Mar 17 10
March Madness: Bracket, First Draft
Here’s the first draft of my NCAA bracket. I’m not really sure about this championship match-up…
Mar 7 10
The Oscars
8:31: The nominees for Best Actress and Best Actor are introduced on stage, followed by no, not the hosts, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, but the host of the most recent Emmy telecast, Neil Patrick Harris! Harris, the star of “How I Met Your Mother,” lends talent the others lack — singing — with a song about the co-hosts not being able to work alone. Martin and Baldwin sail in from the rafters. Hilarity ensues!
8:36: Teleprompter joke! Martin: “There’s that Damn Helen Mirren.” Baldwin: “That’s Dame Helen Mirren.”
8:40: James Cameron’s wife looks like Stan Winston creation.
8:41: Roommate Andy Staub comments on a cutaway of “The Hurt Locker” director Kathryn Bigelow: “Do you know what a plot is?!” In her defense, she doesn’t look like a Stan Winston creation.
8:43: Jeff Bridges must have been hanging out with Woody Harrelson before the show.
8:44: First award of the night. Penelope Cruz, last year’s Best Supporting Actress, is out to present Best Supporting Actor.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds.”
And deservingly so. Waltz won all the major awards coming in, and gave one of the great performances ever as the Jew-hunting Nazi officer Hans Landa.
8:55: Jimmy Kimmel in bed with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner (in a promo for his post-Oscar special), now that’s a threesome!
8:58: That “Up” guy really does look like Joe Paterno. On that note, “Up” wins Best Animated Feature.
9:00: I hate it when they present the awards in this non-linear order… Supporting Actor, Animated Feature, Original Song… It’s much more efficient when they go Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, etc.
There’s 10 films nominated for Best Picture. Do we realllly need a clip from each one? That’d lop off at least 10-20 minutes off this sucker.
9:13: Original Screenplay. If “Inglourious Basterds” doesn’t win, there is no justice in… well, it’ll just not be very good.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Mark Boal, “The Hurt Locker.”
That’s right, an Oscar for a screenplay without a plot. Because rewriting history and World War II (ahem, “Inglourious Basterds”) that’s not original or anything… nah.
9:18: Molly Ringworm is relevant again, thanks to John Hughes’ death.
9:28: It’s time for the short-film categories… Presenter Carey Mulligan’s line about filmmakers taking the “short route” to success made me think of Martin Scorsese.
Documentary (Short Subject): “Music by Prudence” Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
The real “Prudence” is in some sort of contraption, so of course she’s gonna win.
9:38: Ben Stiller has arrived, dressed as an Avatard and speaking Na’vi. Funny bit that goes off the rails when the fishing pole that had been controlling his “tail” flies onto the stage.
9:48: Stop with the dictionary definitions for your category introductions, Oscar writers!
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: “Precious.” Boooo, from the “Up in the Air” camp. The writer, Geoffrey Fletcher, didn’t know what to say in his acceptance speech. Ironic. Either that, or he’s nervous because he knows he just stole an Oscar from Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner.
9:56: Another “Precious” moment? Here’s the award for Best Supporting Actress, preceded by a “ball” joke from Robin Williams. Mo Vaughn is the big favorite, but Anna Kendrick was reallly good in “Up in the Air.”
Mo Vaughn wins!
Costume Design winner, Sandy Powell, says she’s feeling a bit greedy after winning third Oscar. “Then give it back, ya bitch!”
10:18: Oscars musical director Mark Shaiman wrote “Blame Canada,” from “South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.” Excellent choice.
10:19: Was that a cough from Kristen Stewart, or foreshadowing? If this were a movie, she’d be dead by the end of the show.
10:25: Christopher Walken wins for Best Sound Editing! Actually, no. It’s Paul N.J. Ottosson for “The Hurt Locker.” Great sound, no plot. Update: he also wins for Sound Mixing.
