Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA) - Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Author: Martha Carr Staff writer
The third time’s the charm, as the saying goes.
That’s certainly the case with the well-connected trio of Jimmie Woods, Ray Valdes and Burnell Moliere, who for the past two years have been working to craft a new business venture.
It took members of the group, who have formed at least three separate corporations, awhile to land a deal.
But in late December, Community Based Corrections finally inked its first contract, with Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration to provide home monitoring for offenders found guilty in Municipal Court. Although the value of the contract depends on how many offenders are ordered to enroll, the one-year agreement has a cap of $3 million and can be renewed for up to five more years.
Valdes and Woods began their hunt for new public contracts in January 2003, when they incorporated a company called Educational Websites of America. The pair tried to persuade the Jefferson Parish public school system to sell advertisements on the district’s Web site. Under the proposal, the school system could keep 20 percent of the profits, with the remaining 80 percent going to the company.
The idea was quickly dashed by Superintendent Diane Roussel after she sought an opinion from the state attorney general’s office that suggested that by allowing ads on its Web site, the School Board could be creating a public forum. That would make it trickier for the board to restrict advertising on the site, possibly opening up the system to adult advertisements and other inappropriate messages.
So the pair moved on.
Valdes and Woods formed a second company, Nolada LLC, in April 2003, and this time included Moliere’s daughter, Shelley Rainey.
They approached Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan with the same idea that flunked with the Jefferson Parish school system, and they got as far as posting a district attorney’s Web site and selling a few ads.
But when the Web site became public in late January 2004, controversy engulfed Jordan, and the company dismantled the site a few days later.
A state attorney general’s opinion supported the venture in some respects, saying as long as the site was not the official Web site of the district attorney’s office, the owners could decide which ads to post. But the opinion also said there could be legal problems for Jordan if the Web site accepted ads from criminal defense attorneys or if he had to prosecute any of the advertisers.
The group said they hoped to gross $2 million in ad revenue per year, which would have meant $1.6 million in revenue for the company, or a whopping 80 percent piece of the pie.
Meanwhile, Valdes and Woods were already pursing a third venture. This time, with Moliere at the helm, the group had become exclusive agents for a Covington company called ShadowTrack Technologies, a voice-based home-incarceration tracking system. In February 2004, just days after nolada.com hit the skids, the group made a pitch at an en banc meeting of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court judges. They had been escorted there by their attorney, Marlin Gusman, who at the time was a New Orleans city councilman. Gusman has since been elected criminal sheriff.
Then last March, Nagin issued a request for proposals for an expansive, government-financed home incarceration system for suitable cases in Municipal and Magistrate courts. Community Based Corrections , despite being the most expensive and lowest-rated bidder, was selected by the mayor for the Municipal Court job, on the condition that the company bring down its prices.
The company did and is now fully engaged in the contract, which started Jan. 1.
Moliere said CBC is actively seeking contracts in other cities and states. He also indicated that he is still interested in working in Erie County, N.Y., despite controversy there about the company’s no-bid contract.
"We are proposing to several state and city governments," Moliere said. "I also plan to attend the National Conference of Black Mayors conference in April of this year in Columbus, Ohio, to further market CBC’s services."
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Price no object in N.O. car - removal - City appears to choose top-dollar contract
Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA) - Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Author: James Varney Staff writer
In seeking a contract to remove thousands of flooded and wrecked cars from New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin 's administration recommended that the city go with the highest quoted price for the job, a review of the 14 proposals submitted last year shows.
It appears the chosen proposal, a $1,000-per- car bid from Colorado-based CH2M Hill, was nearly triple the cost of at least three other bids, records show. The gap between CH2M Hill and the other companies cannot be precisely ascertained, because not every proposal included a price, and some of those that did listed tasks that others did not.
It is clear, however, that CH2M Hill's price has remained relatively constant, because administrators confirmed last week that the contract still being finalized would cost approximately $23 million and the number of uninsured junkers still clogging city streets is between 20,000 and 25,000.
That contrasts with $350 per car , the "firm, fixed price," offered by a consortium led by the Shaw Group, which a five-person review committee ranked as the second-best bid, just two points behind CH2M Hill, according to the committee's scoring sheet.
At least two other offers, from Contingency Management Solutions of Metairie and from MWH Global of Denver, were in the same ballpark as Shaw's, records show.
