State Paid Barnes & Thornburg $9.6 Million For Losing Case Against IBM

The state's lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions in damages against IBM for the failed welfare privatization implementation was a dubious lawsuit from day one. It was no secret that the Daniels administration had conspired with the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg , which represented ACS, to concoct a plan to privatize the state's welfare services and steer the bulk of that work to the law firm's client. It began with making sure that Daniels appointed a former ACS executive, Mitch Roob, to run the agency. Roob and another former executive of ACS, former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith, immediately began pushing a model based on a privatization model being implemented by ACS in the state of Texas, one that would ultimately be chosen by the agency Roob ran. That model was known as "remote eligibility," one under which remote call centers would process all claims for welfare benefits over the Internet or over the phone rather than the traditional model of having case workers in county offices who met with those applying for benefits face-to-face. Word spread quickly among potential bidders that the bidding process was rigged in favor of the coalition of companies responding to the public bid, which was led by IBM but included ACS as the major subcontractor participant. In the end, all competitors dropped out of the bidding process, leaving the IBM-led coalition as the sole bidder for a more than $1 billion, 10-year contract, the largest in the state's history. The state inked a contract with the IBM-led team despite the fact that the model upon which it was based in Texas had been halted by that state's governor because problems with implementation were "so severe."

As Judge Dreyer's opinion denying all claims the state made against IBM found, the bulk of the services provided under the privatization contract were being performed by ACS, which was the source of most of the complaints against the system when its first rollout began. Instead of working with its prime contractor to work through the problems, ACS's lobbyist at Barnes & Thornburg, Joe Loftus, began meeting secretly with high levels of the Daniels administration behind IBM's back to undermine its control of the contract, including Gov. Mitch Daniels. Judge Dreyer noted one e-mail exchange that Loftus had with Roob where he complained that IBM "just didn't get it" in reference to frequent lectures he received from them reminding him that IBM was the lead contractor and the principal point of contract for all communications under the conract. Even ACS officials who testified at the trial conceded that Loftus' communications behind IBM's back constituted a breach of their contract, and the state was breaching its contract with IBM by engaging in the direct communications with ACS. These communications created "distrust" among the contract partners according to Judge Dreyer's opinion. "Certainly the State showed that IBM did not perform well in some respects, especially when trying to get subcontractor ACS Human Services ("ACS") to answer phones notwithstanding evidence of ACS lobbying against IBM in violation of its own subcontract." But Dreyer found plenty of evidence offered during the long trial where the state and IBM traded claims against one another where the state had given favorable reviews of IBM's work. One scoring of the company's performance prepared by FSSA's Zach Main gave the company 9 out of a possible 10 points. What the evidence showed was that IBM was being scapegoated as public pressure mounted to drop the privatization move, particularly from state lawmakers.

The state had the option of terminating its contract with IBM for convenience, but it chose instead to terminate the contract for cause and put ACS in charge of a new hybrid approach to delivering services, and to file a lawsuit against IBM seeking more than $150 million in damages, and IBM, in turn, filed a countersuit against the company seeking more than $100 million in damages. What stunned legal observers was a decision by Gov. Mitch Daniels personally to hire the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg to represent the state's interests over the objections of Attorney General Greg Zoeller given that it had been knee deep in representing ACS from day one. The engagement agreement entered into with the law firm contained pages of disclosures concerning the law firm's potential conflicts. Some legal observers questioned whether the conflicts of interest raised in the engagement letter were even waivable under the rules of professional conduct. A key deputy chief of staff in the governor's office, Betsy Burdick, worked with her brother at the law firm, Brian Burdick, to ink the deal. Although Burdick signed the agreement, he's a bond lawyer and not a litigator or an expert in contract law. According to the Star's Mary Beth Schneider, the state has paid the law firm a staggering $9.6 million to represent the state's interests in the lawsuit. If the Attorney General's office had been allowed to handle the lawsuit, existing state employees would have been utilized at no additional expense to the state. Instead, the very law firm which played an instrumental role in the privatization fiasco was allowed to profiteer from its own handiwork. Judge Dreyer ruled against all of the state's claims against IBM, and he ordered the state to pay IBM more than $52 million. Remarkably, one of the key attorneys handling the lawsuit against IBM for the firm, Peter Rusthoven, had the audacity to accuse Judge Dreyer of writing an opinion that contained "unnecessary political commentary that is neither accurate nor relevant." I think what he meant to say was that he used words that hit too close to home. He said the state will appeal Judge Dreyer's ruling, and the firm will charge the state at least another $250,000 for its services.

For the life of me, I do not understand why a criminal investigation has not been launched by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office. This has got to be one of the most corrupt deals in the history of Indiana state government. Hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars were being misspent simply so big campaign contributors of Gov. Mitch Daniels could make a lot of money with no concern at all to the services being provided using those tax dollars. One of the administration's biggest critics in the state legislature is a Republican lawmaker, State Sen. Vaneeta Becker (R-Evansville). “The whole thing could have been avoided if the state from the beginning had just provided new computers and additional training to caseworkers,” she told the Star's Mary Beth Schneider. “A lot of this could have been avoided and a lot of costs.” Gov. Daniels, for his part, was totally unapologetic about the outcome and says he expects the decision will be overturned on appeal. Even if the state loses on appeal, he told Schneider that the more than $52 million the state will be required to pay IBM was irrelevant because they "are so tiny compared to the savings we’re achieving.” The state has spent more than a half billion dollars to date on the privatization effort. What do you expect from a guy who told Congress when he was OMB Director that the Iraq war would only cost taxpayers $50 billion? Oh, and did I mention that Gov. Daniels put a former paid consultant for ACS, Mike Gargano, in charge of FSSA after Roob's successor, Anne Murphy, left the agency after a short stint running the agency? Her sole task was to get rid of IBM after Roob stepped down to become head of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. Murphy's short tenure simply provided cover for the conspiring parties. When that task was completed, she moved on and Gargano stepped in so ACS and Loftus would have a person under their thumb in charge of the agency.

Judge Dreyer's Decision Vindicates Carl Moldthan

Carl Moldthan started out as a big fan of Gov. Mitch Daniels who gladly accepted his invitation to join his administration in helping remake the Family & Social Services Administration. After less than a year on the job, Moldthan left the agency disillusioned and disheartened by Mitch Roob's single-minded mission of getting rid of the county welfare case workers and replacing them with remote call centers run by Roob's former employer, ACS. Carl passed away a little more than a year ago after suffering a serious stroke, but I couldn't help but think about him as I read through the decision Judge David Dreyer handed down today awarding IBM $52 million in a drawn out lawsuit during which the state and its former contractor traded multi-million dollar claims against one another after Daniels fired IBM when the state's privatization plan didn't go as planned. The Indiana Law Blog has uploaded a copy of his 73-page opinion here.

Moldthan visited all of the state's county welfare offices and learned first-hand what problems ailed the system. He found that dated computers and obsolete computer systems made it impossible for case workers to do their jobs efficiently. Add to that the low pay of workers and poor communications with mid-level managers and decision-makers in Indianapolis, Moldthan found a broken system. Moldthan pleaded the case for an alternative solution to privatization recommended by the consulting firm hired by Roob, but Roob and others rebuffed him. As Moldthan explained to me his disgust and disappointment at the chosen outcome:

The best example I can think of is a person who is brought into the Governors office and told by him that he wants you to operate the State Garage. You look at him and because it is such a challenge, you accept. The Governor hands you a pair of pliers and a regular screw driver and says, “Here you go, here’s your tools.”

You immediately take a deep breathe and accept the seemingly unbelievable task and proceed to try and do the job. After 5 years the Governor says, “Well, he’s tried his best to do the job but I’m going to hire a consultant to see if we cannot privatize it to do better.” The consultants report comes back and says that even though you have tried to do a good job, all of the screws are messed up and all the bolts are rounded off. Their advice, privatize!

Now anyone who would read this would say that this scenario isn’t fair. The person in charge wasn’t given the proper tools, the proper money the proper support so how could they succeed? The answer is they couldn’t. If this sounds vaguely familiar to what has happened at FSSA, it is.

Reading Judge Dreyer's opinion, it is unmistakable that he understood and took to heart the exact sentiment Moldthan summarized.

The largely undisputed evidence shows that the Governor, the Family and Social Services Administration ("FSSA") and various State of Indiana ("State") officials set out to fix Indiana's poorly-performing welfare system by inserting an untested theoretical experiment, and substitute personal caseworkers with computers and phone calls ("remote eligibility"). This is now admitted to be an error, and there is nothing in this case, or the Court's power, that can be done to correct it, or remedy the lost taxpayer money or personal suffering of needy Hoosiers. All that can be done in this case is to take the first step at setting the final numbers among so many millions already spent.

This case is about nothing but the intent of the parties, performance of the parties, and whether there was a "material breach" of the contract as a whole. Breach of public trust is not included here, consideration of private greed is not included here, nor is any measure of public injury. It is just about the money between the parties, much of which is already spent by the State.  

The good faith of the parties cannot reasonably be questioned, especially the hard-working employees of the State and IBM. But the competence of the parties in this project is sometimes open to question.  

The short ill-fated life of this super-sized contract will remain an enigma. Overall, the Court finds, as a matter of fact, that the State failed to meet its burden to show that International Business Machines Corporation ("IBM") committed a material breach of the contract. Certainly the State showed that IBM did not perform well in some respects, especially when trying to get subcontractor ACS Human Services ("ACS") to answer phones notwithstanding evidence of ACS lobbying against IBM in violation of its own subcontract. But the record is too laden with too much evidence of political factors, the overwhelming difficulty of attempting such a project, and the State's own inconsistent performance to not allow a conclusion that unsatisfactory results were not caused as much by the State as IBM. Considering the contract as a whole, IBM's performance does not show breach going to the heart of the contract, and the State did not prove otherwise.

