HOBOKEN -- In a letter published on the State of New Jersey website dated Feb. 1, the New Jersey State Comptroller's Office told Business Administrator Arch Liston that the state office is "unable to confirm whether the City's procurement of its professional service vendors was actually conducted through a 'fair and open' process." Mayor Dawn Zimmer also was a recipient of the letter, which was signed by Dorothy Donnelly, the Director of the Procurement Division.
In the letter, the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) questioned the city's awarding of contracts for professionals in 2008 and 2009 for Labor Counsel, Auditor, Risk Manager, and Planner.
"The city did not use a formal evaluation process in determining which vendor would be awarded the aforementioned contracts," the letter stated. "For example: (a) the city did not convene an evaluation committee to score the competing proposals; (b) although the city's RFQ stated selection criteria, the city did not document and resultant evaluations; (c) the city did not use any scoring sheets to document the scoring of the proposals; (d) the city officials involved in the award process were not provided with any instructions, guidelines or procedures to guide their award decisions; and (e) no written recommendations concerning which vendors should received the contracts were issued by City officials involved in the evaluation process."
The letter also states "the process used by the city lacked accountability and transparency."
The city is now required to: "(1) prepare a detailed Action Plan that addresses the steps that the City intends to address the issues identified in this letter and provide the Action Plan to OSC no later than March 1, 2011; (2) provide notice to OSC at least 30 days prior to the advertisement of any of the city's professional service contracts."
The full letter is available HERE.
For more, keep reading hudsonreporter.com. - Ray Smith
"Expecting her to re-do bidding policy as acting mayor under the chaos of the Cammarano exit and 3rd mayoral race would be fairly loopy, even for someone with a full set of Zimmer-hating merit badges."
And between your work at 411 and your easel work at city council meetings, you DO have the full set of I-Hate-Zimmer merit badges. Nevertheless, you know, and hope no one else comprehends, that this process wasn't triggered due to VMO practice under Zimmer.
It's unfortunate that the article left off that the state was satisfied with the institution of vendor scorecards 2 months after Zimmer removed the 'acting' tag from her title. It's not unfortunate but par for the course that you left it out of your write-up on 411. We expect slightly more from the Reporter. You guys at 411 met all 'expectations' though.
I'm fascinated to see what you boys will do when Mason & Giacci - at a minimum - are gone. And I'd bet one other member of the majority bites the dust as well. I'm retiring myself. I don't get paid. I get amused. And it will be a new and less interesting game then.
PS. Spinfotainme is good stuff. I also liked Infotarsky a while back. It's not that you don't have talent...
Zimmer is not my boss, she is my puppet and serves me and the people of Hoboken.
We like it like that.
Checkbook journalism meet Checkbook Mason, buyer of Hoboken elections and a City Council chair.
Not a word on the comments during the public portion on the money at the polls last November. Maybe the Hudson Reporter is doing a big expose and follow up on that.
Yeah right.
Have a great Holiday Weekend.
Zimmer was sworn in as Mayor in August of 2009 (not November, spinfotainme) and enjoyed the salary and power of that position from DAY 1. The State Comptroller's letter outlines how she's been directing hundreds of thousands of dollars to her selected contractors without a Fair and Open process.
If what Zimmer was doing wasn't wrong the state wouldn't be demanding she provide a detailed action plan to fix the ongoing problem by March 1st, 2011.
Oh, and thank you Hoboken Reporter from bringing this news to light. Below you can see how the Zimmer spin team bites down hard on those who dare to tell the truth.
But Ray might have included a few details which would not require a call to the mayor.
1) She was sworn in Nov 6 of 2009. Expecting her to re-do bidding policy as acting mayor under the chaos of the Cammarano exit and 3rd mayoral race would be fairly loopy, even for someone with a full set of Zimmer-hating merit badges.
2) The period in question is 2008/9, leaving the current mayor with about 2 months to account for.
3) The letter goes on to state that vendor scorecards were instituted January 2010.
And finally, I don't think hobokeneer mentioned a blog that he/she is intending to steer people toward. Try to tailor your replies to the post your reading vs using the same one for all occasions.
amazing that it didnt take zimmer apologists long for their rapid response, the release you refer to is a letter from the state, not a release by some politcal opponent of dawn, so you must be at a loss for words. my guess is ray got it and it wasnt all that easy to reach city hall late on saturday (in case you dont know) so he put up info about the STATE LETTER rather than withhold the information. i realize withholding info is big at city hall right njow, but luckily not with the press.
im sure ray will do his best to get your friend dawn's side up when he can. but why hasnt your blog published the letter yet? are you busy writing spin to go with it?