10:28: Let’s tell it like it is, the Sci-Tech Awards was a night for nerds.
10:35: Mauro Fiore wins Best Cinematography for “Avatar.” Did he really have anything to shoot tho? Wasn’t it all CGI? Also, with a name like Mauro Fiore, would’ve expected an accent. A Na’vi accent. But no. He’s an American.
10:40: In Memoriam time. Demi Moore presents: “This is the time we pause to celebrate life” and death.
James Taylor sings “In My Life.” After that stirring performance, would it be wrong to shout out, “encore!”?
10:48: No one needs interpretative dance to the score of “The Hurt Locker” unless it involves a dancer getting his limb blown off.
10:54: Gerard Butler and Bradley Cooper out to present a visual effects award. Aren’t they like the same person?
10:59: That “Modern Family” promo might have been the funniest thing on this Oscars telecast.
11:08: The film editing Oscar goes to Bob Murawski and Chris Innis, of “The Hurt Locker.” Too bad they didn’t edit in a plot.
Andy: “Sean Penn? I thought he’d be in jail.”
11:15: Quintin Tarantino might have joined Jeff Bridges and Woody Harrelson for that pre-show toke. And some munchies.
Foreign Film: “The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)” Argentina
I picked “The White Ribbon” Germany based on a “should win/will win” recommendation from USA Today.
Damn you, USA Today!
11:25: Best Actor time. In a rehash from last year, various former winners, nominees and co-stars come out to pay tribute to the nominees. Michelle Pfeiffer seemingly takes up all allotted time gushing over Jeff Bridges.
11:29: Tim Robbins looks like he’s puffed up since he and Susan Saranwrap parted ways.
11:32: Jeff Bridges, Best Actor. Yeah, that was a surprise. He’s got to be high. So high. And possibly drunk. Probably.
11:39: Best Actress time, who will it be? Bullock? Streep? The left tackle from the Detroit Lions?
11:49: Sandra Bullock wins, reacts quietly, turns to Streep, who urges her to get on stage.
11:52: Barbra Streisand can’t get down the fucking stairs.
“The time has come,” she says… to reward Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director… for a movie with no plot!
11:59: The biggest award gets the most anti-climactic presentation. Tom Hanks comes out, gives a couple lines about the last time 10 films were nominated, then opens the envelope and announces that the mediocre movie with no plot is the best picture. God fucking damn you, Academy.
“The Hurt Locker,” the gritty, low-budget film about an elite Iraq War bomb-disposal unit, has rocketed to the top of the Oscar “will win/should win” lists with a slew of wins at the Independent Spirit Awards and a week of favorable press that seems to have abated that “Avatar” e-mail fiasco. But, is it the best picture? No.
“The Hurt Locker,” directed by Kathryn Bigelow and shot by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd in the same documentary style he brought to “United 93,” is strong on visuals and wild, war-weary characters — but short on plot.
It is a worthy effort, putting viewers in the shoes and goggles of the bomb disposers, but aside from two hours of bomb-after-bomb monotony and the occasional aside into downtime grab ass, there’s not much else.
Best picture? No.
“Jarhead,” about the first Iraq War, was more engaging and “Black Hawk Down,” about a failed military mission in Somalia, was thoroughly better.