I have always steadfastly maintained that it was never the intention of the Daniels administration to put IBM in charge of this major undertaking. I've contended that IBM's role was that merely as a placeholder to provide cover to Mitch Roob from criticism that he was steering the state's largest contract in Indiana history to his former employer. Judge Dreyer fully grasped this fact. In his opinion, he traces back the origins of the "remote eligibility" model for delivering welfare services by a private contractor to Roob and his former colleague at ACS, former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. The model was based on one previously undertaken by Texas, which just happened to be an ACS project that also ran into serious problems with implementation. Dreyer observed that the problems with the Texas rollout were "so severe" that the project rollout was stopped even before Indiana signed the IBM contract. The documents Dreyer references in his opinion tying Roob and Goldsmith to the decision undercuts the administration's claim that Roob had not participated in the selection process that ultimately chose the IBM-led proposal that provided most of the work under the contract to ACS as the lead subcontractor. "The largest portion of the work among the Coalition members, and the largest portion of the compensation, went to ACS, which employed the personnel assisting in the processing of eligibility applications (many ofwhom were former State employees)," Dreyer wrote. Dreyer noted that all of the competing bidders had dropped out of the procurement process before it had concluded, leaving the IBM-led coalition alone as the single bidder for the state's largest contract.

Underscoring my view, Judge Dreyer noted evidence in the record that ACS's lobbyist, Joe Loftus, was lobbying state officials behind IBM's back to have it assume control of the contract and to oust IBM despite ample evidence that many problems with the implementation involved tasks performed by ACS. He cited testimony that Loftus "used his political contacts with the administration to help his clients, ACS and Arbor, with respect to Modernization" and "Anne Murphy relied on Joe Loftus as a source of information in her dealings with IBM." Judge Dreyer found that ACS was interfering with IBM's contract "by directly lobbying the Governor, and the State was unable or unwilling to redirect the revenue necessary to adequately fund Modernization with IBM." Judge Dreyer found that Loftus' lobbying actions were creating distrust among the contract partners. He cited an e-mail exchange Loftus had with Roob in which he said, "I expect to get a lecture today from IBM reminding me that they are the Prime." Loftus added, "They just don't get it." Dreyer found that Loftus' communication behind IBM's back "presumably violated its contract with IBM and the state was in violation of the terms of the MSA, which provided that IBM was the sole point of contact with regard to contractual matters." Loftus' communications included conversations directly with Gov. Daniels and one of his top staffers, Betsy Burdick, who is the sister of Brian Burdick, the Barnes & Thornburg attorney who signed the contract on behalf of the firm to represent the state in its lawsuit against IBM despite its obvious conflict of interests. Loftus' actions were that of a snake in the grass, completely stabbing IBM in the back to win the contract for his client. Dreyer noted that ACS officials testified that Loftus' communications behind IBM's back "were contractually prohibited." As Dreyer put it, "The Court is unable to find that IBM breached the contract by failing to adequately manage ACS at the same time ACS and the State were talking behind IBM's back.

In the end, the State cooked its case against IBM by the multiple favorable reviews members of the Daniels administration gave on various occasions both internally and publicly regarding IBM's performance on the contract cited in Judge Dreyer's opinion. Perhaps the administration officials were just blowing smoke to cover up the botched privatization effort, but it all came back to bite the state hard in the butt. Judge Dreyer figured out that IBM was sacrificed for window dressing purposes because of all the flack the state was getting over the privatization effort, particularly increased pressure from state lawmakers. Nonetheless, the conflicted attorneys at Barnes & Thornburg were shameless in their criticism of Judge Dreyer's opinion. "We believe the court's view that IBM's concededly bad performance did not materially breach the contract is wrong, and cannot be squared with the overwhelming evidence of poor performance," Peter Rusthoven said in a statement to the media. Rusthoven also said the ruling contained "regrettable, unnecessary political commentary that is neither accurate nor relevant." It's absolutely incredible that the law firm has been permitted to profit to the tunes of millions of dollars result of a problem largely of its own making. Gov. Daniels is promising to appeal the decision, which will allow the law firm to profit even more from their wrongdoing

State Ordered To Pay IBM $52 Million For Botched Welfare Privatization Deal

The state's Family & Social Services Administration attempted to scapegoat IBM for the failed privatization of the agency's welfare services, which was primarily carried out as a way of steering hundreds of millions of dollars to ACS, the former employer of the agency's then-Secretary Mitch Roob. When it became apparent the effort had caused harm rather than the promised benefits from the initiative, the state sought to blame the lead contractor IBM while retaining the services of ACS despite ample evidence that ACS had not performed its job well either. The Daniels administration then hired the law firm employed by ACS to win the contract in the first place, Barnes & Thornburg, to represent it in a breach of contract suit against IBM seeking more than $100 million in damages despite the law firm's conflict of interest. IBM fought back with its own countersuit. Today, Marion Co. Superior Court Judge David Dreyer ruled in favor of IBM on some of its claims against the state, and he ruled against the state of Indiana on all of its claims against IBM. Judge Dreyer's latest order requires the state to pay IBM $12 million for computer equipment the company purchased but the state retained for ACS's use on its continued contract with the state. Judge Dreyer had previously ruled that the state had to pay IBM $40 million to cover fees it paid to its subcontractors, bringing its total judgment to $52 million. Dreyer admonished both parties in his ruling.  "Neither party deserves to win this case," Dreyer wrote in a 65-page ruling. "This story represents a 'perfect storm' of misguided government policy and overzealous corporate ambition," the Star reported on his ruling. "Overall, both parties are to blame and Indiana's taxpayers are left as apparent losers." The ruling still left IBM without many of the damages it had sought from the state over the state's termination of its contract.

UPDATE: Gov. Mitch Daniels remains unapologetic about the badly-botched privatization deal. The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette's Niki Kelly says the state will seek and expects a reversal of Judge Dreyer's decision:

“Here’s what matters: Indiana, which eight years ago had the nation’s worst welfare system, now has its most timely, most accurate, most cost effective and fraud free system ever. That was always the goal, and changing vendors was essential to achieving it. We’ll seek and expect a reversal, and either way, it’s all been well worth it to solve the problem we set out to fix.”

Parking Revenues From ACS Give-Away Disappoint, No Surprise

Parking rates in Indianapolis have doubled, and the politically-connected company that now owns the city's parking meter assets is making a bundle of money. Who is surprised to hear the city's share of revenues are substantially less than what the city had anticipated? The 50-year privatization deal with ACS was suppose to net the city $2.1 million its first year of operation. Instead, the vendor returned just $1.4 million to the city and pocketed $3.4 million, but the Ballard administration isn't disappointed according to a story in today's Star by Jon Murray.

The interesting figure in this story that is overlooked is how much the private operator collected from parking citations. How about $1.3 million? That's 30% of the $4.7 million in total revenues generated last year by the parking meter assets. Many commuters have complained that some of the new electronic machines in high traffic areas have been rigged to miscalculate the amount of time purchased for a spot so the private operator can write more tickets. Permit fees for street closures now charged to groups which put on special events netted $88,160. The private operator also charged the city $286,000 for meter closures caused by the city due to street work.

This deal was always about putting money in the pocket of a politically-connected vendor that was represented by the Mayor's favorite law firm. If the city simply wanted to realize more revenues from its parking meter assets, it would have implemented the new technology, along with the higher parking rates, and retained ownership of the public asset. Over time, the city would have pocketed hundreds of millions in dollars it unnecessarily gave up to the private operator. As a consequence, your taxes will be higher because someone wanted this private operator to make a lot of money at your expense.

Judge Dreyer Orders Daniels To Give Deposition In Welfare Privatization Lawsuit

December has not been a good month for Gov. Mitch Daniels. First, his former IURC Chairman was indicted for official misconduct for his role in helping the agency's chief counsel land a job with Duke Energy. Earlier this week. a large contributor to his campaign, real estate developer John Bales, was indicted for defrauding the state in the leasing of commercial office space in Elkhart, Indiana for the Department of Child Services. Today, a Marion Co. Superior Court judge hearing a lawsuit between the state and IBM over the highly-criticized welfare privatization agreement Daniels cancelled after the state invested about $500 million into it has ordered the governor to sit for a deposition to be taken by IBM's lawyers, an unusual move. The Star has more:

The order by Judge David J. Dreyer says Daniels shall have to face questions from IBM’s attorneys within 60 days. It is limited to three hours at one sitting, “excluding reasonable breaks at the governor’s choice.”

Daniels canceled the $1 billion contract with IBM in October 2009 after numerous problems erupted with the privatization of welfare delivery services. Both the state and IBM then filed lawsuits against each other.

Can you imagine the distraction these issues would have become had Gov. Daniels followed the advice of many of his supporters and ran for president? I wouldn't be surprised if Barnes & Thornburg, the law firm being paid big bucks to represent the state in this lawsuit, doesn't appeal Judge Dreyer's order. Questions have been raised about the firm's role in the case given its obvious conflict of interest due to the fact that it represented IBM's partner, ACS, in the failed welfare privatization effort. Gov. Daniels insisted that the law firm handle the case despite concerns about the representation raised by the Attorney General's Office.

