Co. Dems want investigation into $220M contract, GOP calls it "outrageous"

Posted at: 09/05/2012 6:01 PM | Updated at: 09/06/2012 8:01 AM
By: Berkeley Brean | WHEC.com

Monroe County Democrats want the District Attorney and the State Attorney General to investigate how a local company got a $220 million county contract.

The company is run by the county's former finance director, Steve Gleason. The Democrats point to a draft audit by the State Comptroller, Democrat Thomas DiNapoli, that looked into the county's use of local development corporations to run public safety communications.

The democrats are focused on one page of this draft.

Page nine.
 
That's where the draft audit suggests the awarding of this multi-million dollar contract was "rigged" as one county legislator put it.

A timeline shows the ultimate winner of the contract -- a company called Navitech (run by Gleason) -- got a draft copy of the request for proposal more than three months before the RFP was issued. Then the deadline to get an RFP submitted was only 41 days.

Navitech won the contract.

The audit calls it a "seriously flawed process" that gave Navitech an "unfair advantage." The Democrats words are a little tougher. They call it "rigged" and say there was a "conspiracy."

Paul Haney, (D) County Legislature:  "We're not talking about chump change here. This is not a contract for a few thousand dollars.  This is a $220 million contract with payments stretched out over the next 20 years."

Maggie Brooks, Monroe County Executive: "A lot of the information contained in this audit is factually incorrect and so it's hard to even address that. (The State Comptroller's office) can't talk about the merits."

Brooks says the merits is that using these development corporations -- or LDC's -- saves the county money on systems that they're required to operate. In this case -- it's the infrastructure to county emergency communication system.

District Attorney Sandra Doorley said in a statement that she understands the allegations but she can't make any decision before the final audit is out. The AG's office says it doesn't comment on stuff like this, which doesn't rule it out.

Click here to read page nine.

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