14 September 2010

News and views roundup (09/14/10 edition)

HERE'S a fresh dose of news and views. Please discuss!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/14/10 07:59 AM |

12 September 2010

Weekend news and views roundup (09/12/10 edition)

HERE are a few news items that popped up over the weekend:

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/12/10 08:20 PM |

More on the FTA's investigative report on METRO's CAF procurement fiasco (updated)

WE finally had some time this weekend carefully to examine the FTA's detailed, 38-page report on METRO's "Buy America" violations and irregular procurement practices.

We thought that media coverage of the FTA announcement had been fairly critical, but the report itself is even more damning of METRO's procurement mess. Here are the major findings:

We have found three substantial violations of FTA's Buy America and procurement rules:

a. METRO and CAF violated FTA's Buy America requirements. This began with METRO's release of a Request for Proposals (RFP) that stated FTA's Buy America requirements did not apply to the procurement~ continued with METRO's unsupported evaluation of the various offeror's Buy America compliance, including the Certificate of Compliance submitted by CAF; and culminated with METRO's decision not to require CAF to meet its contractually mandated Buy America obligations and to circumvent the Buy America requirements by entering into a separate, locally funded contract with CAF for the pilot vehicles;

b. METRO violated FTA's competitive procurement rules when it chose to negotiate with one of the offerors, CAF, to the exclusion of all other offerors, and allowed that offeror to continue revising its price while refusing to allow other offerors the opportunity to present their Best and Final Offers (BAFOs); and

c. METRO’s LRV procurement was flawed due to the sum of many failures, including the lack of an adequate procurement plan, the lack of an adequate source selection evaluation plan, METRO’s failure to disclose all evaluation factors in the solicitation, METRO’s failure to inform potential offerors of the relative importance of those factors that were disclosed in the evaluation, METRO’s use of undisclosed changes in evaluation factors, and METRO’s failure to perform a complete best value analysis.

In addition to being violations of the law, these findings describe an unfair procurement. METRO’s actions resulted in less than full and open competition for a several-hundred-million-dollar LRV contract.

As the heavily footnoted (nearly 200 footnotes total!) document makes clear, METRO's procurement practices with regard to CAF were deceptive, unfair, and illegal. The criticism is not directed at Frank Wilson exclusively (although his directives are cited in several spots); indeed, METRO staff, many of whom are presumably still employed by the agency, are referenced frequently, which raises the question of what policies George Greanias and the new METRO board have implemented to ensure that this sort of procurement fiasco does not occur again.

Incidentally, Frank Wilson's trip to Spain in 2009 got a bit of attention in the report (footnote 148):

Apparently, further negotiations with CAF were needed even after the METRO Board’s authorization. On March 25, 2009, METRO President and CEO Frank Wilson travelled to Seville, Bilboa and Madrid to “visit CAF Manufacturing Facility.” The documents do not further describe the activities of the trip. Metropolitan Transit Authority Expense Report for Frank Wilson. It is unclear why a visit to CAF’s rail car manufacturing facility was needed after the procurement had concluded, especially since METRO staff had visited the facility in November 2007 during Step-1 of the procurement.

The Wolff-commissioned sham "investigation" also never got to the bottom of the purpose of Wilson's trip. We're sure CAF made sure it was *ahem* a relaxing getaway for their guy, though.

Be sure and read the entire FTA report on the procurement fiasco.

UPDATE: In late August, Paul Knight posted about some of the email exchanges by METRO officials that basically amounted to collusion in the flawed (and, as it turns out, illegal) procurement practices with CAF. Those emails are cited in the FTA report. While Frank Wilson may be gone, most of those players remain with METRO today, hence our concern above about what steps METRO has taken to clean up the procurement procedures. Indeed, given the facts that some of these players are still in place, that the "new METRO" will apparently require an Executive VP of operations who actually knows something about transit operations, and that the most likely person to fill that slot is John Sedlak (a participant in the emails described by Knight), the need for METRO to clean up and make transparent its procurement process is even more pressing.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/12/10 08:02 PM |

10 September 2010

News and views roundup (09/10/10 edition)

HAPPY FRIDAY everyone! Here's today's morning news roundup:

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/10/10 07:48 AM |

09 September 2010

News and views roundup (09/09/10 edition)