UPDATE: Barnes & Thornburg Attorney General Greg Zoeller late this afternoon announced that his office will appeal Judge Dreyer's ruling. From WTHR:

Attorney General Greg Zoeller said Friday a deposition of a sitting governor would set precedent that would have repercussions for all future governors, and he's obligated to challenge it in "the appropriate court."

It wasn't immediately clear what court that might be.

Peter Rusthoven, one of the private attorneys representing the state in the suit, says he believes no Indiana governor has ever been compelled to testify in court.

The Marion Superior Court order issued Friday said a law state attorneys say protects Daniels from testifying is "ambiguous."

LA Times' Look At The Corrupt FSSA Privatization Deal Indiana Media Refused To Do

Taking a look at today's LA Times article discussing Gov. Mitch Daniels administration's failed FSSA privatization deal, it's no small wonder he decided against running for president. Reporters from the newspaper came to Indianapolis to investigate the deal while Daniels was still being encouraged to jump into the 2012 GOP presidential race. Reporters Tom Hamburger and Melanie Mason spent several days in Indianapolis in May digging for information on the deal in the days leading up to Daniels' surprise announcement that he would not run due to family considerations. The two reporters met with me for several hours back in May to ask questions and discuss my reporting on the subject (even though there's no attribution in their story). They were surprised the botched privatization deal hadn't received more coverage by the Indiana media, particularly given the ties of key players in the deal to ACS, the big benefactor of the deal. I thought the story would be dropped after Daniels decided not to run, but the material they uncovered was just too good to pass up.

Here's some of what the reporters had to say on those corrupt ties that seemed to drive the deal from the beginning:

Though the $1.37-billion project proved disastrous for many of the state's poor, elderly and disabled, it was a financial bonanza for a handful of firms with ties to Daniels and his political allies, which landed state contracts worth millions . . .

Critics say that in Indiana, the privatization process barreled forward with little public input and was marred by the appearance of conflicts of interest. Despite the massive nature of the changes he was proposing, Daniels insisted he did not need legislative approval. And the only public hearing occurred after he announced he would proceed with the project.

Key players involved in the process had ties to Affiliated Computer Services, the company that benefited the most from the deal. Mitch Roob — a Daniels appointee who ran the state's Family and Social Services Administration when it awarded the contract — was a former ACS vice president. As the state began the project, Roob occasionally sought advice from former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, a political ally of Daniels and fellow privatization advocate who also had been an ACS vice president . . .

In a brief interview, Daniels called "completely bogus" the suggestion that his administration was too close to companies that won lucrative contracts.

"There is no evidence of that," he said. "Our approach was either firms perform well — or we will get rid of them and try someone else."

Yet it took two years before the governor acknowledged that replacing caseworkers with centralized call centers "just didn't work." In October 2009, Daniels canceled a 10-year contract with an IBM-led consortium of companies that included ACS among its subcontractors. IBM and Indiana are now engaged in dueling lawsuits scheduled to go to trial next February.

After IBM was fired, ACS — which was blamed by welfare advocates for many of the problems — was given a new eight-year contract worth $638 million to continue its work, according to state records.

All told, three politically connected firms gained from the welfare privatization effort in Indiana: ACS; the Lucas Group, a Boston-based firm that wrote the specifications for the contract; and Barnes & Thornburg, the Indianapolis law firm that lobbies for ACS and is representing the state in its suit against IBM.

ACS — via several political action committees — donated nearly $50,000 to Daniels' gubernatorial campaigns and his state leadership PAC between 2003 and 2010. Barnes & Thornburg gave Daniels almost $120,000 between 2004 and 2010.

Daniels began pursuing the idea of privatizing Indiana's welfare eligibility system soon after his 2005 inauguration. The idea was taken up enthusiastically by Roob, whom Daniels had brought over from ACS, and who repeatedly described the failings of Indiana's social services agency, which serves more than 1 million needy residents . . .

Even before Daniels signed off on the privatization effort, the little-known Lucas Group started reaping benefits. Its role was not publicized at the time, but the consulting firm had a nearly $4-million contract — signed by Roob — to write the specifications by which the bidding companies would take over the system.

Like ACS, the Lucas Group had ties to former mayor Goldsmith: He served for a time as a senior consultant for the firm, which is run by a longtime associate. Goldsmith, now a deputy mayor in New York, said in an interview that he had nothing to do with the state's awarding of contracts to the Lucas Group or ACS . . .

During Indiana's deliberations, ACS was under fire from federal regulators examining backdating of stock options, as well as from officials in several states who complained of delays, technical problems and, in one case, manipulation of data to justify bonus payments.

Ken Ericson, a spokesman for ACS, said the company remained in good standing with its government clients, continuing to provide services in all 50 states.

Despite its troubles around the country, ACS — as a subcontractor to IBM — ended up with the biggest piece of the contract in Indiana. The company hired 1,500 former state workers, built the system's call center and provided the staff that did the initial processing of welfare applications. It was also poised to make a minimum of $596 million in fixed fees, according to documents obtained by the Tribune Washington Bureau/Los Angeles Times.

Roob, whose agency solicited bids for the project, did not return calls for comment. But aides to Daniels said the former Family and Social Services Administration secretary played no role in the selection process.

They noted that the winning consortium, then led by IBM, ended up being the only bidder for the deal after another group led by Accenture dropped out in May 2006. An interagency review committee studied the proposal by the IBM-led consortium and recommended that the governor move forward with the project.

"No one ever said, 'We want to make sure ACS is part of this,'" said Earl Goode, Daniels' chief of staff, who chaired the review committee. "It was looking at the best solution and what's best for the taxpayers of Indiana."

In late November 2006, Daniels announced he had accepted the review committee's recommendation. A week later, the state held the only public hearing on the proposal. He signed the deal with IBM a month later, declaring the move would save taxpayers $1 billion . . .

IBM said the problems were due to an unexpected surge in applications.

"Our contention has always been there weren't enough caseworkers," said IBM spokesman Clint Roswell.

The state said the issue was IBM's oversight of ACS.

"The state is now managing them and they're doing fine," said Peter Rusthoven, one of the lawyers representing the state in its suit against IBM.

When the state decided to sue, the Daniels administration opted to hire Rusthoven's firm — Barnes & Thornburg, which also represents ACS — to handle the case, rather than rely on the state attorney general. One of the Barnes & Thornburg partners listed on the $5.25-million contract is Brian Burdick, the brother of Daniels' deputy chief of staff.

Mark Massa, who was Daniels' general counsel at the time, said hiring outside counsel was necessary because of the complexity of the case.

"I just wanted to hire the best litigators I could find," Massa said. "The decision was solely mine and I didn't take political considerations into account." . . . 

The LA Times reporters missed one big item: the hiring of Mike Gargano as FSSA's new secretary to oversee ACS. Gargano is a former consultant for ACS who is married to Ann Lathrop, another former member of the Goldsmith administration who worked as an executive at ACS, alongside Goldsmith, Roob and Skip Stitt. The reporters had access to documents prepared by former FSSA employee Carl Moldthan, now deceased, who warned Daniels and legislative leaders the privatization of the FSSA services was misguided and being done for all of the wrong reasons. Moldthan's critique included an admission by Roob that the privatization would not save taxpayers one dime despite Daniels' public claim that it would save $500 million over ten years.

 

Is There A Gold Card With Indy's Parking Meter Deal?

The City of Los Angeles awarded a contract to ACS, the same company that received a 50-year lease to run the City of Indianapolis' parking meter assets, to process parking violations. City residents are now up in arms after learning the company has a Gold Card program for the privileged elite that allows them to resolve any parking fine disputes they might have unlike ordinary citizens. The LA Times reports on how the privileged are able to get their parking fines dismissed with the use of their Gold Card:

Los Angeles residents are up in arms over the existence of the "Gold Card," a plastic parking bureau card distributed to city offices that includes a special phone number.


The obscure Gold Card Services Desk allowed the mayor and other elected officials to expedite citation reviews.

On the back, the card notes that the holder may have an "urgent need to resolve any parking citation matter which requires special attention." It promises "you will be immediately connected to our Gold Card Specialist."

A report released Thursday by City Controller Wendy Greuel found that about 1,000 Los Angeles city parking citations were dismissed over a two-year period -- some without justification -- as part of the Gold Card operation.

The program was started about 20 years ago to permit officials and their staff to expedite constituents’ appeals of parking tickets and possibly have fines reduced or eliminated.

"I wish they did let us know about it," said Donny Legans, 55, who arrived at the city's parking enforcement office Thursday to pay an $88 ticket. "The system is so unfair. Sometimes the meters aren't even working and they give us tickets."

Most of those interviewed said they were angry about the program's existence -- and will be even more upset if it turns out that elected officials used the program to get special treatment for themselves and their friends.

John Torres arrived at the parking enforcement office in a fury. He said he got his ticket after the enforcement officer accused him of spending 90 minutes at a meter in the 1400 block of West Washington Boulevard.

Torres said he put money in the meter, and had been there for 10 minutes. Since being cited, his fine doubled from $75 to $150 because he had been away on business and didn't have the opportunity to pay it immediately.

Torres, who was surprised to hear about the "Gold Card Desk," said he'd like access to the program himself so he could contest his fine.

