What happens when it is cold and crappy out all day? I go sleuthing ever-deeper into the mess that is the Azbell Electronics no-bid $100,000.00 “Ferrari of A/V Systems”” debacle. And after 5 hours of digging, I found a few more HUGE nuggets….which will be posted later today.
Bottom line is this: in August 2014, Monica got three bids for an A/V system. I have found all three bids in the August 25, 2014 City Council packet – the winning bid from Broadcast Works is on pages 187 through 200. The Azbell and Whitlock bid sheets follow that one.
Broadcast Works even drew up a fancy little schematic…just like Azbell:
At some point between that day and March 13, 2017, Broadcast Works was dropped, Azbell was chosen, and the price zoomed from $34,000 (Broadcast Works original bid), past $43,000 (Azbell original bid) to $96,000 (Azbell final price which was NEVER BID). Somewhere in the council packets, the answer must lie.
So I thought of a new angle to pin down these slippery weasels: start by requesting and searching for every actual check that was written by the City during that time period (I have made a records request for copies of all checks).
The City is also required to post all these checks and they show up in the first packet to City Council every month. I still haven’t found a check written to Broadcast Works but I found a lot of other interesting things – more money wasted and more questions raised. The noose continues to tighten around the IT Department and some of their highly questionable purchases. Stay tuned…more to come today.