Here are today's morning tidbits:

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/09/10 07:52 AM |

08 September 2010

FTA blasts White/Wilson/Wolff-era METRO procurement practices

FRANK "PROCUREMENT DISASTER" WILSON's legacy as the METRO chief during Bill White's tenure as mayor took another blow today, as the FTA blasted the "old" METRO's efforts to subvert "buy America" rules in signing a rail-car deal with a favored contractor. Here are various accounts of the news:

Perhaps if Mr. Wilson had been vetted just a little bit more before he was hired, this setback to METRO and area transit users could have been avoided. Two big procurement screwups in his last two transit posts are not glittering résumé items. But, he's probably enjoying the generous payoff he got upon his departure from METRO.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/08/10 10:47 PM |

News and views roundup (09/08/10 edition)

As the Hermine rains move on, reporters will be returning to actual news beats (we hope). In the meantime, here are some morning tidbits from another slow news cycle:

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/08/10 10:05 AM |

07 September 2010

News and views roundup (09/07/10 edition)

THE LONG HOLIDAY WEEKEND combined with a minor storm event (rain! quick, deploy all reporters to stand out in the water!) means there's not much hard news to start the work week, but here's a little lunchtime reading:

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/07/10 12:44 PM |

06 September 2010

News roundup (Labor Day Weekend 2010 edition)

Here's hoping everyone had a GREAT Labor Day weekend. Here are some news items that caught our eye over the last few days (and a link/commentary format that we may continue to use, depending on mood).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/06/10 08:33 PM |

03 September 2010

KHOU: METRO navigates bond/funding roadblock with TX AG

KHOU-11'S MARK GREENBLATT checks in with the "New METRO" leadership on the Old METRO's questionable approach to financing its expensive light-rail buildout.

That story follows the New METRO's self-congratulatory press conference that was called earlier this week, apparently so that George Greanias could audition as the preferred candidate for the permanent job (with the reorganizational caveat that an Executive Vice President/Chief Administrative Officer who actually knows something about transit operations will be designated to.... babysit actual operations; see the slide deck, page 26. We saw no discussion of this position in local media).

Mayor Annise Parker must be pleased at the former politician's efforts to clean up METRO's terrible image so far, but the question remains whether those political skills will translate into a more effective transit agency.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/03/10 08:15 AM |

02 September 2010

Update on the dueling vote fraud press conferences

THE CHRON'S CHRIS MORAN reports on the dueling press conferences held last week by Houston Votes, a Democratic-dominated get-out-the-vote nonprofit*, and True the Vote, a voting integrity project of a local Tea Party organization. Bottom line: Nothing all that newsworthy emerged from either press conference.

Indeed, the most damning data points in the story emerged on the day the story originally broke: The documents posted by voter registrar Leo Vasquez in support of his criticism of the Houston Votes registration efforts, and the admission by Sean Caddle (the lead "organizer" of the registration effort) when presented with some of the documents in question that yes, it does look like voter fraud (about 1:20 or so into this video).

The predictable hyperventilating about racism, voter suppression, and partisanship (!) from various Dem partybloggers in town has been more entertaining than the subsequent press conferences. By far!

BLOGVERSATION: Harris County Almanac.

* Readers of John Thornton's Texas Tribune would surely be shocked at that description, given that publication's previous cheerleading for the group and subsequent silence (UPDATE: Moran's story actually made their "brief" today. Still no update of their own on Houston Votes, however).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/02/10 09:00 AM |

31 August 2010

The Sports Authority is broke (cont'd)

THE BOND BUYER trade publication has an update on the Sports Authority's debt problems: Texas Sports Agency Flirting With Default.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/31/10 08:20 AM |

30 August 2010

METRO is broke (cont'd)

NEARLY TWO WEEKS after the Examiner's Michael Reed reported on METRO's deteriorating financial situation after analyzing June/July 2010 financial information, METRO's PR wing at the Chronicle concedes today that METRO's (and, by extension, the Chron's) previously "sunny outlook" has now been "replaced by warnings of fragile finances."