The Gold Card, by the way, has the ACS emblem emblazoned in bold letters in the upper right-hand corner. Under the contract signed last year, an ACS press release said the company collected $9.5 million annually in parking fines for the city. ACS boasts that it is the largest processor of parking violations in the nation, collecting $818 million for nearly 15 million parking violations. ACS has a reputation for winning coveted contracts to manage government operations through a well-connected team of political deal-makers the company engages throughout the country. The City of Indianapolis came under fire a few years ago for the practice of passing out parking placards to government employees, officials and well-connected persons that allowed thousands to park for free at metered spaces without being cited for a parking violation.

Professional Fees For Parking Meter Lease Deal Cost Taxpayers Nearly $3 Million

It's always the driving force behind these deals. The only way the pay-to-play insiders can make big money off representing government is to convince corrupt elected officials to undertake one-sided deals that screw over taxpayers as an excuse to bill hefty fees they earn for carrying them out. The one-sided parking meter lease deal the Ballard administration entered into with ACS was no exception. Fees for that deal reached nearly $3 million, or about 15% of what the city received in the form of an upfront payment for the deal. The Star's Jon Murray breaks the fees down as follows:

• $1.9 million to Morgan Stanley for financial services;
• $950,000 to Ice Miller for legal services; and
• $109,000 to Hirons & Co. for public relations.

A public interest group in Washington was critical of the Ballard administration's decision to use Morgan Stanley because of its role in other parking meter deals around the country. "The company is one of the primary investors in the Chicago deal and stands to gain from the deals they advise on," PIRG's Phineas Baxandall noted in a report it released on the deal. "That is a clear conflict of interest." On the lease agreement drawn up by Ice Miller, the Urbanophile's Aaron Renn noted it was essentially a "cut and paste" job lifting heavily from the lease agreement the City of Chicago used for it long-term parking meter lease. Murray's story omits the real reason Hirons & Co. was paid $109,000 a year to work on public relations for the deal--the firm's owner hired Mayor Ballard's son a short time before he awarded the no-bid contract to the firm. Ballard similarly awarded an even larger no-bid contract to Hirons for work on the Citizens Energy deal for the water and sewer utilities. The Star, like the rest of the news media in town, continues to ignore the fact that ACS installed used electronic parking meters combining old city assets with used assets owned by the company in only the high volume areas to allow the private vendor to start raking in its fees as opposed to new, state-of-the-art technology promised when the deal was approved. Nobody in the media has yet to report on the role Pay To Play has in deals undertaken by this administration on so many fronts to the detriment of city taxpayers.

Don't Be Fooled By Goldsmith's Views On Privatization

Star State House reporter Mary Beth Schneider expressed her shock on a Twitter post this afternoon concerning former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith's "conversion" on privatization. "Former Indy Mayor Goldsmith, now dep mayor of NYC, said it's time to get rid of costly private contracts and have city workers do more. WOW," she wrote.  "Goldsmith was Mr. Privatization in Indy, so pretty bizarre to see this conversion." Presumably, Schneider's comments were made in regards to Goldsmith's recent announcement the City of New York would bring back some IT work inside that it had outsourced to private contractors. As Crain's New York reported:

The Bloomberg administration, in something of an about-face, will reduce spending on outside contractors and reassign some work to city employees.


Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith announced Thursday—first in a Daily News op-ed and later in a press briefing—that a “project management office” would be expanded to oversee outsourced information technology projects. The city office will essentially replace a larger, more expensive layer of supervision that private contractors had been providing.

“I think the eventual savings will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” Mr. Goldsmith told reporters at City Hall. No formal estimate of the savings has been calculated, but “there are some folks we're paying contractors' [higher] rates to that we could easily get done on our side.”

In many cases, a city employee qualified to oversee a complex, technical project does not exist and will have to be hired. The administration also plans to train city workers to work on the kinds of projects that in recent years have been outsourced. The training will not be outsourced, according to Jason Post, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The deputy mayor, who joined the administration for the mayor's third term, said the change promises not just to save money but to reduce fraud. “Whenever you have a vendor, you have to have a high-quality city employee supervising the vendor,” Mr. Goldsmith said. “This level has caused us not only to pay more, but has caused us to lose too much control.”

The key to this change of heart at least on Goldsmith's part lies in reducing fraud, as well as costs. Last year, city subcontractors on a project known as CityTime to automate payroll and timekeeping for city employees were accused of stealing at least $80 million from the city. "What began as a $68 million effort will end up costing more than $700 million," Crain's reported. But even as Goldsmith was making this announcement, his boss was on the radio defending the city's practice of outsourcing much of the city's services. As the New York Daily News reported:

Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg didn't get the memo. Literally.


On his Friday radio show, he was asked about a new shift in city policy that had been in the newspaper for two days running - and didn't seem to know it had happened.

It's a shift on something that had been a sore point for Bloomberg's critics - outside contractors paid six-figure salaries for tech projects that blow deadlines and budgets, like the scandal-ridden CityTime system.

The mayor has long defended his administration's contracting policies, even though municipal unions and Controller John Liu say city workers could do the job for less.

So it was news last week when one of Bloomberg's deputy mayors, Stephen Goldsmith, agreed with critics and said New York will save tens of millions of dollars by bringing the work in-house.

On the radio, WOR-AM host John Gambling tossed Bloomberg a softball about it. But instead of explaining the new company line on insourcing, the mayor defended outsourcing.

"People say, 'Oh, you're spending too much money on outsiders.' If you didn't do that one contract outside, you'd have to have those people permanently on your staff," the mayor said.

"The consultants, they say, 'Oh, they charge a lot more.' Well, because that's the business," he continued. "They don't work all the time, so they have to get paid more. And sometimes they have expertise you don't have in-house."

If the Bloomberg administration has a new message on contracts, why did Bloomberg himself go off-message?

You would be mistaken, however, to think Goldsmith is turning away from privatization, even if his boss hasn't. He's now working on a new public-private partnership for which city service? You knew it. Parking meters. Here's what the Daily News is reporting on that front:

Now, Mayor Bloomberg is eying a "public-private" partnership for parking meters.


On Monday, the city's Economic Development Corp. got 12 from financial firms seeking to advise Bloomberg on the best way of "unlocking value in existing assets to save money and improve service delivery," says mayoral spokesman Jason Post.

High on the list of such assets are parking meters, along with city-owned garages.

The mayor and his aides say they have no intention of doing what Chicago did a few years ago - getting a big upfront payment to plug an immediate deficit by giving away city parking revenues for 75 years.

City Hall is already using more meters, higher rates and bigger fines to squeeze record payments from motorists.

The Daily News story notes the controversy that has plagued past privatization efforts pertaining to New York's parking meter assets. Back in the 1980s during the administration of Ed Koch, several city officials were caught up in a bribery scandal involving the awarding of a contract with a private company to provide hand-held computers for parking enforcement officers. "By the time the Parking Violations Bureau scandal was over, Stanley Friedman, Koch's close ally and head of the Bronx Democratic Party, was in jail, along with his sidekick, Bronx Borough President Stanley Simon, and a handful of others," the Daily News noted. "Queens Borough President Donald Manes committed suicide before he could be indicted, and their chief prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani, became a hero." Koch's successor, David Dinkins, similarly had a scandal involving parking meters. His administration was forced to cancel a contract it had entered into with Lockheed after an investigation revealed the company had colluded with other bidders and a city hall staffer had solicited a job during the bidding process. The Daily News doesn't fail to pick up on Goldsmith's ties to ACS, which was recently awarded the 50-year parking meter lease deal with the City of Indianapolis.

Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith became a Republican Party star for privatizing government services when he was mayor of Indianapolis.


From 2001 to 2005, Goldsmith was senior vice president of Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. Last year, his old firm landed a 50-year contract from Indianapolis to manage all parking meters for that city.

Under the contract, Affiliated even gets the money from tickets written by Indianapolis police. The contract barely passed the Indianapolis City Council by a 15-14 vote.

Given New York's checkered history with parking meters, we need to watch this process very carefully.

At least someone in the media in New York is keeping an eye on Goldsmith and his ties to ACS. The Indianapolis news media turned a blind eye to the ties a whole cast of key players in Indianapolis' parking meter deal had to ACS. Goldsmith, a former ACS executive, has admitted he has advised Ballard on a regular basis in an unpaid role since Ballard became mayor in 2008. Although he has represented interests lobbying the city for business as well, he never registered as a lobbyist. His former deputy mayor, Joe Loftus, is engaged to lobby the City of Indianapolis on behalf of ACS. One of the attorneys Loftus supervises at Barnes & Thornburg is City-County Council President Ryan Vaughn, who twisted arms of his fellow councilors to ram the 50-year deal through the council despite his obvious conflict of interest. Mayor Ballard's Deputy Mayor for economic development, Michael Huber, formerly worked for Skipp Stitt, another ACS executive who worked in Goldsmith's administration, prior to his work for Ballard. Of course they all insist their ties to ACS had nothing to do with the awarding of the lucrative 50-year lease to the company.

More Bait And Switch On Indy Parking Meter Lease Deal

When the Ballard administration touted its 50-year plan to lease Indianapolis' parking meter assets to ACS for 50 years, it claimed one of the reasons for raising the hourly parking rates and extending the hours of metered use was to encourage turnover in metered spaces in high traffic areas of Downtown, Mass Avenue and Broad Ripple. Some business owners on Mass Avenue, in particular, complained about people parking to go to dinner and the theater and hogging the spaces in front of their businesses all evening.

