If GT can't write a simple grant, some one needs to be FIRED.
Sunshine Law... gee if only some sun could reach behind the GT City Council's Closed Door. How many of the Lunches Paid for by the City are with contractors that ended up making large profits at the taxpayers expense...
Grand Terrace eyes consultant to handle grant
Posted: 09/13/2010 08:26:26 PM PDT
GRAND TERRACE - Public Works Director Richard Shields says the city could shave at least 20 percent off its lighting costs by installing more-efficient lights paid for with a federal grant, but he needs help to make it happen.
He's requesting $3,600 to hire a consultant to help handle the complex paperwork and other administrative tasks required to make sure the project complies with state and federal regulations.
The contract with Lynn Merrill, who has worked extensively with Grand Terrace and other local cities, would cover 40 hours of work at $90 per hour.
That's less than a quarter of the $15,000 the other bidder, Willdan Associates, requested to do the same job.
Like the rest of the project, Merrill's pay would come out of a $69,649 grant the California Energy Commission created to help small cities and counties reduce their energy consumption. The money for the fund came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Shields envisions putting in new ballasts and fluorescent lights in the City Hall annex, Public Works shop building, child-care center and fire station. If enough money is left, he also wants to replace air conditioners and heaters.
"Those are really old units, probably about 10 or 15 years," he said. "The new ones are a lot more efficient."
But all this work must be detailed in monthly reports and follow pages of regulations, which Shields said his three-person office is too busy to ensure.
You need an extra set of eyes, and all this takes time," he said.
The City Council will decide whether to approve the contract at 6 tonight.
and
10:00 PM PDT on Monday, September 13, 2010
Even at the height of San Bernardino County's bribery/kickback scandal in the 1990s, its policies on releasing public records were better than they are today.
If they hadn't been, a brazen conflict of interest on the part of a top county official would never have been discovered. Let me explain.
A billboard company called Oakridge Corp. wanted to put up billboards on county flood-control land near the Interstate 10/215 interchange.
Few people knew that then-Real Estate Services Director Tim Kelly held stock in and was a director of Oakridge Corp. He even had meals at taxpayer expense with Oakridge President William McCook in 1992. Oakridge got the county lease in late 1994.
No one would have been the wiser if a public records request for Kelly's expense reports hadn't uncovered the meals on the county tab. (Unfortunately, they didn't come out till after the supes had approved the unpopular billboards.)
Fast forward 12 years. When public-records requests were made for San Bernardino County supervisors' credit-card receipts for 2006 and 2007, county counsel blacked out the names of the people they dined with.
Even the names of county officials were redacted!
To put an end to this kind of silliness, Supervisor Neil Derry has proposed a "sunshine ordinance" that would presume county records are public and require officials to justify withholding them when they do.
It has been in the works for six months. On Monday, for the second time in two weeks, Derry had to pull it off the Board of Supervisors agenda at the last minute, this time because he discovered a loophole that would have allowed supervisors to continue hiding their dining companions' names.
The loophole allows county "officers and officials" to claim names should be kept private as part of the "deliberative process," an exemption the courts carved out years ago allowing elected officials to keep some of their meetings secret.
Derry acknowledged there are times when a supervisor legitimately might want to keep secret who he has met with -- for example, when the person is a whistleblower-employee who fears retaliation if it becomes known that he or she spoke out.
The solution is simple, Derry said: Pay for your meal; don't put it on your county credit card.
With annual salaries over $144,000, the supes certainly can afford to pay for their own lunches when their companions genuinely need to remain anonymous.
Derry said he's not disappointed he's had to put off once again bringing the sunshine ordinance to a vote. He'd rather craft narrow guidelines for when the deliberative-process exemption can be claimed. "I want something as strong as we can make it," he said.
He'd like to get rid of the exemption altogether, as other jurisdictions have. But county counsel says he can't.
(If only county lawyers were on the public's side.)
When the ordinance does reach the supes, they should support it. They've been talking the openness talk. Now it's time to walk it.
Cassie MacDuff can be reached at 951-368-9470 or cmacduff@PE.com