Mar 7 10
Oscar Picks
Will win | Should win | Actual Winner **
Actor in a Leading Role
**Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney in “Up in the Air”
Colin Firth in “A Single Man”
Morgan Freeman in “Invictus”
Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”
Actor in a Supporting Role
Matt Damon in “Invictus”
Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger”
Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station”
Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones”
**Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”
Actress in a Leading Role
**Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
Helen Mirren in “The Last Station”
Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia”
Actress in a Supporting Role
Penélope Cruz in “Nine”
Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air”
Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart”
Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air”
**Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
Animated Feature Film
“Coraline” Henry Selick
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson
“The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements
“The Secret of Kells” Tomm Moore
**“Up” Pete Docter
Art Direction
**“Avatar” Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
“Nine” Art Direction: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
“Sherlock Holmes” Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
“The Young Victoria” Art Direction: Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Maggie Gray
Cinematography
“Avatar” Mauro Fiore
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” Bruno Delbonnel
“The Hurt Locker” Barry Ackroyd
“Inglourious Basterds” Robert Richardson
“The White Ribbon” Christian Berger
Costume Design
“Bright Star” Janet Patterson
“Coco before Chanel” Catherine Leterrier
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Monique Prudhomme
“Nine” Colleen Atwood
**“The Young Victoria” Sandy Powell
Directing
“Avatar” James Cameron
**“The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow
“Inglourious Basterds” Quentin Tarantino
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels
“Up in the Air” Jason Reitman
Documentary (Feature)
“Burma VJ” Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
**“The Cove” Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens
“Food, Inc.” Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
“Which Way Home” Rebecca Cammisa
Documentary (Short Subject)
“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
**“Music by Prudence” Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
“Rabbit à la Berlin” Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra
Film Editing
“Avatar” Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
“District 9” Julian Clarke
**“The Hurt Locker” Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
“Inglourious Basterds” Sally Menke
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Joe Klotz
Foreign Language Film
“Ajami” Israel
“The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada)” Peru
“A Prophet (Un Prophète)” France
**“The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)” Argentina
“The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band)” Germany
Makeup
“Il Divo” Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
**“Star Trek” Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
“The Young Victoria” Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore
Music (Original Score)
“Avatar” James Horner
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” Alexandre Desplat
“The Hurt Locker” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
“Sherlock Holmes” Hans Zimmer
**“Up” Michael Giacchino
Music (Original Song)
“Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36” Music by Reinhardt Wagner Lyric by Frank Thomas
“Take It All” from “Nine” Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
**“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett
Best Picture
“Avatar” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
“The Blind Side” Gil Netter, Andrew A. Kosove and Broderick Johnson, Producers
“District 9” Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers
“An Education” Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers
“The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro, Producers
“Inglourious Basterds” Lawrence Bender, Producer
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers
“A Serious Man” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers
“Up” Jonas Rivera, Producer
“Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers
Short Film (Animated)
“French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
“The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia
**“Logorama” Nicolas Schmerkin
“A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park
Short Film (Live Action)
“The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
“Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
“Kavi” Gregg Helvey
“Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
**“The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson
Sound Editing
“Avatar” Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
**“The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson
“Inglourious Basterds” Wylie Stateman
“Star Trek” Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
“Up” Michael Silvers and Tom Myers
Sound Mixing
“Avatar” Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
**“The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
“Inglourious Basterds” Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
“Star Trek” Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson
Visual Effects
**“Avatar” Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
“District 9” Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
“Star Trek” Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
“District 9” Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
“An Education” Screenplay by Nick Hornby
“In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
**“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
“Up in the Air” Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner
Writing (Original Screenplay)
**“The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal
“Inglourious Basterds” Written by Quentin Tarantino
“The Messenger” Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
“A Serious Man” Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“Up” Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy
Feb 25 10
The self-censoring murder suspect
In court Thursday, murder suspect Fernando Gotay described his reaction to another man pulling a gun and pointing it at his brother in law’s head. Gotay censored himself until his attorney, John Pike, intervened. Here’s their exchange:
Gotay: “I said, ‘oh, oh — shoot.’”
Pike: “Did you say ‘shoot’?”
Gotay: “No, I said the other word.”
Pike: “Shit?”
Gotay: “Yeah, I said, ‘Oh shit, you’ve got to be kidding me.’”
After testifying for more than 90 minutes Tuesday before the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, the chairman of the state Judicial Conduct Board, John R. Cellucci, didn’t feel like answering anymore questions. He became hostile when asked to explain his remark that a 2006 misconduct complaint against Luzerne County Judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. “didn’t raise a red flag.”
