In The News › Contracting

Even before Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on New Orleans, activists and businesses charged that the city had an opaque and cronyism-ridden system for awarding building and contracting deals — a major hurdle for local firms. The Bureau of Governmental Research, a private, independent research organization released a major report entitled “Contracting with Confidence” to call attention to the matter and make recommendations in March.

The Bureau of Governmental Research believed that restricting city councils’ and mayors’ role would help lead to more objective selection decisions and would “benefit both the mayor and prospective contractors by reducing pressure on prospective contractors to contribute to political campaigns and alleviating pressure on the mayor to reward contributors with contracts,” stated the 2002 report that targeted New Orleans.

On Thursday, June 4, 2010, Mayor Mitch Landrieu signed Executive Orders that enact sweeping reforms of city contracting procedures. In doing so, the newly inaugurated Chief Executive attempts to weigh transparency reforms long advocated by good government groups like the Bureau of Governmental Research and critics in the African-American community that worry such changes might exclude minority contractors from the bidding process.

Mr. Quatrevaux gave his stamp of approval to the new contracting plan. And Janet Howard, executive director of the nonprofit Bureau of Governmental Research, described the new rules as “big, big steps forward.”

Since Landrieu’s election, BGR has jumped back into the fray, with a new slate of recommendations that align closely with the new policy.

The first test will come from the battle to end the city’s haphazard, Persian bazaar method of awarding professional service contracts. In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly on the eve of his inauguration, Landrieu explained that he hoped to have a reform that would satisfy both the Bureau of Governmental Research and the Black community. That is a tall order, but one that is eminently possible.

WWL-TV: …do you think the BGR’s report is a good start that the (Mitch) Landrieu administration and City Council can take a look at?

EQ: Yes, I think the BGR report is an excellent report. I don’t disagree with anything in it. I think the recommendations do move this city to a better system.

Its previous calls for eliminating politics from the way New Orleans awards contracts for professional services seemed to fall on mostly deaf ears, but the Bureau of Governmental Research is not giving up.

“The need for reform is clear,” BGR says in a press release, citing “numerous problems with the city’s process for awarding professional services contracts,” including “bloated contracts for political allies, an alleged kickback scheme, poor monitoring of contractor performance and an expanding definition of ‘professional service’ to avoid low-bid requirements.”

“Contracts are in some ways, when misused, the new form of patronage,” said Janet Howard, president/CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research.

Bishop Paul Morton of Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church was angry with Nagin’s pledge to sign contract reform proposed by the Bureau of Governmental Research. Morton publicly called it a “slave contract” and sent the mayor-elect a letter claiming “that the majority of the African-Americans in this city are disappointed because our candidate of choice did not win.”

Forward New Orleans, a coalition of 30 civic and business groups, has released the results of its push to get all of the candidates for City Council to sign onto its seven-part reform agenda for the city.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s new executive order regarding professional services contracts goes into effect Wednesday, and one particularly frightening detail for City Council Vice President Arnie Fielkow is the potential absence of a paper trail in the awarding process.

After nearly two hours of often racially charged debate about the desirability and implications of government transparency, the New Orleans City Council failed Thursday to override Mayor Ray Nagin’s veto of an ordinance requiring committees that rank would-be city vendors to meet in public.

Rather than comply with a unanimously approved ordinance requiring committees that recommend firms for certain city contracts to meet in public, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has announced plans to suspend the panels and give himself sole authority to evaluate such deals.

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has once again ruled that the New Orleans City Council is within its rights to demand Mayor C. Ray Nagin open the administration’s professional service contract review to public scrutiny.

Despite Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s Oct. 15 opinion that the City Council is well within its rights to create greater transparency in city contracting by opening the professional services procurement process to Open Meetings Law, Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s administration continues to fight that effort by asking the AG for a reconsideration.

New Orleans City Council members and government watchdogs continue to search for greater transparency in professional services contracts in spite of Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s most recent and comprehensive executive order on the process issued in April.