- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
- | single page
One of the Baltimore contracts that prompted an ethics review of City Council President Sheila Dixon was the subject of contentious hearings in 2004 and 2005 that involved accusations of bid steering.
That contract and others are expected to be on the agenda tonight as the city's Board of Ethics begins examining in closed session potential ethical lapses caused by Dixon's participation in contracts that benefited Union Technologies, the firm that employs her sister.
The ethics panel decided to begin the investigation in the wake of a Sun report two weeks ago on Dixon's actions involving the company at a City Council hearing and during meetings of Baltimore's Board of Estimates.
Dixon had said she abstained whenever Union Technologies had come before the city's spending board for contracts - as is required by the ethics law. But records indicate that Dixon voted three times on the only contract involving the company to come before the board in two years. And, from the start, the contract to provide support for the city's computer network was beset with problems.
The contract "didn't make any sense to me, and it wasn't in the city's best interest," said Robert Dashiell, a Baltimore attorney who represented CMC America, a firm that had lost the contract despite being low bidder. "I think it was fraught with irregularities."
When the contract first came up for a vote in July 2004, such concerns led the city's Board of Estimates to temporarily delay awarding it to the team involving the employer of the City Council president's sister, Janice Dixon.
At the meeting, city finance officials had recommended awarding the three-year deal to TeleCommunications Systems Inc. (TCS), whose $12.87 million bid was the highest of four bidders, according to records.
TCS, a publicly traded company based in Annapolis that had held the previous contract, listed Union Technologies and two other Baltimore-based minority-owned subcontractors as part of its bid team.
The three losing bidders protested. The lowest bidder - with a $9.3 million proposal - was Dashiell's client, CMC America, the U.S. division of a company from India. The other two losing offers were from Baltimore-based Bith Group, which bid $12.85 million and had been TCS' minority subcontractor in the previous contract; and Columbia-based Coleman & Associates, which had bid $12.6 million.
Dashiell and Bith Group President Robert L. Wallace accused officials of formulating a points system that was confusing and subjective and appeared to favor TCS, according to board records of the July 2004 hearing.
City officials never fully explained during the meeting how CMC's bid, which was $3.5 million less than the TCS proposal, could be rejected when the scoring showed minimal technical differences.
"Any way they could to augment or enhance the winner's numbers, they did it," Dashiell said in a recent interview. He said he did not know that Janice Dixon was employed by Union Technologies.
Transcripts of the hearing show that Bith Group's Wallace accused employees with the Mayor's Office of Information Technology of steering the contract to TCS - an allegation that Elliot H. Schlanger, the head of the agency, denied and Wallace could not support with evidence.
"This is a case study on a situation where a contract is being directed to a particular company," Wallace said at the hearing.
He said the mayor's information technology staff was telling TCS employees to "not worry about this contract."
"TCS sent an e-mail to the employees saying that unofficially [they] had been awarded the contract. Before the evaluation process was done," the transcript shows Wallace as saying. "So, there is enough smoke here."
"President Dixon," Wallace is quoted as saying, "I would not make such accusations if I were not confident that they were true."
Dixon demanded evidence and chastised Wallace for making such accusations, saying, according to transcripts, that she knew from experience what it was like to be the subject of inaccurate accusations.
At the time, the U.S. attorney's office was investigating City Council perks and nepotism. In November 2003, Dixon was forced to fire her sister Janice from the council president's payroll after the ethics board ruled that her employment violated ethics law. The federal investigation formally ended in March 2005 without any charges being filed.
That contract and others are expected to be on the agenda tonight as the city's Board of Ethics begins examining in closed session potential ethical lapses caused by Dixon's participation in contracts that benefited Union Technologies, the firm that employs her sister.
The ethics panel decided to begin the investigation in the wake of a Sun report two weeks ago on Dixon's actions involving the company at a City Council hearing and during meetings of Baltimore's Board of Estimates.
Dixon had said she abstained whenever Union Technologies had come before the city's spending board for contracts - as is required by the ethics law. But records indicate that Dixon voted three times on the only contract involving the company to come before the board in two years. And, from the start, the contract to provide support for the city's computer network was beset with problems.
The contract "didn't make any sense to me, and it wasn't in the city's best interest," said Robert Dashiell, a Baltimore attorney who represented CMC America, a firm that had lost the contract despite being low bidder. "I think it was fraught with irregularities."
When the contract first came up for a vote in July 2004, such concerns led the city's Board of Estimates to temporarily delay awarding it to the team involving the employer of the City Council president's sister, Janice Dixon.
At the meeting, city finance officials had recommended awarding the three-year deal to TeleCommunications Systems Inc. (TCS), whose $12.87 million bid was the highest of four bidders, according to records.
TCS, a publicly traded company based in Annapolis that had held the previous contract, listed Union Technologies and two other Baltimore-based minority-owned subcontractors as part of its bid team.
The three losing bidders protested. The lowest bidder - with a $9.3 million proposal - was Dashiell's client, CMC America, the U.S. division of a company from India. The other two losing offers were from Baltimore-based Bith Group, which bid $12.85 million and had been TCS' minority subcontractor in the previous contract; and Columbia-based Coleman & Associates, which had bid $12.6 million.
Dashiell and Bith Group President Robert L. Wallace accused officials of formulating a points system that was confusing and subjective and appeared to favor TCS, according to board records of the July 2004 hearing.
City officials never fully explained during the meeting how CMC's bid, which was $3.5 million less than the TCS proposal, could be rejected when the scoring showed minimal technical differences.
"Any way they could to augment or enhance the winner's numbers, they did it," Dashiell said in a recent interview. He said he did not know that Janice Dixon was employed by Union Technologies.
Transcripts of the hearing show that Bith Group's Wallace accused employees with the Mayor's Office of Information Technology of steering the contract to TCS - an allegation that Elliot H. Schlanger, the head of the agency, denied and Wallace could not support with evidence.
"This is a case study on a situation where a contract is being directed to a particular company," Wallace said at the hearing.
He said the mayor's information technology staff was telling TCS employees to "not worry about this contract."
"TCS sent an e-mail to the employees saying that unofficially [they] had been awarded the contract. Before the evaluation process was done," the transcript shows Wallace as saying. "So, there is enough smoke here."
"President Dixon," Wallace is quoted as saying, "I would not make such accusations if I were not confident that they were true."
Dixon demanded evidence and chastised Wallace for making such accusations, saying, according to transcripts, that she knew from experience what it was like to be the subject of inaccurate accusations.
At the time, the U.S. attorney's office was investigating City Council perks and nepotism. In November 2003, Dixon was forced to fire her sister Janice from the council president's payroll after the ethics board ruled that her employment violated ethics law. The federal investigation formally ended in March 2005 without any charges being filed.
