There was no competitive Bid process” (p 197)
Q” Would you describe Chairman Agran’s involvement in terms of the day-to-day management of the Great Park being very frequent or infrequent”
A He was very active… He was very, very passionate about the project and I believe say it as a legacy project. … He was very passionate about restrooms … [it] became kind of a running joke (p 101)
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A It’s kind of a unique structure, a 501(c)(3)… subservient to the city. So even if a majority of directors wanted to go one direction, unless a majority of the city city council also agreed with it, it could be stopped. .. it wasn’t as defined a structure as perhaps it could have been…. The chair … basically set policy direction for the project (p 104)
Everyone is passionate about public restrooms. At one time or another.
During the many years this project was going on and the many millions of dollars spent why was there no oversight by the rest of the Council? We the people gave you our vote and our trust that you ALL would be responsible caretakers.
A multi-million dollar project was left to one man, and the rest of the Council and Committees for the Great Park saw and heard nothing?
This is impossible, the committees and Council are supposed to be in charge of the entire project, the residents of Irvine expected the Council to have oversight on the people’s money.
The entire team (Council & Committees) should and will be held responsible by the people.
As I understand it, the “entire team” was not uniformly informed; in some cases information was deliberately withheld from Republican members of the city council.
David
For more than 10 years?
Everyone on the council knew what was at stake, how much money was available and what was being done at the Park, all they had to do is open their eyes.
There is no excuse for the lack of accountability by this Council, every year money dwindled and the Park had nothing to show for it. The media and the people of Irvine noticed nothing was being done year after year. You cannot expect the people of Irvine to know whats going on and the Council to appear as the monkeys “hear, speak, see no evil”.
The lack of integrity, honesty, and responsibility is overwhelming against the Council.
David’s going to be on sabbatical for several weeks (no, not banned or anything like that), so don’t read anything more than that into his lack of a response.
“For more than 10 years?”
I believe LarryCo was in charge for that period of time. So, yes. I do believe there was a systematic effort to exclude the various minority from information. Ms. Shea could probably answer that question better than I can, but I seem to recall instances where the majority voted not to disclose information requested by the minority.
Everyone knew what was at stake but not everyone had the same concept of what that stake was.
Since the new majority took over there has finally been movement to both accountability and transparency. It’s hard to characterize it as partisan since what is finally happening is so long overdue and so necessary.
As far as I’m concerned Agran, Krom and Kang are responsible for the mess they created.
OK, perhaps not gone off on that sabbatical quite yet….
Read the depositions, or at least my summaries.
Larry was in effective sole control from 2006 to 2012.
At one point Christine Shea had to sue the Great Park Corporation at her own expense to find out who had been been considered fora key posts — while she was a board member
Shea and many others, myself included, saw what was happening and did what we could. Which wasn’t much.
Because, ” Just pay for it, we have the three votes.”
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2014/07/just-pay-for-it-we-have-the-three-votes/
Yep, that was my recollection. Where in the Hell was the District Attorney?
Oh, right.
look on the bright side,,,,at some point, there was a free concert by big sandy and the fly rite boys….and the parking was free too