MARICOPA SPECIAL HEALTHCARE DISTRICT TO VOTE ON $95M NO-BID CONTRACT TONIGHT!

YET WE’RE NOT SURE THEY READ THE CONTRACT!

 

Friends,    

We at Arizonans In Action have just learned that the Maricopa Special Healthcare District has called a special meeting, open to the public, to approve a $95 million NO-BID contract with Medical Professionals of Arizona this evening at 5pm at the Maricopa Medical Center in Auditorium 4.

  

We touched on this issue last week in our blog post on the Maricopa County Special Healthcare District.  If you missed it, <!– –>please take a look. 

  

While the fact that this HUGE contract for county services is a NO-BID contract is of great concern, we are hearing word that the MIHS Board of Directors has not even read the 300 page contract!!!  According to multiple sources, it was not even received until Thursday.  In this time of economic turmoil where taxpayers and Maricopa County are struggling to make obligations, we want to know how elected officials can proceed with the approval of a contract that they haven’t read?

 

 

 

ACTION ITEMS

 

1.  Please contact immediately the MIHS Board of Directors and tell them you want them to read the contract before any decisions are made let alone those with such a HUGE price tag.

 

2.  Tell them, that as elected officials, they have an obligation to be fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars and should reject NO-BID contracts.  Any services that the government needs should be sent out for bid to provide opportunity for companies to put forth their best prices for the best quality of services.  Competition breeds efficiency!

 

3.  Please forward this post to your friends and family.  Encourage them to contact the Board of Directors as well.  Lastly, also encourage them to visit the Arizonans In Action website where they can sign up to stay informed on our efforts and breaking issues. 

 

 

Thank you for your help.  If you receive any response, please let us know!

 

Now, let’s make our voices heard that we demand accountability and efficiency in every corner of government.

***UPDATE***

We have received responses from two of the MIHS Board of Directors over the past couple of days and we wanted to share those responses with all of you.

District One Bil Bruno:  [excerpted from email response] “We’ve spent several hours last week and today in board meetings discussing its terms and I read and highlighted the contract over the weekend. Today after the meeting I met with a VP to question 23 different sections of it.” 

District Two Greg Patterson:  [excerpted from email response]  “Yes, we’ve read the contract—more importantly, the management team and the lawyers have spend thousands of hours—and several hundred thousand dollars—negotiating it.”

We are glad that these gentlemen have carefully read this contract considering its GIANT price tag and we appreciate their response to their constituents.  Yet, we do wonder whether the other members of the Board have also read it.

$347 Million Court Tower Boondoggle Drama Continues

We emailed you on Tuesday and blogged about the Maricopa County $347 Million Court Tower Boondoggle and the scheduled meeting that was to take place on Wednesday.  Well, we want to give you a bit of an update on what actually went down (or better yet, what didn’t go down) at the meeting.

Just prior to the meeting and responding to grassroots reactions, the agenda item on the $347 Million Court Tower Boondoggle was removed from discussion.  From what my sources tell me, it was because of the pressure we put on the Board of Supervisors.  But what does this mean for the future of this extravagant expenditure?

At this point, the budget-busting project is still moving forward so we must do whatever it takes to pressure the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors from allowing this project to continue.  We have stated before, Maricopa County has a HUGE budget shortfall even after laying off employees at the Superior Court and cutting law enforcement budgets by 15%.  Sheriff Arpaio is even having difficulties finding deputies to transport inmates to the courthouse.

This is a critical moment for Maricopa County and the taxpayers.  We need to stand up to the Board of Supervisors and remind them they are accountable to us, not to the contractors making political contributions.  BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…

 

 

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors In Their Own Words

 

We also wanted to let you know about some research we conducted that we find very interesting in light of this excessive spending.  We told you about the political contributions that may be influencing the obstinacy of the Board of Supervisors but we thought you might be interested in what some of the Supervisors have said in the past about the satellite court houses throughout Maricopa County.

Let’s take a look Special Meeting Minutes from July 19, 2002 at the Dedication Ceremony of the Superior Court NW Regional Center in Surprise.

“Chairman Stapley stated that he was pleased to see this facility, serving the northwest valley, become a reality. The goal of regional services is to meet the needs of the outlying areas, and he predicted that this center would become the heart of judicial services for this community.”

“Having formally represented the area, Supervisor Wilcox stated that the City of Surprise had worked for many years toward obtaining a regional center, and she was happy to have been a part of the initial planning as well as completion of the project.”