Today, the Ballard administration announced ParkIndy, the private operator of the parking meter assets, will allow motorists to pay for 4-hour blocks of time in the evening times rather than the current 2-hour limit. In other words, a motorist can pull up to a meter at 5:00 p.m., pay for 4 hours up to 9:00 p.m. after which time you can park for free and remain parked in the same space until late at night. Ballard said the change was being made in response to motorist feedback. "This arrangement will allow residents and visitors to Indianapolis to enjoy … events in the evening that keep them away from their cars longer than two hours," Ballard said in a news release.

I would also note the new parking meters were suppose to allow motorists to access a website via the Internet remotely to add more time to their meter with the new technology that was promised by ACS. I guess that technology wasn't included in the used electronic meters mounted on the existing rusty poles that ParkIndy rolled out this month in the high traffic areas only, which has been falsely represented in the news media as "new electronic meters"; the old mechanical meters remain in use elsewhere. It looks like the private contractor was able to start raking in revenues under its 50-year lease with very minimal investment--certainly not the $8 million investment the Ballard administration claimed the private operator would invest after being awarded the lease. Who knew the lease allowed the company to pull used meters out of storage to finance the better technology promised on a pay-as-you-go basis. Couldn't the City have done the same thing and pocketed millions more annually that it is giving up to the private operator under the lease?

UPDATE: Jon Murray's story in the Star today indicates only about one-third of the City's meters were replaced with the electronic meters. "ParkIndy, led by Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services and including two local companies, has replaced old meter heads on about one-third of city meters, he writes. "Those are in the Downtown core, along Massachusetts Avenue and in Broad Ripple. The rest will be upgraded later this year, and many blocks will get multispace pay boxes." Not surprisingly, there are already complaints that some of the used electronic meters installed are not working properly and causing people to get tickets. "Mary Buckner fed $1 in coins into a new meter in Broad Ripple on Wednesday, returned 15 minutes later and found a $20 parking ticket, her husband said." "A meter repairman working down the street opened up the unit and found it was already full; her coins had gone in but not far enough to be registered by the meter." "We are not impressed with the new meters and will avoid Broad Ripple and Massachusetts Ave. for the foreseeable future until all of the bugs get worked out of this new system," Andrew Buckner, who lives on Indianapolis' Northside, wrote in an email."

Another Ballard Tax Increase Takes Effect Today

Mayor Greg Ballard's plan to make more than a billion dollars for one of City-County Council President Ryan Vaughn's clients moves a step closer today. ACS, the politically-connected firm that Ballard awarded a 50-year lease for the City's parking meter business, begins collecting higher parking fees and charging for extended hours of use today. Persons parking at metered spaces downtown and in Broad Ripple will be charged to park an additional 5 hours during the week as hours are extended from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m at the rate of $1.00 an hour. Additionally, the City will charge them to park those same hours on Saturdays for the first time in city history. The rates will jump to $1.50 an hour beginning in January, 2011, double the current rate.

The Star's Jon Murray misleads the papers readers on a bit of bait-and-switch ACS and the Ballard administration engaged in when it sold the City on the deal. Individual meters mounted on the existing poles were to be replaced by multi-space pay boxes; however, when ACS began switching out the meters, it instead installed electronic meters on the existing meter poles, not even bothering to replace the rusty old poles. The Star, which endorsed the corrupt 50-year deal, tries to explain it away:

Beginning in late spring or early summer, ParkIndy will install multispace pay boxes to replace about two-thirds of the meters.


ParkIndy has drawn criticism for leaving rusty meter poles and bases and replacing only the heads. Lou Gerig, a spokesman for ParkIndy, said that as pay boxes go in, leftover meter parts that are in good condition will be used to replace older hardware on remaining individual-space meters.

The multi-space pay boxes were the cornerstone of what councilors were sold when they approved the deal last year. ACS is installing the electronic meters on the poles for now, which are actually used meters that were removed from another city where they were previously used. By installing the older technology now, ACS is getting immediate access to revenues it will generate from the 50-year lease that includes the higher rates and extended hours. ACS will use those revenues to finance the cost of installing the more costly multi-space boxes over time for most but not all spaces. ACS plans to use newer poles already purchased by the city to put on the remaining parking spaces where it intends to use its used electronic meters. In other words, ACS and the Ballard administration flat out lied about how much money ACS would invest up front to install new parking meter technology.

There are many signs that ACS has used insiders with ties to the company to expand its business operations in state and local government in Indiana. ACS played a key role in the botched privatization of FSSA's welfare services that cost taxpayers more than a half billion dollars. The administration of Gov. Mitch Daniels blamed the entire mess on IBM when it terminated IBM's contract but kept in place ACS. IBM partnered with ACS in order to win the contract originally because then-FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob, a former executive with ACS, initiated the privatization effort. Gov. Daniels then named another former consultant for ACS, Michael Gargano, to run the agency, who is married to another former ACS executive, Ann Lathrop.

ACS has long used the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg as its hired gun lobbyist to win government business in Indiana. The firm lobbies both state and city officials on behalf of ACS. Its chief lobbyist at the firm, Joe Loftus, is also paid as a key adviser to Mayor Greg Ballard. Lobbying records also showed City-County Council President Ryan Vaughn lobbied the state on behalf of ACS as a lobbyist for the firm; however, when this blog reported on his registered status as a lobbyist for ACS, Vaughn claimed a paralegal at his law firm registered him with the state in error. Vaughn also twisted arms of councilors to ram the deal through the council and voted in support of the 50-year parking meter lease despite his obvious conflict of interest.

Daniels Administration's Attorneys Lose Fight To Exclude Thousands Of Documents From Discovery In Lawsuit Over Failed FSSA Privatization

I can't say that I'm surprised attorneys at Barnes & Thornburg, who are representing FSSA in a lawsuit with IBM over the failed welfare privatization effort despite their obvious conflict of interest in doing so, tried to exclude more than 11,000 documents from discovery under a claim of privilege. Fortunately, Judge David Dreyer wasn't impressed with the claim of privilege after personally reviewing the documents himself. With dollar signs no doubt flashing in his eyes (the state is paying him $475 an hour), Barnes & Thornburg's Peter Rusthoven says the state may appeal Dreyer's ruling. The Star's Carrie Ritchie explains:

A Marion Superior Court judge has ordered Indiana to turn over thousands of documents to help sort out two lawsuits over the state’s cancellation of a welfare modernization contract with IBM.


In an order entered this afternoon, Judge David Dreyer said documents the state claimed were privileged are not and should be turned over to IBM for review. They will not be released publicly.

Attorneys for the state are considering an appeal, which would temporarily stop the suits from moving forward, and will notify the court of their decision within 10 days, said Peter Rusthoven, who’s representing the state.

The documents include state employees’ e-mails, including some belonging to Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Daniels cancelled the 10-year, $1.37 billion contract in 2009 after only three years because of complaints about the automated system.

The state sued IBM in May to take back the $437 million it paid the company.

The most interesting aspect of Ritchie's story is the mention that some of the documents include e-mails authored by Gov. Daniels, who IBM is trying to depose in the matter. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be appropriate to insist the governor himself be questioned about an agency contractual dispute due to executive privilege, but a governor typically doesn't get directly involved involved in such matters; rather, he uses intermediaries to carry out his wishes to the extent he risks any involvement to keep his own hands clean. It is remarkable that the governor appears to have taken a more direct role in this matter.

IBM countersued, saying the state still owes the company about $100 million.


Dreyer, who reviewed more than 11,000 pages of documents privately before ruling, said in the order that he excluded “a relatively small number of individual e-mails or pages that are extraneous, personal or obviously unrelated communications.”

He also noted that he tried to be considerate of state employees’ privacy, and that he afforded the governor’s e-mails “particular scrutiny and due regard.”

Attorneys for IBM had criticized the state for trying to shield the documents.

“The state has delayed production of these documents since last fall and we hope we will now receive them promptly,” IBM spokesman Clint Roswell said today.

IBM also is trying to get a deposition from Daniels, and the state has requested a protective order to prevent the company from doing so.

The most outrageous aspect of this litigation is the fact that Barnes & Thornburg is being allowed to represent the state's interests. As I've previously pointed out, the firm has long represented ACS, the company that partnered with IBM on the welfare privatization agreement. ACS got to continue its role after the state opted to dump IBM. That ACS's services were retained was even more troubling because the company formerly employed former FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob, who initiated the privatization effort after leaving the company to work for Daniels. After Roob departed, the agency named another ACS consultant, Michael Gargano, as the agency's chief of staff and then later as the agency's Secretary. Gargano's wife, Ann Lathrop, also formerly worked at ACS with Roob. The agreement the state entered into with Barnes & Thornburg to handle the representation acknowledged the existence of the conflict of interest, but Daniels nonetheless insisted on using the firm. A top deputy in Daniels' office, Betsy Burdick, is the brother of the Barnes & Thornburg partner who signed the agreement with the state, Brian Burdick. It's notable that Burdick is a bond lawyer and not a litigator.

Mayor's Office Employee Takes Job With ACS--Working On Parking Meters

I predicted when the Ballard administration awarded its one-sided parking meter privatization deal to ACS, a politically-connected company that is represented by Barnes & Thornburg, we could expect to see officials of the Ballard administration land jobs with the private contractor. Sure enough, a employee from the mayor's own office has taken a job with ACS. As reported by the Urban Times, Mayor Greg Ballard's neighborhood liaison for the Downtown Center East Region, Tonja Beeler, has taken a job with ACS. "Beeler is now working with ACS as an analyst in the ParkIndy program to upgrade the city's parking meter system," the Urban Times reported in the March edition. As Ballard's neighborhood liaison, Beeler fielded questions and promoted the parking meter deal to residents affected by the parking meter deal in the eastern downtown area while the administration was promoting the project last year. When I e-mailed Ballard's communications director Marc Lotter asking for confirmation of Beeler's new employment, he indicated he was forwarding my request to city legal because I was an attorney and he wasn't familiar with my publication. Nice. As if I don't know he and other members of his press staff read this blog regularly.

