Well I have finally found the exact dates for our smoking gun. It was well-hidden deep in one of Monica’s monthly IT Department reports. Please turn your attention to City Council packets from January 23, 2017 page 80 and find the following from Monica’s report dated January 4th, 2017
Under “November and December projects” (in other words, this happened the previous month right at the end of 2016) it says: “Contacted A/V vendor to discuss upcoming A/V project at old city hall/new scope/proposal“
Then under “January projects” it says: “Obtain (3) quotes for old city hall A/V project”
In other words, somebody on City council or at City Hall decided the project wasn’t fancy enough in December of 2016 (“new scope”) and wanted a bunch more bells and whistles for Christmas. Monica was told to go obtain three NEW quotes…and Broadcast was clearly dumped right here. That is bad enough. But it gets worse….
So I went looking for these new quotes in the next few City Council packets. The next packet, from February 23rd, shows nothing. There are no monthly reports from the IT Department there nor does Finley mention anything.
The February 27th packet (page 100) shows more of the same – that her “February project” is to “obtain (3) quotes for old city hall A/V project“….as seen below:
There are no quotes in this packet. Nor are quotes ever mentioned again. The very next packet from March 13, 2017 starts talking about Azbell as if they have been there all along (pages 89-95 item 7.2)…to wit: “we have been working with Azbell Electronics on a concept and design for this project that will be brought to Council at a later date if Council so desires”
No mention of cost, of course. That shocker comes much later.
So…somebody at the end of 2016 decided “we want more bells and whistles! We want more TVs! We WANT MORE COW BELL!!” and told Monica to get three new quotes. Monica wrote this on her “to do” list several times. I doubt she just invented that out of whole cloth.
Then, just as suddenly, Azbell is decided upon and no quotes are gotten. Almost as if someone changed their mind and said “hey…don’t worry about it…I know a guy at Azbell who will set us up, man!”
If that IS how it went down, that would be very bad for that person. As we know from before this would be grounds for dismissal, according to the City Personnel Handbook:
2.07 Gifts and Gratuities: A city officer or employee may not accept any gift or free services from contractors, vendors, or other persons that might tend to influence his or her official actions or impair his or her independence or judgement in performance of duties for the city.
2.08 Conflict of Interest: A member of city council, the mayor, or an employee of the city shall neither have financial interests, direct or indirect, in any contract with the city, not be financially interested, directly or indirectly, in the sale to the city of any land, materials, supplies or service.
3.08 Employment of Relatives (Nepotism): Nepotism is the showing of favoritism toward a relative. The city forbids the practice of nepotism in hiring personnel or awarding contracts. A person who is related within the second degree by affinity (marriage) or within the third degree by consanguinity (blood, including adopted relatives) to any member of the city council or to the city manager may not be hired.