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Doesn't this mean the government of Maricopa County is corrupt???
Maricopa County has experts in procurement (of freebies, that is) Give the fine folks over at Maricopa County some credit. When it comes to procurement, the people charged with doling out and monitoring county contracts are unparalleled experts. Tickets to see Celine Dion and Cirque de Soleil and other such marquee events from the cozy (and always-catered) confines of a luxury suite. Seats at Suns and Coyotes games and a Diamondbacks patio party and a coveted invite to the luxury box on the 16th hole at the Phoenix Open. Free golf and free lunch and a fishing trip to British Columbia. These people have been slurping up so many freebies, you’d think they were members of the Arizona Legislature. The difference, of course, is that Arizona legislators don’t get in trouble when they’re caught. After reading the report on how things work in the county’s Facilities Management division, I’m thinking maybe Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his sidekick, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, were onto something with all their talk of county corruption. Eleven county employees have now been put on paid leave, the result of an internal investigation that started when one of the workers began having second thoughts about taking freebies after seeing so many of his concert-going colleagues in the skybox of a company that makes millions off of its county contracts. Meanwhile, Assistant City Manager Kenny Harris, who oversees Facilities, was fired this week. Though Harris was reportedly fired over an unrelated matter, the investigation found that he played in several golf tournaments as the guest of county vendors, including both the project manager and the builder of the county’s $340 million court tower – a construction project that he was supervising. Yeah, that would be the court tower construction project that Arpaio and Thomas were nosing around. The investigative report outlines a culture in which freebies were routinely handed out to county employees who thought nothing of settling themselves into the luxury suites of the companies whose contracts they played a role in overseeing. The king of the freebies was Dick Carr, who manages county construction projects. According to the report, Carr was treated to roughly 20 concerts over three years and a $4,000 trip in which he was helicoptered in to British Columbia, courtesy of a vendor. No doubt, he was the biggest catch of the trip. Carr also got his son a job with another company that does millions of dollars worth of business with the county and he invited that company, Evans Overhead Door, to attend a county meeting held to define the scope of a garage project about to go out to bid. Then there is Lynda Cull, a procurement officer who told the investigator that it would be wrong to accept tickets directly from a vendor. So instead, she accepted tickets from Carr who in turn got them from his by-then employed son who got them from his employer. Thus, it was OK sit in the vendor’s luxury box, enjoying a free concert and catered food and drink. “She feels the tickets changed hands so many times before reaching her that no obligation could be implied,” the report said. “She has no idea, however, whether she was targeted for the receipt of tickets because of her position.” With her keen reasoning skills, I’m thinking Ms. Cull would make an excellent legislator. She does, after all, have time on her hands now. Carr, Cull and nine others have been put on leave, where they will be paid to sit home for the next few months -- or longer --while the county figures out whether accepting freebies in violation of both county policy and state law is reason enough to fire or suspend their sorry carcasses. If that sounds implausible, consider that the Legislature convenes next month with all of our resident Fiesta Bowl junketeers (all, that is, except Russell Pearce), ready to enact a few hundred more laws for the rest of us to follow. Just don’t look for the free-lunch crowd to cut off the gravy train. Oh, they’ll add a few more bells and whistles to make a gravy train instead look like a work horse. But it’ll still be ladling out the good stuff. What they should do is simply to outlaw all gifts to public employees. Period. Nobody would be happier than the lobbyists, who tell me they are routinely hit up for freebies. At the Capitol and, apparently, at the county. Where just a few months ago, we were scoffing at the idea of corruption. |