The Ballard administration recently announced ACS would begin installing new electronic meters this month. During the first phase, 1,250 meters in downtown and Broad Ripple are expected to be replaced by the end of march with single-space meter heads. Rates will jump from .75 cents an hour to $1.00 an hour as of March 28 and metered hours will be extended from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., along with meter enforcement on Saturdays. The initial single-space meter heads will be replaced later this year with multi-space boxes. Rates will increase again in January to $1.50 an hour, resulting in a doubling of the rates in a period of less than one year. Meter enforcement in the areas outside the heart of downtown and Broad Ripple will be enforced from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. All 3,600 metered spaces will be enforced with the new parking meters by year's end.

The Ballard administration claims the 50-year deal with ACS will net the City between $363 to $600 million over the life of the lease agreement, including a $20 million upfront payment. However, other municipalities have installed similar electronic meters as those being installed by ACS for a few million dollars without turning over 50-years' worth of profits to a private contractor, allowing those cities to reap all of the enhanced revenue benefits from having electronic meters. Any revenues derived by the city from the deal will not be enjoyed city-wide because those revenues will be dedicated to projects within downtown and Broad Ripple, even though those areas of the city are already siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax revenues from TIF districts.

Abdul Hakim Shabazz Is A Total Fraud, No Surprise

If WXNT's radio talk show host wanted to set out to poke fun of the masses of unemployed persons in the worst economic recession this nation has suffered since the Great Depression, he could not have done a better job than the publicity stunt he pulled this past week. Radio talk show host Abdul Hakim Shabazz pretended to set out on a mission last week to apply for a job to show how easy it was to find work if you really wanted to be employed. Shabazz said he would rule out applying for any jobs in downtown Indianapolis since he says so many people know the least listened to radio talk show host in Indianapolis and that landing a job there would be too easy. So where would he go in search of a job? Well, he publicly announced that he had applied for a customer service representative position with ACS. "Just 'applied' for my 1st job; ACS call center rep in Anderson. Took 30 min on-line. Even had a 'voice' test over the phone," he wrote on his Twitter wall at the outset of his job search. He continued to post updates on his Twitter wall over the next several days on his progress in landing that job . ACS, of course, would be the same company connected to all of his political crony friends in state and city government who have been raping the taxpayers to enrich the company and its hired gun lobbyists. So today he is boasting he got the ACS job after just five days of searching for a job.

. . . I applied on-line Thursday and got a call from a recruiter on Friday. My interview was on Tuesday.


There were a couple times during the process that everything almost went south. One lady helping out with hiring kept looking at me like she recognized me from television. And during the first interview the hiring manager looked my undergraduate degree in communications and journalism and asked me if I knew I was applying for a job at call center? I told her yes, and she asked me if I was sure about what I was doing. I told her we were good and the interview went ahead.

It was pretty standard and I was able to answer their questions in a mostly truthful manner. They asked me what I did at my other jobs, to which I replied, I spent a lot of time taking calls from angry people and helping them solve their problems. They asked me if I could handle with an irate caller who was abusive and uninformed. I just smiled and said yes. I did have to take a drug test. Here’s a tip, never joke about have poppy seed bagels for breakfast. Drug testers aren’t known for their sense of humor.

While waiting around I got a chance to meet some of the people who were applying for work. I met a woman who used to manage a department store that went under. I met an older gentleman who lost his job. There were some younger people looking for jobs, although someone needed to tell them how to dress for an interview. An Abercrombie sweat shirt, torn jeans and sneakers doesn’t quite say “hire me”.

I eventually met with the main hiring manager and we had a nice chat. She walked me through a number of questions at the end of the interview she offered me a job. The starting pay was $9 an hour, but that’s a training wage. After 8 weeks, depending on your performance, you can make up to $13 an hour and if you work Saturdays, you get an extra dollar an hour. There’s no limit on overtime and there’s ample opportunity for promotion and advancement. Your only limit is what you put on yourself. And yes, it does come with full benefits. And since I’d likely be on the morning shift, 6:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., I could still teach and do my other part-time jobs.

Now I know some of you are going to bring up issues like child care, transportation, education, etc. My reply, “so what”. As my grandmother used to say “all God’s children got problems” and you play with the hand you are dealt and deal with it. If you are a high school dropout in the 21st Century I have very little sympathy for you.

And just for the record, I am not taking the job. This was about proving a point. The point was that there is work out there if you are willing to work to look for it. And here’s another little twist for your amusement, by not taking the job I am freeing up the position for someone else who needs it. So my experiment not only proved that there is work out there, but it also created a job.

No need to thank me, the look on your face right now is more than enough.

If you're that desperate for attention, Abdul, why didn't you just drop turkeys out of a helicopter at a crowded mall parking lot the day after Thanksgiving? The only look people have on their faces after reading this tall tale of fraud and deceit is how you can stand to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning.

Tully Still Stuck On Stupid

Nobody will ever accuse Star political columnist Matt Tully of being a friend of the taxpayers. Whether it's raising income taxes 65%, levying double digit rate increases on utility users by pretending to sell a public utility to fund short-term public infrastructure improvements ratepayers will be paying off for 30 years or doubling parking meter rates and giving away hundreds of millions of dollars in potential tax revenues to a politically-connected company with a bad track record, Tully will conclude is just makes sense. Here's Tully's musings on the City's decision to turn over control of our parking meter assets to ACS for the next 50 years:

After listening to the final round of debate, I walked out of the meeting thinking the council had made the right decision.


Here are five reasons why:

1. First, look at what the deal tackles -- the city's massive backlog of unfunded infrastructure projects. As I wrote about the sale of the water and sewer utilities this year, the profit from which also will go to infrastructure, fixing roads, sidewalks, alleys and bridges is as crucial an issue as there is in this city. It's also a fundamental responsibility of local government.

Hold on, Matt, you used the excuse of increasing utility rates by double digits to fund those infrastructure projects already. Are you telling us that there is a backlog of infrastructure projects in Downtown or Broad Ripple? Because that's the only place the paltry sum raised from this deal will be used to fund.

2. Indiana has entered the era of property tax caps. I didn't vote for the caps, but most Hoosiers did. And whatever your view, the reality is clear. Local governments will have fewer property tax dollars to fund everything from pothole repairs to libraries. "We have to start getting as creative as possible with the assets we have," said Michael Huber, deputy mayor and Greg Ballard's point man on parking meters.


This deal will raise up to $620 million over the next 50 years. Without these types of moves, the city would be in for a long period of painful budget cuts. And here's a warning for the anti-spending crowd: There simply isn't much fat left in the city budget.

The opponents of the deal, Matt, proved the funds are sitting out there in TIF funds, which are property tax revenues, to be spent to upgrade our system with the latest and greatest in technology without giving up control to ACS. Furthermore, by keeping control, the City would reap at least $300 million above that $620 million you cite, which I believe is a fantasy figure made up by Huber and ACS to sell the deal, that will be returned to the City after ACS gets its hands on the parking meter assets.

3. Ballard's team listened to concerns about the deal. The plan now includes a series of termination provisions and indexes rate increases after 2012 to inflation. Penalties for the city removing meters were eased.

Huh? Are you that stupid, Matt? The termination fees ensure the City won't terminate the damn lease because it is so cost-prohibitive. The City would have to pay ACS more than it got from it simply to unwind the deal after the first 10 years. You call that listening to the public's concerns? Were they listening to the public's concerns when they waited until after approval of the Citizens Energy deal to tell us they were paying $29 million to Veolia to break up that privatization agreement, which is coming directly out of the taxpayers' pocket, a contract we were told before the fact couldn't be broken?

4. Council Democrats spent the meeting picking at the plan, and that's fine. They argued the city should upgrade the meters in-house, and that's fine. But most of the Democrats have been on the council for many years. And until Ballard came along, they ignored the antiquated meter system and the paltry revenue it produced.


At least Ballard had a plan and was willing to spend political capital to address the issue. It's easy to attack a person who offers an idea. Coming up with the idea is the challenge.

Sorry, Matt, but this isn't a Democrat versus Republican issue you make it out to be. I'm a life-long Republican. Paul Ogden is a life-long Republican. Aaron Renn is an urban planner with no political axe to grind. MCANA is a nonpartisan, neighborhood organization. We all reached the same conclusion. You blame Democrats for not forwarding a plan before now to modernize the meters? Sorry, Matt, but Mayor Ballard won the election in 2007 and the Republicans control the council. Instead of running the system into the ground so it would not generate sufficient revenues, why didn't they do anything to improve the system short of giving control of it to Ryan Vaughn's client? And if you're going to tell your readers they should all pony up double the amount they will need to pay to park to come downtown, at least have the decency to tell them you get to park for free. UPDATE: As a close observer reminded, the Peterson administration conducted a demonstration project in 2006 that showed the City could boost parking meter revenues by at least 15% simply be installing the smart meter technology. Why did Ballard's administration ignore their findings in concluding the asset had to be leased out?

 5. Nearly everyone agrees a meter update is needed. Rates haven't increased since the latter days of Elvis Presley. Extended hours for enforcement also will encourage turnover of parking spaces, which helps businesses.