Last Friday, Paul Knight revisited one aspect of METRO's financial mismanagement under the Bill White era management team: The questionable process by which Frank Wilson consummated a $118 million deal with Spanish rail-car vendor CAF.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/30/10 07:50 AM |

27 August 2010

Competing press conferences scheduled on voter fraud revelations

FOLLOWING ON THE ALLEGATIONS OF VOTER FRAUD from Harris County officials on Tuesday, two related press conferences are scheduled today.

Houston Votes has finally scheduled a press conference. Preliminary indications suggest the press conference will consist of accusations "of partisanship against Republicans from a group that claims to be 'non-partisan.'" Their presser will take place at 10:30 am at 715 Franklin.

King Street Patriots/True the Vote, the organization that called attention to the irregularities in the applications submitted by Houston Votes, has called a press conference of their own, apparently in response. Their presser will take place at 11:00 am at 220 Main St.

Since we know journos occasionally read the blog, here's your chance to help 'em out: What questions would YOU like them to ask these organizations?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/27/10 07:59 AM |

26 August 2010

Moody's further downgrades Sport Authority's junk-bond debt

TOM KIRKENDALL notes that Moody's has further downgraded the junk-bond debt of the Houston Sports Authority:

“Moody’s believes the liquidity reserves are sufficient to cover the November 2010 payment, but their depletion may result in a payment default from pledged revenues as early as March of 2011,” the report said.

[snip]

J. Kent Friedman, board chairman for the Sports Authority, downplayed the report.

Of course he did.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/26/10 10:27 PM |

King on the absurdity of MORE at-grade tram service

IN HIS LATEST OP-ED, BILL KING asks a question that will be familiar to our readers:

If nearly every other major city has decided not to build their rail systems in the middle of their streets, why are we?

Indeed.

King doesn't have space even to get into the traffic jams that will result from METRO's at-grade tram plans for the Galleria and Downtown, which we also have discussed.

UPDATE: It is worth linking to this presentation King put together on problems with METRO's LRT plans.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/26/10 08:24 AM |

Dolcefino: CM Johnson solicits for charity, pockets cash from charity

KTRK-13 UNDERCOVER MAN WAYNE DOLCEFINO is back with another look at Councilmember Jarvis Johnson.

It seems Councilmember Johnson has been soliciting city contractors for donations to a favored charity. Interestingly, as Dolcefino reports, Councilmember Johnson received over $50,000 from that charity for consulting last year.

Councilmember Johnson still isn't talking to the Undercover Man on camera. And for whatever reason, KTRK-13 is making it very difficult to find the Undercover Man's stories on their website/RSS feed of late.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/26/10 08:16 AM |

Is "melted brain" protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act?

THE CHRON EDITORIAL BOARD has finally penned a lede with which we agree completely:

Here in the depths of a Houston August, we sometimes suspect that the heat has melted our brain.

We frequently have that feeling when reading these sorts of editorials and wondering how they ever made it into a major American newspaper.

Since they admit to a brain disorder, there's really no reason the management shouldn't reclaim the column space/resources and redirect them to local news coverage.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/26/10 08:04 AM |

25 August 2010

An IAH data point in the TSA's ongoing Security Theater

BH FAV TOM KIRKENDALL frequently comments on the TSA's Security Theater, the agency's intrusive, inconvenient, and sometimes ineffectual rituals designed to make someone (Pols? Largely unskilled screeners? Travelers? It's really not clear) feel better about air travel.

This post from frequent-flyer forum FlyerTalk, in which a traveler was apparently detained and his photographic equipment confiscated by overly zealous TSA and HPD officers at Bush Intercontinental Airport, is yet another data point in the ongoing absurdity that is TSA Security Theater.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/25/10 10:40 PM |

Hair Balls on Dr. Michael Brown, wife-abuser and Houston celebrity!

HAIR BALLS posts about the arrest of Dr. Michael "Hand Center" Brown, who seems to have had some serious issues with spousal abuse over the years.

As Hair Balls notes, however, that's not been a disqualifier for fabulous treatment from Houston society writer Shelby Hodge.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/25/10 10:11 PM |

[Previous 20 Entries] [Next 20 Entries]

 SITE MENU

+Home
+About
+Archives
+BH Commentary (RSS)
+Bloggers
+Blogroll
+Contact Us
+Forum
+Local News Headlines
+Syndication
+Twitter