 

Now, we should take a look at the BOS “Summary of Key Accomplishments from the 2001-2005 Maricopa County Strategic Plan”:

“Completed planning and have begun building five new regional court centers to expand access to the Court system in localized areas throughout the County. This eliminated a 10-day delay for preliminary hearings and arraignments….Two additional RCCs are planned for the Northwest and Southeast regions, to be operational before the end of 2001.”

 

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors continued to comment.  In 2002, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors submitted the “Regional Court Centers for Felony Case Processing” for a NACM 2002 Justice Achievement Award.  Here is the description they submitted for consideration of the award:

“Benefits include tangible cost savings, such as jail housing and transportation costs.”

 

Finally, we have yet another quote that we would like to draw your attention to coming from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors “Maricopa County Justice System Annual Activities Report – Fiscal Year 2000-2001”:

“The Justice Courts and Superior Court greatly streamlined front-end felony processing, by coordinating early court proceedings at Regional Court Centers which expedite case processing, and reduce jail overcrowding and inmate transports.”

 

We are left with confusion about the Board of Supervisors – do we believe the words and evidence from recent times, their comments of today, or the political contributions from contractors involved with this lavish and unnecessary spending.  Our take is read their words of the past and then follow the money.

 

AIA ACTION ITEM:

Will you please do two things for us today?

1. Contact all of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors today and demand that this project be stopped immediately.  Tell them that you are forced to reevaluate your personal spending and that they have a responsibility to the taxpayers not to be engaged in excessive and frivolous spending.  Fix the courts that we have already in place! http://www.maricopa.gov/BOS/contact.aspx
2. Please forward this message on to your friends and family and ask them do to the same.

 

Thank you for all of your help.  If you receive a response, please let us know!

$347 Million Court Tower Boondoggle Hurts Taxpayers

  

   The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is spending $347 million to construct what they refer to as a “state of the art” brand-new court tower.   Yet, many taxpayers are unaware of the details behind this project and the reason why this project continues may be found in the money.
 
   Maricopa County is facing a $138.2 million budget shortfall.  In response, numerous county employees have been laid off in recent months, including 40 Superior Court employees that would staff some of these offices to be featured in the court tower.  Also, county law enforcement has been cut by 15% and Sheriff Arpaio is having difficulty finding sufficient deputies to transport inmates to and from court.  All in all, we are talking about budget shortfalls and staff reduction, yet it appears that the Maricopa County Supervisors have their minds set on this budget breaking project. 
 
   The court tower, to be constructed of marble, travertine, porcelain and wood floors, is the most  expensive venture the county has ever undertaken.  As if the overindulgence and sheer nonsensical relocation of all court business in Maricopa County weren’t enough to question, the timing for this massive construction project is extraordinarily misguided at best considering the current recession and projected economic forecast.
 
   In the past, satellite courthouses were gradually built up around the Valley to accommodate the growing population, as is being done in other counties around the nation.  Superior Court Presiding Judge Barbara Mundell told the Supervisors at a public meeting on October 4, 2006, that co-location of the regional court facilities has “helped tremendously,” “made economic sense,” and provided “improved customer service.”  Maricopa County is the second fastest growing large county in the nation. Bringing those satellite court locations back downtown into one consolidated building only increases the cost to taxpayers due to the time increase for law enforcement and the greater usage of fuel by their transport vehicles to drive further into the city.   Just for a reference, the Mesa courthouse location is 19 miles away from downtown.
 
   Since this projected plan was in the works, the Maricopa County Supervisors were told several times during public meetings by their budget analysts last year that they could back off on building such an expensive building.  The reason given by their analysts was simple… it’s that the tax revenues aren’t coming in as high as we expected or hoped.   Yet, the Maricopa County Supervisors have ignored this advice and refused to budge on the centralization of the county courts or its extravagance.  The Board of Supervisors also discovered recently that even with cutting all other areas of county government, they still don’t have enough cash for the project.  Now, why are they digging in their heels on this project?
 
   There may be a reason for their obstinacy.  We discovered some very interesting data when we looked into the campaign finance reports of the Maricopa County Supervisors.  The contractors who won the bids for the court tower project have ties to the County Supervisors.  The owner of Goodman Schwartz, the consulting firm which represents DMJM, the interior design company for the court tower, contributed $150 to Supervisor Don Stapley last year.   A Project Manager at HDR Inc., the architectural, engineering and consulting firm for the court tower, contributed $50 to Supervisor Wilson last year. A law partner of Tom Irvine, who has been paid over $800,000 over the past three years for legal help with the tower, contributed $390 to Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox last year.  This makes this construction project all the more interesting considering the political contributions and does force us to beg the question if there is an appearance of impropriety going on here.
 