Sisak: “You say there were no red flags in the complaint. If you read through the complaint, there’s accusations that the judges were cavorting with Attorney Powell on his boat, Attorney Powell owns the juvenile detention center. He had cases that racked up $16 million in verdicts that appeared before Judge Ciavarella. No red flags?”
Cellucci: “There’s nothing in there about $16 million.”
Sisak: “There is if you look at the cases listed and do about 10 minutes of research and find out what the judgments are, but nobody ever did that at the Judicial Conduct Board.”
Cellucci: “I stand on my testimony. That’s all.”
Sisak: “Well, I’m asking you a follow up question because you say there were no red flags and that seems pretty preposterous.”
Cellucci: “Well, that’s my statement and I stand by my statement, because that’s the way I saw it and the other board members saw it. Good day gentleman.”
Sisak: “Whoa, whoa, no, no, not a good day.”
Cellucci: “Well then it’s not.”
Sisak: “What was in that summary that led you to believe there were no red flags, was it just a rosy summary about Judge Conahan?”
Cellucci: “It was the whole board’s decision, not mine only.”
Sisak: “OK, but you were there and you testified today.”
Cellucci: “I’m not going to discuss anymore with you.”
Sisak: “You say there were no red flags.”
Cellucci: “Go back and get what I testified.”
Sisak, raising voice: “I heard your testimony and I’m asking you a question, a follow up.”
Cellucci, yelling, wagging finger: “Don’t you yell at me. Who are you to yell at me?!”
Sisak: “Excuse me?”
Cellucci: “Who are you to yell at me?”
Sisak: “I’m asking you a question, and you’re getting in my face.”
Cellucci: “You’re getting in my face!”
Sisak: “You say there were no red flags about Judges Conahan and Ciavarella? In that report there are eight pages of allegations, and you say, ‘well there are no criminal allegations’ —”
Cellucci: “That’s your opinion —”
Sisak: “There were ethical allegations.”
Cellucci to commission attorney: “Would you get this guy out of my hair?”
Commission attorney says Cellucci’s yelling was carrying into hearing room, suggests a follow up by telephone. I suggest moving into another room.
Cellucci: “I’m not going to discuss any more with you. That’s it. Don’t you understand English?”
Sisak: “No red flags…”
Cellucci: “Don’t you understand English?”
Sisak: “Did anybody else say there were no red flags? Was that a discussion that happened in the board room, that we don’t see any red flags here? What were the deliberations that went on here?”
Cellucci, to guard: “I’d get rid of him.”
Sisak: “You don’t like the first amendment, Mr. Cellucci?”
By Michael R. Sisak/The Citizens’ Voice
JAN. 10, 2010 – A fledgling New York City staffing firm paid the bribe that led to a federal corruption charge last month against a former Luzerne County official, the former official’s attorney said.
Continental Consultants Group Inc. paid at least $1,000 in cash to former Human Resources Director Doug Richards around the same time Richards was arranging a contract for the firm to process paychecks for a county flood cleanup project in April 2007, attorney William Ruzzo said.
Richards, 44, pleaded guilty last Wednesday in federal court and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Under federal sentencing guidelines and the terms of his plea agreement, he is more likely to serve four to 10 months. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 7.
Richards’ involvement with Continental Consultants Group had been under scrutiny since late last year, when federal investigators started probing the firm’s dealings with the county.
County Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla fired Richards in November for refusing to “come clean” about Continental.
Shortly after the firing, County Solicitor Vito DeLuca discovered a series of e-mails between Richards and three other men tied to the firm showing extensive coordination of everything from the design of Continental’s letterhead and the language of the contract, to the outsourcing of the actual paycheck processing services to a third-party firm.
Anything goes
The Continental deal, ultimately worth more than $800,000, materialized without any of the formal bidding or negotiations usually required in government procurement.