The contract for removing "abandoned and damaged vehicles" is a professional services one, meaning the mayor is not required by law to select the lowest bidder. On the other hand, price was supposed to figure as 20 percent of each proposal's grade, but the committee gave almost every submission the full 20 points in that category, meaning no advantage accrued to the cheaper submissions.
Jack Dupree, president of Southern Scrap Materials Co., which partnered with Shaw, said those curious figures are a warning sign that the contract doesn't pass the smell test.
"Something's not adding up here," he said. "I've never seen so little transparency in a deal, and it's a mystery why, if you've got a price and picked a winner, nothing has been signed. Why haven't they done it at the price CH2M Hill said they could do it for?"
Controversy has begun to swirl around the issue almost seven months after Katrina made thousands of water-stained, abandoned cars as much a symbol of the city's streets as potholes were before the storm. Queries first arose after revelations that a Texas car -crushing company had offered, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, to pay the city $100 per junked car . The bid, made informally by K&L Auto Crushers at one of Nagin 's town hall meetings, still stands, although the terms would have to be renegotiated, K&L's Dan Simpson said last week.
Making money
A rarely invoked city ordinance could also pave the way for the rapid and potentially lucrative removal of the vehicular blight, according to some legal experts.
At the original price and with the original estimate of 30,000 flooded cars , K&L's offer would have netted the cash-starved city $3 million. In contrast, the city is proceeding with the CH2M Hill deal, which includes towing, cataloging and storing the cars at an estimated cost of about $23 million, administrators said.
Thus, even at somewhat lower rates, the city would have taken in more than $3 million if it went with K&L or one of the other car -crushing companies that have proposed similar arrangements, according to the State Police.
Meanwhile, as some national conservative pundits pounded Nagin on the topic this week, the administration appeared to circle its wagons. Neither the mayor nor his staffers have answered questions about the car - removal contract in the past few days.
In the face of the Nagin administration's silence, New Orleans City Council members questioned the deal, with some of them saying a costly arrangement makes no sense if feasible money-making ideas are on the table.
"It seems to me it would have made sense to investigate this," said Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt. "If someone was willing to pay us money, why wouldn't we want to do that and save money, too?"
Gill Pratt said she plans to raise the issue at the council's budget committee meeting Thursday.
Slow pace?
Council members also expressed frustration at the protracted pace of events. In an interview last week before the car -crushing offers and proposal discrepancies made headlines, Parking Administrator Richard Boseman estimated it could be another six months from the time the deal is signed before the cleanup is finished, though he held out hope it could be quicker. Either way, it's been too long, Councilman Jay Batt argued.
"To take six more months at least, when maybe we could have the cars off the street right now? That's just ridiculous," he said.
Batt said he's not sure the car -crusher options are solid, given they have been presented informally. Nevertheless, if the Nagin administration were less secretive about its contracting practices, some of this embarrassment might have been avoided, Batt said.
"The mayor is tweaking his contracts while the streets look terrible," he said.
Such comments suggest the pending contract with CH2M Hill, whose press office has also not responded to phone calls, is poised to become another contentious issue between a council and an administration already at odds on a host of post-Katrina spending matters.
More spending matters could arise when the second half of the car job is being considered.
In the short term, the city is simply inking a deal with CH2M Hill to cart off the cars and warehouse them. Future work, on the other hand, will involve a second contract that includes the remediation and recycling of environmentally hazardous materials and then the scrapping of the cars . In theory, the city could make some money back at that point, but the outline of that contract hasn't even been sketched out yet, let alone advertised, officials said.
The holdups on the current contract remain maddeningly vague to some players such as Dupree of Southern Scrap. City officials said they are simply awaiting the green light from FEMA, which could reimburse the city 100 percent of the costs if it approves the contract. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it is waiting on paperwork from the city.
Dupree accused the city of shifting the scope of the work and blamed some of the delays on those constant changes.
"The scope of this thing has been changed by the city four or five times already," he said. "This whole thing should be much further along, and we're severely frustrated by what's happened."
Author: James Varney Staff writer
In seeking a contract to remove thousands of flooded and wrecked cars from New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin 's administration recommended that the city go with the highest quoted price for the job, a review of the 14 proposals submitted last year shows.
It appears the chosen proposal, a $1,000-per- car bid from Colorado-based CH2M Hill, was nearly triple the cost of at least three other bids, records show. The gap between CH2M Hill and the other companies cannot be precisely ascertained, because not every proposal included a price, and some of those that did listed tasks that others did not.
It is clear, however, that CH2M Hill's price has remained relatively constant, because administrators confirmed last week that the contract still being finalized would cost approximately $23 million and the number of uninsured junkers still clogging city streets is between 20,000 and 25,000.