   However, the cause is not lost.  The Maricopa County Supervisors will meet on July 22, 2009 at 9am at the Supervisors Auditorium at 205 W. Jefferson, Phoenix, AZ, (details here)to vote on changing the funding to bonding – a move that will cost taxpayers even more money by spreading it out over the years.  We strongly encourage you to attend this meeting and demand that the Supervisors halt this unaffordable patronage and stick to improving our existing courthouses. 

   If you are unable to attend, please contact the Maricopa County Supervisors today and tell them that you want this project to stop immediately.

Scandal with the Court Taj Mahal

Author Chewie Shofir over at the Sonoran Alliance blog has a great post on the new Superior Court building.  I strongly encourage you to pop over and read the post.  Essentially we are talking about $347 million taxpayer funded project that is already under investigation.  Believe me, you must read this post as it promises to be eye-opening.

Judge Shows That Some Workers Are NOT More Equal Than Others

 

There was an important article in today’s East Valley Tribune about the recent layoffs of government employees because of the severe financial constraints that we are experiencing.  Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Andrew Klein ruled on Monday that the union request to reinstate workers let go due to the state financial issues and to halt future layoffs has been denied allowing for the firings to stand and the layoffs — should they be necessary — to continue.

Klein, in his opinion said that the agencies “did their best to make informed, good faith decisions as to which employees had to be let go.’’  According to the article, this does not resolve the issue as there is still litigation that is ongoing to test whether the firings were legal.

However, the biggest news of this article was not necessarily the decision of the court but that the true intentions of the union appeared.  The state director of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Scott Washburn had this to say after the ruling when asked about the union’s next move:

“We don’t have a friend in the governor, we don’t have friends in the Legislature,’’ he said. Washburn said the ultimate solution would be to “change the political makeup’’ of state government.

“The people that are running it now are ideologically opposed to government,’’ Washburn said. “And the people that we represent work for government.’’

The dirty little secret is what is buried within this comment.  To SEIU, this is about growing big government, growing the number of members to their union, and ultimately growing the amount of money and power of the SEIU.  This had little to do with what is best for Arizona taxpayers who are stuck footing the bill.

In his comments, we also see what the intended plan is for 2010 election cycle.  The governor and the legislature are now in the crosshairs of the unions who will do everything that they can to steal away the power from the taxpayers and the elected officials that we put in office so that the SEIU can pad their pockets with more union dues and big government jobs.  It is up to us to maintain our pressure and beat back the unions from getting established within Arizona state government.

Arizona Receives Failing Grade on FOI Requests

It came as no surprise to me when I read the headline “76% of States Fail at FOI Responsiveness” and saw where Arizona ranked in the policy report.  The Better Government Association, a self-described independent, non-partisan government watchdog group committed to fighting waste, corruption and inefficiency in government, released a study at the end of 2008 ranking all of the states according to their Freedom of Information laws and responsiveness.

The conductors of the study defined benchmarks upon which each state would be measured in an objective and accurate manner:

• How long it took for a response
• What remedies were in place to appeal decisions of denial
• What opportunities of expediency are there for the court to review an appeal due to time constraints
• What are the penalties to government agencies for violating the laws for denial of access to public documents — covering attorney’s fees and costs to sanctions.

Here are the results of the study and notice where Arizona ranks.  Yes, you read that correctly.  We are near the bottom of the list in a very dark basement garnering only 22% out of 100% in satisfying the criteria.

Now, you may be asking yourself, why would you post an old article (from 2008) about transparency and FOI requests.  Well, I will give you the first reason — NOTHING has changed in the FOI laws since this study has been released.

The second reason is tied directly to one of our projects on government contracts.  In February, we sent FOI requests to 10 government agencies requesting information on their contracting practices and to determine the contracts each government agencies have.  Specifically, we asked for a list of all recent government contracts with the following information: whether contract was open bid or sole source, who the vendor was, how much the contract was for and what goods or services the vendor was providing.

Let me give you an update.  We are still  waiting for all of the responses to come back nearly two months later.  We understand that budget cuts and the loss of personnel have dramatically influenced getting work done.  If we lost a staff member, we would certainly feel it around here.  The only problem with that line of thinking is that departments and agencies have entire divisions devoted solely to financial record keeping whether we are talking about accounts receivable or accounts payable.  Furthermore, our request in and of itself was not intricate but rather straightforward — you spend money, show me where. 

As we wait, patiently as we can, for the remaining agencies to supply the simple data we have requested, we can’t help but think that this study echoes a real problem for all taxpayers. Freedom of Information laws must have a reasonable response timer in place here in Arizona, not only because of the transparency and accountability to the taxpayers, but also because it will provide a very bright light out of the very dark basement of where our state ranks nationally.