No one from the county questioned the six-week-old company’s limited track record, asked for references, or even picked up a telephone to check if a 1-800 number on the letterhead actually belonged to Continental.
Richards, a trusted member of the county’s senior staff, orchestrated the deal exploiting critical lapses in county oversight, The Sunday Voice has found. Those lapses included:
- A state of emergency, declared by the county commissioners after the flood 10 months earlier, in June 2006, was still in effect – eliminating requirements for bidding and written proposals.
- A long-standing county purchasing practice, in violation of the state-mandated county code, that allowed department heads to unilaterally sign contracts, insulating them from public scrutiny.
- A controller’s office that shirked its duty as the county’s fiscal watchdog by accepting contracts without objection and complying with unusual conditions, such as a requirement that Continental’s bills be paid within 48 hours, with checks delivered directly to the insider, in this case, Richards.
Those lapses were endemic of what DeLuca described as an “anything goes” attitude, where cronyism and patronage ran roughshod over rules and regulations. It was an way of doing business that pervaded the administration of Greg Skrepenak, the former county commissioner who was charged last month with pocketing $5,000 from a housing developer who was granted a county-backed loan.
“Not only didn’t that environment scrutinize, that environment enabled,” DeLuca said. “The way things were – the concentration of power in different areas, the cavalier way things were done and the buddy system – those types of things enabled the ones who were daring enough to go and commit wrongful acts, or commit crimes.”
Richards was daring enough to use his county computer to generate the final draft of the Continental Consultants contract; give false assurance that a county attorney had approved the deal; and trade on a colleague’s trust, and his own reputation, to ensure its approval. No one asked questions and, for more than two years, no one caught on.
It was, DeLuca said, “the perfect storm of complacency, sinister acts and blind trust.”
Building a mystery
Two of the men Richards exchanged e-mails with, William Grub and John Luongo, were former New York City police detectives who worked with Richards and other county officials on a crime-suppression training program in New York. The other, former Wilkes-Barre City Police Detective William Maguire, worked for the county and coordinated the trips to New York.
Grub and Luongo have not been charged. Maguire is awaiting sentencing on a federal bribery charge related to his work as a member of the Luzerne County Housing Authority.
Richards, Grub, Luongo and Maguire have not returned telephone messages and have not responded to notes left at their homes and offices.
Since last month, Grub has been listed in New York State corporation records as the chairman or chief executive officer of Continental Consultants Group. The address listed for the firm matches the one used for Grub’s other company, Seaford, N.Y.-based B&M Investigations Inc., whose dealings with the county are also under federal scrutiny.
Despite Grub’s leadership role with Continental, Luongo appeared to handle most of the communications with Richards in the days before the paycheck-processing contract went into effect, according to the e-mails, which DeLuca shared with The Sunday Voice.
In one of the first e-mails, on April 25, 2007, Luongo sent Richards a draft on Continental letterhead listing the same address Luongo’s security firm, Protection Advisory Inc., used at the time: 250 W. 49th St., in the heart of the Broadway district Luongo once patrolled as head of the NYPD’s “Theater Squad.”
The 1-800 number on the letterhead matched Protection Advisory’s toll-free number, and the fax number, which a county official later used to send the signed contract back to Continental, also belonged to the Luongo firm.
Luongo got into the heavier details of the company’s operation two days later, forwarding Richards a message from a sales representative with Paychex Inc., the Rochester, N.Y.-based payroll and human resources firm Continental hired to process the flood cleanup paychecks for Luzerne County.
The representative was reminding Luongo to register Continental with a state clearinghouse so it could legally conduct business within the state.
In his e-mail, Luongo asked Richards for advice: “The payroll company says they need us to register. Let me know what this is all about. I know we already filed for worker’s comp.”
It is unclear whether Richards responded.
Two days later, on April 29, 2007, Luongo e-mailed the text of the contract to Richards, Maguire and Grub.
