Utility Advisory Board’s Choice Draws Charges of Political Interference : Contract Awarded to Verify Owners of Firms

A company owned by a former state official with close ties to Eastside Latino politicians won the multimillion-dollar contract Tuesday to operate a clearinghouse designed to purge non-minority “fronts” from the minority purchasing programs of California’s public utilities.

An advisory board of utility officials and minority group representatives awarded the contract by a 12-3 vote to Cordoba Corp. of Los Angeles, whose owner, George L. Pla, has been involved in repeated controversies over his work for public agencies and politicians.

The losing contestant for the contract, Santa Ana accountant Robert Miranda, charged that Democratic legislators had interfered in the selection process and said he and his joint venture partners would weigh a legal challenge to the contract award.

“I told the board they should not let politicians make this decision, which unfortunately seems to be the case,” said Miranda, who is active in the Orange County Republican Party but said he chose not to involve political associates in his bid for the contract.

Pla, who insisted that Cordoba won the contract on merit, said the team he assembled to operate the clearinghouse has extensive experience verifying companies’ minority status and was representative of the state’s ethnic diversity. “If we don’t look like the United Nations, no one does,” he said.

Will Verify Ownership

Under pressure from civil rights groups and legislators, the utilities agreed last year to boost their spending with minority-owned and woman-owned businesses to 20% of their expenditures by 1993, a sum expected to total at least $1.2 billion annually.

The clearinghouse will verify the ownership status of firms seeking to participate in the expanded contracting programs. A large part of its job, initially, will be disqualifying the white-male-owned shams estimated to constitute as many as 50% to 65% of the firms now counted by the utilities as minority-owned.

After months of low-profile analysis by utility bureaucrats, the contract award process began to draw challenges a few weeks ago, when a subcommittee of the advisory board dropped plans to recommend a single bidder to the full board. Instead, Cordoba and the joint venture of Miranda Strabala & Associates--Human Resources Group were invited to make presentations to the board.

Rumors swirled that Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles), Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) and other Democratic legislators had lobbied panel members and high-ranking utility officials on behalf of Pla, former deputy director of the California Department of Economic and Business Development.

One board member, Lynne Choy Uyeda, president of the Asian Business Assn., confirmed that she had received a call from Polanco and contacts from aides to Brown and Moore. Others who participated in the evaluation process expressed concern about political interference.

Called ‘Unfair’

However, Polanco said Tuesday that he made a few calls because he understood that the board’s decision-making process was being changed to hurt, not help, Cordoba. “How can you change the rules in the middle of the process?” he asked. “That’s not fair.”

Board members insisted that the vote for Cordoba was based purely on the strength of its bid. But many also said they were unaware of Pla’s deep involvement in Democratic politics. He has run campaigns for U.S. Reps. Matthew Martinez (D-Montebello) and Esteban Torres (D-Pico Rivera), state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre. Brown appointed Pla to a state commission on high-speed rail lines.

Some of Pla’s activities have drawn criticism. In 1986, it was learned that a press aide to Alatorre’s City Council campaign was carried on Cordoba’s payroll without disclosure of the arrangement in campaign filings. Also that year, board members of the Southern California Rapid Transit District questioned whether Alatorre had a hand in plans by RTD to hire Pla as a lobbyist.

Two years earlier, a Republican challenger alleged that Rep. Torres had paid Pla nearly $90,000 in public funds to send mailings to constituents. Pla also was an executive vice president of the East Los Angeles Community Union at a time the community development group was under fire from federal officials for its spending practices.

During its deliberations, the clearinghouse board learned that the Internal Revenue Service had filed liens against Cordoba last year for its failure to pay $159,000 in employee withholding taxes. The taxes were paid in December.

Pla said the allegations of politicking on his behalf were baseless. “I think the competitor is understandably disappointed,” he said, “and I think it’s sour grapes.”