Santa Ana City Manager Dave Ream doesn’t want you to know what is really going on
“City officials have refused to release several key documents that could shed light on how they chose a low-ranked firm to head a $6-million streetcar project. Those documents include price estimates, internal memos and scoring sheets from an expert panel that reviewed the three companies that applied for the job. The City Attorney’s Office said that releasing those documents “unnecessarily impinges” on the city’s deliberations and negotiations as it tries to ink a final contract,” according to the O.C. Register.
The project’s “evaluation committee included the city managers of both Santa Ana and Garden Grove, as well as city planners, an engineer and a representative of the OCTA. It met in early February, heard presentations from each of the companies, and gave a team led by Parsons Brinckerhoff the highest average score, 93.7. A second company, David Evans and Associates Inc., came in second with a score of 77. Cordoba, with a score of 72.9, was just a few percentage points above the city’s minimum-qualification cutoff of 70.”
This story should be unbelievable, but those who follow our Santa Ana stories know that corruption is the name of the game at Santa Ana’s City Hall.
Here are a few more telling excerpts from the O.C. Register:
That decision “raises serious doubts as to the integrity of the process,” Parsons Brinckerhoff wrote in a letter to the city.
By the time that proposal reached the full City Council, it had been translated into an organization chart with Cordoba in the lead. The council voted 6-0 to move forward and begin negotiating with Cordoba.
City Manager David Ream said the final recommendation was his alone, made after taking into account both the expert ratings and the council interviews. He said individual staff and council members offered suggestions about who should be included in the organization chart, but never made formal recommendations.
Ream was part of the expert panel, but declined to say how he scored the three companies, or whether he ranked Cordoba at the top. “I really don’t want to start talking about the specifics of the review panel,” he said.
We all know why Cordoba got the contract. It’s owner, George Pla, is a funder and board member of the Santa Ana Business Bank, whose board includes a who’s who of corrupt Santa Ana business and political “leaders.” I am guessing that Plan will be banking his money in his own bank – propping up a bank whose shares have plummeted down to $3 a share.
You’d think Janet Nguyen would have something to say about this since it’s OCTA money (that is, our Measure M sales taxes) that’s funding Centerline II. Both she and Pulido are OCTA Directors, but has anyone heard a peep out of her office? Janet? Janet?
Isn’t it a conflict of interest for Pulido to vote if he is on the OCTA board of directors?