Secrets and lies
Richards e-mailed the final draft of the contract to Richard Ammon, the director of the county agency in charge of the flood cleanup project on April 30, 2007, a day before former County Manager/Chief Clerk Sam Guesto’s deadline to “vamp up” the project.
Richards instructed Ammon to sign the contract and fax one copy to a number on the company’s letterhead – the number actually belonging to Luongo’s security firm – and another copy back to Richards.
Richards also assured Ammon that the county solicitor at the time, Jim Blaum, had already approved the contract – a claim Blaum has denied.
Richards “handled everything because it was all human resources – stuff that I was not accustomed to doing,” said Ammon, the director of the county Workforce Development Agency. “I still don’t know what happened actually with the contract itself.”
Guesto set the “vamp up” deadline at a public meeting on April 18, 2007, as he announced $650,000 in federal funding to revive the cleanup effort, which had stalled after the exhaustion of an initial $1.75 million appropriation.
“We didn’t know whether or not there would be a second phase at all, we thought the money was stopped,” Ammon said. “We had literally piles of debris in the field that had to be cleaned up and we had a very short window to get the workers back in the field.”
The short window played to Continental’s advantage.
A state of emergency declared by the county in the aftermath of creek and river flooding in June 2006 nullified the county’s purchasing policy and washed away any requirement for transparency in the Continental deal.
By the time the contract was signed, in April 2007, the floodwaters had receded, but debris, damage, and the state of emergency remained, protecting Continental from the scrutiny of a competitive bidding process and the chance it could be underbid by another firm.
Contract police
Petrilla, the county controller at the time of the Continental deal, said the deal between the county and the firm appeared legitimate.
“There was a contract in place,” Petrilla said. “The controller can’t play contract police and get in the car every time a contract was signed. Who would think there was a fictitious contract?”
Petrilla said Richards told her the firm that had processed paychecks for the initial phase of the cleanup project under an existing contract, OneSource Staffing Solutions, did not want to continue because of the intense labor involved. OneSource, she learned later, was never offered the project, Petrilla said.
Conditions, such as a contractual requirement that Continental’s bills be paid within 48 hours when OneSource had a 30-day turnaround, or instructions to deliver checks for the firm directly to Richards, or in one case, to Maguire, were not unusual, former Deputy Controller A.J. Martinelli said.
“Departments call and send requests for checks all the time,” Martinelli said. “If someone needs a check cut urgently, they call to see if they could get it done and then they need to fax over the request so that it could be reviewed.”
Between May 2007 and August 2008, the controller’s office issued 28 checks to Continental totaling $807,770. Most of the checks went directly to Richards and at least one was delivered to Maguire. Current Controller Walter L. Griffith Jr., who took office Jan. 4, said he would end the practice of delivering checks for vendors to county personnel.
DeLuca said he would continue to stress the reforms he implemented when he took over as solicitor last January, including:
- Restoring the county commissioners as the sole authority for approving contracts.
- Requiring specific, detailed justification before a state of emergency is declared.
- Adhering to the county’s purchasing policy, which requires formal bids for all contracts over $7,500 and price quotations for purchases over $3,000.
“Our real leak in the county was with purchasing and not only the failure to follow purchasing procedures to the letter, but the failure to follow the spirit of the rule,” DeLuca said. “The spirit of those procurement codes is to get the best deal for the county.”
Michael P. Buffer, staff writer, contributed to this report.
msisak@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2061
Dec 5 09
Enter: Winter
Dec. 4, 2009 – A snow-covered leaf on a wintry afternoon near the Susquehanna River in Kingston, Pa.
New York State might want to ask Google for some updated search listings. This from a search last Friday for “New York State Government” — note the second subsection, still linking to an unsavory, $4,000 per hour chapter in the Empire State’s history.
Nov 20 09
Random Stuff
Random images from the BB:
I'd like to solve the puzzle.
Three sheetz to the wind.
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