Other cities have meters with wonderful new technology. Ours, however, are on the verge of becoming museum pieces. The private contractor will be charged with spending millions to upgrade the system and then managing it.

This change is necessary. And although valid questions were raised along the way, the mayor's plan makes sense.

Yes, other cities have implemented this technology without giving up control to a private company for the next two generations. And as a political reporter at the State House who has witnessed first hand the mess ACS and its partner IBM made of the state's welfare privatization you have not one issue with giving the company control of our parking meter assets? Did you read the D.C. audit? Do you study state lobbying records? Do you have a clue? Or is your head so far up Ryan Vaughn's ass you can't see anything wrong with him strong arming his fellow councilors to vote for a deal that will make hundreds of millions of dollars for his client, or have any concerns that the Mayor's personal paid adviser, Joe Loftus, is a lobbyist for ACS? Where do these journalists earn their degrees these days? For God's sake, bring back Dick Cady. This is insanity. And then they whine about people dropping their subscriptions to the Star. If this is as good as you can produce, then your newspaper deserves to go out of business. For good.

Council Of Barnes & Thornburg Gives ACS Control Of Parking Meter Assets

Defying common sense and good politics, a Republican-controlled council beholden to Barnes & Thornburg approved the controversial lease of Indianapolis' parking meter assets for 50 years to ACS. CCC President Ryan Vaughn (R-Barnes & Thornburg) strong armed Republicans into supporting the measure. Only Christine Scales voted against it. Democrat Paul Bateman, who has been under investigation for the misappropriation of more than a million dollars from the Russell Foundation, was the only Democrat to vote for the measure, allowing it to pass by a 15-14 vote. Libertarian Ed Coleman voted against the proposal citing overwhelming opposition to the measure by constituents who contacted him.

A public opinion poll taken recently in Marion County shows the public overwhelming opposes the deal by a margin of 70% to 20%. That includes black and white voters alike, as well as younger and older voters. Opposition runs high even among the most Republican townships of Perry, Decatur and Franklin Townships where 70% to 71% of the voters oppose the privatization of the City's parking meter assets. Democrats and independents overwhelmingly opposed the deal according to the poll and even Republicans disfavored the plan by a wide margin. Republicans ignored their own political interests in order to enrich Vaughn's big client. The company stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars from the contract, and the City will give up a similar amount of revenues over the life of the contract.

Those of us fighting for the taxpayers will demand a federal investigation into the awarding of this contract. There are appearances that the Marion County taxpayers have been deprived of the honest services of their elected politicians in order to personally enrich ACS and the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg. There will be consequences for this vote tonight. The opponents of this deal will not fade away.

UPDATE: WRTV's Norm Cox gets top honors for best coverage of tonight's vote by taking a close look at Vaughn's conflict of interest. Click here to read his story. Here is some of what Cox reported tonight, which included on point comments from fellow blogger Paul Ogden:

Critics had questioned the ethics of City-County Council President Ryan Vaughn, a Republican, who works at the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg, which ACS is paying to lobby for the deal, 6News' Norman Cox reported.


Vaughn defended his impartiality, saying because he isn't a partner in the firm and will make no money directly from the deal, there is no conflict of interest.

"I'm not going to benefit from it," he said. "No one close to my family's going to benefit from it and I'm not an owner of any business, and so there is no conflict of interest."

But blogger and lawyer Paul Ogden, a major critic of the parking deal, said there is no way Vaughn's position is not a conflict of interest.

"The question is, is his job on the line if he doesn't support ACS? And I would argue it is," he said. "The fact is, ACS gives millions of dollars to Barnes & Thornburg … and should he not support them, he could very well lose his position."

But Vaughn said the connection is being blown out of proportion.

"The council ethics rules clearly articulate between what constitutes an appearance of conflict and what constitutes an actual conflict," he said. "I've been very open for folks who have that concern about where I work and who they represent. I've never hidden that fact. "

Vaughn also faces accusations that he's using strong-arm tactics to push the deal through council.

Republican Councilor Christine Scales said Vaughn removed her from the important Public Safety Committee because she opposes the deal.

"The news that I was removed from the Public Safety Committee came about two hours after I notified council leadership that I was going to be voting no on the parking meter proposal," Scales said. "I felt it was retribution, and it came swiftly."

Vaughn denied that and said he removed Scales so he could replace her with a new councilor, Aaron Freeman, who has a background in public safety.

As for ACS itself, some are asking questions about its ability to run the meter system, given its partnership with IBM in the failed state welfare modernization plan.

ACS is back working with the state again and officials with the Family and Social Services Administration said they blame the welfare fiasco on IBM, not ACS.

Star Finally Faces Vaughn's Conflict Of Interest In Parking Meter Lease Deal

Perhaps shamed into do so by the blogs, the Indianapolis Star for the first time in an actual news story acknowledges there may be a conflict of interest in City-County Council President Ryan Vaughn pushing for the passage of a 50-year lease deal with ACS, his law firm's client, for the City's parking meter assets. A story appears in today's Star, the same day the full City-County Council takes up a vote on the controversial day. Jon Murray writes:

ACS is a powerful player in government contracting and already plays a role in Indiana's welfare-services modernization. And the mayor's office and ACS have shared a lobbyist at Indianapolis law firm Barnes & Thornburg. Council President Ryan Vaughn works at the firm as an associate but does not perform any work for ACS, he says.


Such connections make some critics uncomfortable, even if ACS, the law firm and the mayor's staff insist that the lobbyist, Joe Loftus, didn't participate in parking-meter negotiations.

Vaughn, who has faced pressure to recuse himself, plans to vote in favor because he views the deal as important for his Broad Ripple district.

He acknowledges an appearance of a conflict of interest.

"But it's one that I've gone to great lengths to explain," he said.

He doesn't view his firm's association with ACS as violating the council's ethics rules. Those require recusal if a council member or a business in which he or she has an interest would directly benefit by more than $1,000.

The story omits reference to the item the Star stuck in its "Behind Closed Doors" column yesterday recounting Vaughn's removal of Republican Councilor Christine Scales from the Public Safety Committee last week after she sent an e-mail to her fellow Republican councilors urging the tabling of the controversial parking meter deal. Scales told me and Murray she believed Vaughn's actions were taken, in part, due to her opposition to the parking meter lease deal.

Star Makes Light Of Vaughn's Strong-Arming To Win Approval Of ACS Parking Meter Lease Deal For His Law Firm's Client

My how things have changed. Once upon a time the news media could be counted on to ferret out corruption of our politicians. Nowadays, they're in bed with them. The best case and point has been the Indianapolis Star's treatment of City-County Councilor Ryan Vaughn's active involvement in ramming through the Republican-controlled council a 50-year lease of the City's parking meter assets for the benefit of his law firm's client, ACS. This blog first broke the news that state lobbying records revealed Vaughn himself had been registered to lobby on behalf of the politically-connected company. After being questioned by other folks in the news media about it, Vaughn explained it was a simple error made by a paralegal at his law firm and assured the public he had never lobbied for ACS. Vaughn was hired to work as a full-time lobbyist for Barnes & Thornburg after Republicans took control of the council by Joe Loftus, who, along with the firm's managing partner, Bob Grand, handpicked most of the senior staff who went to work for Greg Ballard after his upset election in 2007, including Deputy Mayor Mike Huber, who is spearheading the ACS parking meter lease deal for Ballard.  The Star's executive editor, Dennis Ryerson, has dismissed any talk of their being anything nefarious with the deal as simply "noise" by a few in the blogosphere and apparently can find no ethics experts who think there is something a tad bit jaded about Vaughn participating in a decision that so obviously benefits his law firm's client. His newspaper is even downplaying Vaughn's heavy-handed tactics to win council approval of the deal.

Earlier last week, city beat reporter Jon Murray wrote a story about the tough sell the Ballard administration was enountering on the 50-year lease agreement with ACS, even after a bunch of window-dressing changes made to the agreement to make it appear more palpable. Murray specifically mentions an e-mail Christine Scales, who narrowly won her council seat against her Democratic opponent in 2007, sent to her fellow councilors urging them to table the controversial ACS deal.

At least one Democrat, Paul Bateman, said he plans to support it, but all GOP members may not fall in line behind Mayor Greg Ballard's controversial plan . . .

"I feel pretty good about (its chances)," said council President Ryan Vaughn, noting that significant changes announced by Ballard last month have addressed many council members' concerns . . .

One Republican, Christine Scales, sent an e-mail Tuesday urging her caucus's leaders to table the proposal, citing several concerns and saying the city hasn't fully considered alternatives.

By the time the Rules & Public Policy Committee took up the vote on the controversial parking meter deal later that day, word had leaked out Scales had been removed from her favorite committee assignment, the Public Safety Committee. I called Scales and she confirmed she had been removed from the committee. She said Councilor Mike McQuillen, who somehow ekes out a living trading political campaign buttons and is a stooge on the council for Vaughn, had informed her of the decision. When she wasn't satisfied with his explanation for the decision, she spoke directly to Vaughn, who admitted there had been some "communication issues" in the past that led to his decision to remove her from the committee. Scales made it clear to me she believed her e-mail urging the council to table the parking meter lease deal led to Vaughn's decision, although she conceded Vaughn had also expressed concern she was not being a team player on the Public Safety budget earlier. Scales was the only Republican councilor who asked tough questions of Public Safety Director Frank Straub during his budget hearing, including why he had spent money on redecorating his offices. Despite her reservations about Straub's spending priorities, she still voted for the budget in the end.

