Lawyers for the Poor
Re “Judges Back Hiring Local Attorneys for Defense Work,” June 25.
The decision by the Ventura County judges to recommend rehiring Conflict Defense Associates (CDA) is a bad business decision for the people of Ventura County.
All organizations need to have second sources for the various procurements they make to keep the incumbent competitive and honest. It is apparent that CDA lost its interest in competitive bidding, because it knew it had the Ventura County judges on its side of this issue.
Is it truly a case of high-quality service? I doubt it. How can you consider a firm that consistently overruns budgets high quality? What is the county doing to investigate this?
As a taxpayer, I suggest that Ventura County start to develop second-source capability by giving 25% of the defense work business to John Barker’s firm. If CDA falters again we can then easily replace CDA with a defense work firm that has developed some county-related knowledge and experience.
BERNARD W. MERKLE
Westlake Village
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