That contrasts with $350 per car , the "firm, fixed price," offered by a consortium led by the Shaw Group, which a five-person review committee ranked as the second-best bid, just two points behind CH2M Hill, according to the committee's scoring sheet.
At least two other offers, from Contingency Management Solutions of Metairie and from MWH Global of Denver, were in the same ballpark as Shaw's, records show.
The contract for removing "abandoned and damaged vehicles" is a professional services one, meaning the mayor is not required by law to select the lowest bidder. On the other hand, price was supposed to figure as 20 percent of each proposal's grade, but the committee gave almost every submission the full 20 points in that category, meaning no advantage accrued to the cheaper submissions.
Jack Dupree, president of Southern Scrap Materials Co., which partnered with Shaw, said those curious figures are a warning sign that the contract doesn't pass the smell test.
"Something's not adding up here," he said. "I've never seen so little transparency in a deal, and it's a mystery why, if you've got a price and picked a winner, nothing has been signed. Why haven't they done it at the price CH2M Hill said they could do it for?"
Controversy has begun to swirl around the issue almost seven months after Katrina made thousands of water-stained, abandoned cars as much a symbol of the city's streets as potholes were before the storm. Queries first arose after revelations that a Texas car -crushing company had offered, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, to pay the city $100 per junked car . The bid, made informally by K&L Auto Crushers at one of Nagin 's town hall meetings, still stands, although the terms would have to be renegotiated, K&L's Dan Simpson said last week.
Making money
A rarely invoked city ordinance could also pave the way for the rapid and potentially lucrative removal of the vehicular blight, according to some legal experts.
At the original price and with the original estimate of 30,000 flooded cars , K&L's offer would have netted the cash-starved city $3 million. In contrast, the city is proceeding with the CH2M Hill deal, which includes towing, cataloging and storing the cars at an estimated cost of about $23 million, administrators said.
Thus, even at somewhat lower rates, the city would have taken in more than $3 million if it went with K&L or one of the other car -crushing companies that have proposed similar arrangements, according to the State Police.
Meanwhile, as some national conservative pundits pounded Nagin on the topic this week, the administration appeared to circle its wagons. Neither the mayor nor his staffers have answered questions about the car - removal contract in the past few days.
In the face of the Nagin administration's silence, New Orleans City Council members questioned the deal, with some of them saying a costly arrangement makes no sense if feasible money-making ideas are on the table.
"It seems to me it would have made sense to investigate this," said Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt. "If someone was willing to pay us money, why wouldn't we want to do that and save money, too?"
Gill Pratt said she plans to raise the issue at the council's budget committee meeting Thursday.
Slow pace?
Council members also expressed frustration at the protracted pace of events. In an interview last week before the car -crushing offers and proposal discrepancies made headlines, Parking Administrator Richard Boseman estimated it could be another six months from the time the deal is signed before the cleanup is finished, though he held out hope it could be quicker. Either way, it's been too long, Councilman Jay Batt argued.
"To take six more months at least, when maybe we could have the cars off the street right now? That's just ridiculous," he said.
Batt said he's not sure the car -crusher options are solid, given they have been presented informally. Nevertheless, if the Nagin administration were less secretive about its contracting practices, some of this embarrassment might have been avoided, Batt said.
"The mayor is tweaking his contracts while the streets look terrible," he said.
Such comments suggest the pending contract with CH2M Hill, whose press office has also not responded to phone calls, is poised to become another contentious issue between a council and an administration already at odds on a host of post-Katrina spending matters.
More spending matters could arise when the second half of the car job is being considered.
In the short term, the city is simply inking a deal with CH2M Hill to cart off the cars and warehouse them. Future work, on the other hand, will involve a second contract that includes the remediation and recycling of environmentally hazardous materials and then the scrapping of the cars . In theory, the city could make some money back at that point, but the outline of that contract hasn't even been sketched out yet, let alone advertised, officials said.
The holdups on the current contract remain maddeningly vague to some players such as Dupree of Southern Scrap. City officials said they are simply awaiting the green light from FEMA, which could reimburse the city 100 percent of the costs if it approves the contract. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it is waiting on paperwork from the city.
Dupree accused the city of shifting the scope of the work and blamed some of the delays on those constant changes.
"The scope of this thing has been changed by the city four or five times already," he said. "This whole thing should be much further along, and we're severely frustrated by what's happened."
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