During my conversation with Scales, she also mentioned Vaughn had said he intended to split up the public safety committee's subject matter into two separate committees and there may be further reassignments after the first of the year. In today's "Behind Closed Doors" column, Murray includes an item discussing Scales' removal from the Public Safety Committee that downplays any role her opposition to the ACS deal had with Vaughn's decision:

Indianapolis City-County Council leaders shuffled committee assignments for some members last week, but one change stood out.


Christine Scales, a member of the Republican majority who has bucked her party on some key votes, didn't take the loss of her seat on the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee quietly. She received a new assignment to the Parks and Recreation Committee.

"If I don't fall in line with them, I get punished," Scales told us. "They know I'm passionate about public safety."

However, a couple of days later -- and after we asked council President Ryan Vaughn about the change -- Scales got back to us and said she now is promised a return to the public safety committee when the next round of assignments is made in January. By then, the council may consider splitting the committee into two, creating more spots.

Vaughn denied that Scales' voting history was the reason for the committee reassignment.


But she's gone against the party on some big votes, including twice on proposals involving the Capital Improvement Board, which oversees the city's sports and convention facilities. Those measures -- an increase in the county hotel tax last year and this year's CIB's budget, which included the second of three $10 million payments to the Indiana Pacers -- still passed 15-14 without her support.

Vaughn instead attributed the committee change to poor communication by Scales about her intentions on some recent issues and to other considerations, including figuring out assignments for new council members.

Her replacement on the public safety committee is Republican Aaron Freeman, who has experience as a former prosecutor and reserve officer.

Scales acknowledged she hadn't always communicated effectively about some issues, including concerns she had about next year's public safety budget, though she ended up supporting that budget in the committee's vote.

Scales says she still plans to vote against a proposed 50-year lease of the city's parking meters, which is on the council's agenda for Monday, unless changes are made.

Murray's item in the "Behind Close Doors" column makes no mention of Vaughn's conflict of interest pertaining to ACS. During his earlier reporting on my discovery state records had shown Vaughn was a registered lobbyist for ACS, Murray's account of what Vaughn had dismissed as "error" was trivialized by placement in the "Behind Closed Doors" column in a similar fashion. Whenever Ryerson has his reporters stick a news item in this column instead of a regular news report, it's his way of saying it's really not news, but to avoid the appearance of some we are ignoring real news we'll stick it in this column to provide a basis for saying the newspaper covered it when it is later criticized for failing to report something of significant news value.

As the item notes, Vaughn replaced Scales on the committee with Aaron Freeman, which comes as no surprise. Freeman, who was appointed to the council, is one of Vaughn's buddies from the corrupt Marion Co. Prosecutor's Office of Carl Brizzi where Vaughn was Brizzi's favorite pretty boy. The very first meeting following Scales' removal from the committee was to hear the IMPD report on the handling of the fatal DUI case of Officer David Bisard. Freeman, not surprisingly, had plenty of nice things to say about Straub's and the department's handling of the report, which obviously whitewashed Straub's and Ciesielski's indifference to the serious matter at hand because they were more consumed at the time trying to restore their public image and had instructed two high-ranking members of IMPD, Darryl Pierce and Ron Hicks, to return to IMPD headquarters from the Bisard "crime scene" to discuss the more important matter of restoring the public image of the Chief and Straub. Pierce and Hicks were later demoted. Ciesielski and Hicks pat themselves on the back for trying to restore public confidence in the much-maligned police department.

If Minneapolis Can Do It . . . .

The Marion Co. Association of Neighborhood Alliance (MCANA) has urged the Indianapolis City-County Council to reject Mayor Greg Ballard's plan to lease the City's parking meter assets to ACS for 50 years and instead modernize the parking meter system using current revenue sources. An analysis prepared by Pat Andrews of MCANA demonstrated the City could earn in excess of $300 million over the 50-year life of the proposed ACS by following this alternative path above what the ACS deal offers in returns. Others, including this blog, have explained how the City could easily implement the technology to switch to a modern parking system without turning control over to a private company like ACS. The Indianapolis Times blog picks up on a recent story in the Minneapolis Star- Tribune on that city's plan to install its own "smart" parking meter system:

Minneapolis began installing new "smart" multi-space parking meters in the Warehouse District this week, computerized machines that will allow you to pay with coins or by debit or credit card.


The 46 new meters, which will service 450 parking spaces, will begin operating later this month. The old meters will be removed, but the poles will remain, topped by a 30-inch sign that lists the parking space number and other information such as time limit and rush hours.

The city plans to replace all 6,800 metered spaces in Minneapolis by the end of 2012 with a combination of multi-meter and single-meter stations and single-space coin meters.

How do the new multi-meter stations work? There will be one station in the middle of the block on each side of the street. The station will list how long you can park. You type in your parking space number and the amount of time you'd like to park, and insert coins or debit card or credit card. You get a receipt.

What if you decide later you want to park longer? You can return to the meter and pay for more time, or go to any other pay station in the city and type in your space number, which will be listed on your receipt, and insert more coins or your debit or credit card. But you can't park longer than the time limit.

Soon, you may be able to add time using a cell phone, said Tim Drew, city traffic engineer.

Will parking rates go up? No, but it's easy enough for the city to reprogram meters to raise rates. The city can also change rates or time limits, depending on time or day, or raise the rates during events.

Any ecological benefits? The meters are solar powered. The city also plans to install bike racks on some of the old meter poles.

What if you don't speak English? The multi-station screen also has information in Spanish, French and German. If it can handle the translations within the limited screen space, the city hopes to replace the French and German with Hmong and Somali by next year.Are other cities doing this? Lots. St. Paul is experimenting now. Minneapolis experimented last year and picked three companies out of 16 that submitted proposals.

What happened Tuesday? Workers were drilling holes in the sidewalk and bolting down multi-space meters.

What about more meters? The city plans to install 200 multi-space stations next year for about 2,000 spaces and 200 more such stations in 2012. In parts of the city where there can be only a few parking spaces on a block, there will be single pay stations. In a few parts of the city where there is less parking, the meters will be replaced, but the new ones will still be fed only by coins.

What are some advantages for the city?It will use its Wi-Fi network to transmit data on parking meter usage in real time to traffic control agents. Because many people will use debit or credit cards, meters will have to be emptied less often.

What is this costing the city and why is it being done now? It will cost $6.6 million. The multi-space stations cost about $8,000 each, the single space stations $450 each, compared to current coin meters that run $500. The old meters, installed around 1992, are wearing out.

What is the advantage to the customer? No more hunting for quarters in the ashtray or under the seat.

What if you are technologically challenged and have trouble using a meter?The LED computer screen will walk you through the process. Or you can just take the bus.

The story indicates Minneapolis has nearly double the number of metered parking spaces as Indianapolis, but the modernization plan will only cost $6.6 million, which is well below the $8 to $10 million the Ballard administration claims ACS will have to invest to implement a similar system in Indianapolis, and which also includes a doubling of the parking meter rates unlike Minneapolis' new system. Of particular note is how green friendly the new system will be. According to the report, Minneapolis' system will be solar powered, and the city will install bike racks at the site of some of the former parking meter poles. All of the technological advantages the Ballard administration has boasted the ACS system will provide to users are available with Minneapolis' new system. The big difference is that Minneapolis is modernizing its system without giving up monopoly control to a politically-connected firm.
 
Republican councilors, except for Christine Scales, appear poised to vote in lockstep with the Ballard administration's plan to lease the parking meter assets to ACS, including President Ryan Vaughn, whose law firm lobbies for ACS, and Angel Rivera, whose employer is a subcontractor for ACS. The two see no conflict of interest in casting votes to benefit ACS at your expenses. Councilor Vaughn has gone to great pains to say how closely he has worked with his Broad Ripple constituents to make this plan more palpable from their standpoint, but he has never explained to them why the City simply cannot modernize the system without turning over control to his law firm's client for 50 years, or without raising rates so high. Vaughn also removed Councilor Scales from the Public Safety Committtee as retribution for her refusal to support the plan that benefits his client.

It has been estimated that the use of the smart parking meters increases parking meter revenues by at least 15% without even raising rates because of the convenience a swipe of the card versus feeding quarters into machines offers. A constituent of Councilor Ginny Cain says she is telling her constituents it's a "no-brainer" to support the ACS parking meter lease deal. Interestingly, when Bart Peterson was mayor, Cain voted against anything she viewed as a tax increase, including fee increases. Now it's a "no-brainer" to her to vote to double parking meter rates. Me thinks Councilor Cain speaks with forked tongue.
 
Folks, this is nothing but a corrupt insider deal concocted by people who are being paid to make money for ACS. How our Republican council has permitted itself to become co-opted by these self-serving individuals is very troubling to me as a life-long Republican and elected Republican precinct committeeperson. When I have to turn to Democratic councilors to find voices of reason and fiscal restraint, something is indeed wrong in Denmark.

UPDATE: Minneapolis actually chose three separate vendors through an RFP process to install and maintain its smark parking meters. Here's a PDF document that discusses it more fully. The city has had electronic meters since 1992 that allowed commuters to use smart cards to make payments. The new meters were deemed warranted because of the high failure rate and accompanying loss of revenues with the existing electronic meters. The new meters will allow payment by the smart cards, debit cards and cell phones. It's noteworthy that Minneapolis allowed 6 vendors to demonstrate their electronic meters in an initial stage of its RFP process before settlling on the 3 vendors it chose to install new meters. That's what you call real competition. It should also be pointed out that ACS was not among the six vendors chosen to participate in the demonstration phase or the final implementation.