07-20-2012, 11:19 PM
Another major FAIL for the Gollum Klan. What they need is an internal firewall to limit Gollums to participating only to things they actually know something about--like camel rides, chocolate vaginas, "dirty Papists," obscene blogs and father/daughter singalongs of the SMDFMA song.
Who cares if it's costly to taxpayers? It's a drop in the bucket compared to the legal fees generated by Gollum's federal court civil rights/extortion/defamation/stalking defense team.
Who cares if it's costly to taxpayers? It's a drop in the bucket compared to the legal fees generated by Gollum's federal court civil rights/extortion/defamation/stalking defense team.
Quote:U. of I. board kills controversial contract
By Jodi S. Cohen and Ray Long, Chicago Tribune reporters
July 20, 2012
Under pressure from a state oversight panel, the University of Illinois board of trustees on Thursday killed a contentious, multimillion-dollar contract that had raised conflict-of-interest concerns.
"It was a short discussion," board Chairman Christopher Kennedy said after the trustees met in closed session to discuss the employment-related matter. "We don't want any more ethical issues associated with the university. We get public money and we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard."
The university now plans to rebid the contract for architectural work related to renovating the 120-year-old Natural History Building on the Urbana-Champaign campus, said Mike Bass, the university's senior associate vice president for building and financial services. The rebidding may delay the project and add to its cost, Bass said.
The Tribune first reported last week that the university had awarded a $4.6 million contract to an architectural firm partially owned by the husband of a key university official who oversees campus construction planning. Jill Maxey, who until this week was the university's associate director of planning, is married to Bruce Maxey, a principal in the firm BLDD Architects and owner of 8.9 percent of the company.
The university had failed to alert proper officials about the potential conflict of interest, as required by state law, when the first part of the contract, for conceptual design plans, was awarded in 2010. The state's Procurement Policy Board, for example, learned of the contract only this past spring, when the university was set to award the larger construction part of the contract to BLDD.
The procurement board voted in April and again Tuesday to recommend that the university void the contract. U. of I. trustees had approved it in December.
"Once we got (direction) from a state agency, there was no longer any confusion," Kennedy said.
University administrators said Thursday they will not continue the work with one of the other original high-scoring bidders, as some procurement board members had proposed, and instead will rebid the construction phase of the project. BLDD already has been paid $368,000 for the initial plans.
"It's the cleanest way to do it, most open," Bass said. "We will start moving on that as quickly as we can."
BLDD could bid again for the work, and Bass said university staff is still discussing what will happen if it does. He said Jill Maxey has been reassigned and her job duties no longer include procurement tasks such as vendor selection.
In reaction to the U. of I.'s decision, Randy West, a BLDD principal, said the company had followed all state conflict disclosure laws. He did not respond to a question about whether the firm will rebid on the project.
"While we are saddened by today's decision, we are gratified that all involved agree that BLDD made all required disclosures, showing its strong commitment to transparency throughout the process," he said.
Bill Latoza, a principal with the architectural firm BauerLatoza Studio, which scored second-highest during the original bidding process, said he was disappointed that the university will rebid the project instead of awarding it to his firm. There were 34 bidders for the initial contract. BauerLatoza scored less than a percentage point behind BLDD.
"We believe the rebidding is unnecessary and costly to the taxpayers. We are all losing on this decision," said Latoza, who said it would take two weeks and no additional expense for his firm to get up to speed.
Ed Bedore, the senior member of the procurement board, said the U. of I. contracting issue was the "first real test" of the July 2010 law intended to add transparency to how contracts are awarded.
"It worked," Bedore said Thursday. "When daylight was put on this contract, the statute worked."
Bedore said he was pleased the trustees voided the contract but that the university was "making a mistake by not awarding to the second or third bidders." The university's decision to rebid now will add time and costs to the project that all "could have been avoided had they followed the law in December 2010."
University officials initially said they did not believe the contract needed to be forwarded to the board because the university and BLDD had disclosed the relationship as required and had an internal "firewall" intended to block Jill Maxey from participating in decisions about her husband's company.