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a. having vendors enter into or renew consulting agreements with Nealy so that Nealy would (i) personally benefit from the compensation provided under the contracts and (ii) have the means to continue funneling a stream of financial benefits and other things of value to Price;This is far less than simply taking bribes directly from a contractor. This approach brought a large number of people into the misconduct, including his chief of staff and subcontractors who would be deeply indebted to the official. From an ethical point of view, the more people who are led to engage in misconduct, the worse it is. But when you look at the situation in terms of developing relationships — which is what lobbying, and politics in general, is all about — nothing could be better than making the web of mutual obligations large enough to include as many people as possible. This is the goal of lobbying, of getting re-elected and, incidentally, of amassing a fortune through the misuse of a local government office.
b. hiring and promoting certain individuals ..., including C.K., the daughter of a Texas politician and close friend of Price, and H.T., who, while employed by a Nealy business client, championed the renewal of Nealy's contract and covertly increased Campbell's pay so Campbell could pay Nealy during an RFP selection period; and
c. granting particular minority subcontractors specified by Price a certain percentage of the bids submitted for contracts in Dallas County and other jurisdictions..."
From January 2001 through 2011, Dallas County invited vendors to bid for contracts to provide services that included IT services and equipment, digital imaging and indexing of records, inmate telephone service, collection of Justice of the Peace Court fines, and others.The involvement of county commissioners in the procurement process is unnecessary,. Why should they, rather than an evaluation committee or procurement officers, narrow the list of bidders or approve the recommendation of a final bidder? This makes it appear that competitive bidding is a policy matter, when it is not. It also politicizes the process, so that evaluation committees must take into account commissioners' personal, political, and district loyalties, and commissioners may bargain over contracts, so that each of them gets a choice of someone to whom they have obligations or whom they want to be obligated to them. And for what? To have policy oversight over an otherwise independent, professional process?
The process would begin when the Commissioners Court [the county's legislative body] voted to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) or a Request for Qualifications (RFQ). ... Once submitted, an evaluation committee (also known as a selection committee) composed of county employees would review, score, and recommend to the Commissioners Court which vendors should advance in the bidding process. The Commissioners Court would then vote on whether to accept or reject the committee's recommendations.
Frequently, the Commissioners Court would vote to narrow the bidders to a smaller group of four to six companies, all of which would submit a second bid that would be their "Best and Final Offer" (BAFO). The evaluation committee would again review and score the bids and recommend a final bidder to the Commissioners Court. The Court then voted on whether the County should enter into contract negotiations with the selected bidder. After negotiations were finalized, the Court voted again to authorize the County Judge [the county's CEO] to sign the contract with the chosen vendor. If the County could not reach an agreement with the selected vendor, the County could choose to end negotiations with that vendor and begin negotiating with the next most-qualified vendor until a contract was awarded.
At some point in the process, these businesses would hire Nealy, and through Nealy, they would obtain inside information about competitors' bids and other strategically helpful information, which they used to pursue and obtain lucrative contracts with Dallas County. These businesses often continued to pay Nealy for the duration of the businesses' dealings in Dallas County, so that, in exchange, Price would continue to take beneficial actions on their behalf in his capacity as a County Commissioner, including providing non-public internal Dallas County memos, emails, and discussions about issues that arose during the performance of such contracts; advocating on their behalf to the Commissioners Court, to committees on which Price served including the IT Steering Committee, to the County's Purchasing Department, and to others; approving additional necessary funding on their contracts; providing information as to contemplated RFPs or contract renegotiations under consideration by Dallas County; and refraining from voting in a negative manner or otherwise taking positions on issues that would negatively impact the businesses' interests.The number of people with discretion or access to confidential information should be strictly limited. Local legislators should be limited to dealing with policy issues. They should have nothing to do with contracts or grants once the budgetary decision has been made to hand out grants or seek bids on contracts.
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Links
[1] https://www.cityethics.org/sites/default/files/BMW645.jpg
[2] https://library.municode.com/index.aspx?clientId=13347
[3] http://inforney.com/texas/item/2072-federal-grand-jury-indicts-a-dallas-county-commissioner-his-chief-of-staff-and-lobbyists-in-multi-faceted-conspiracy-involving-bribes
[4] https://cbsdallas.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/price-indict.pdf
[5] https://www.cityethics.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/NACo%20code%20of%20ethics.pdf
[6] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/6
[7] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/36
[8] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/38
[9] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/40
[10] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/43
[11] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/51
[12] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/56
[13] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/57
[14] https://www.cityethics.org/taxonomy/term/61