Supervisor Diluted Bid Reforms, Panelists Say

Members of a committee charged with improving Orange County’s much-criticized bidding system for public projects are crying foul after Supervisor Chuck Smith’s office added a recommendation to the committee’s list without their approval.

Committee members met 10 times over several months to pore over purchasing contracts and tackle such troublesome issues as conflicts of interest and bid evaluations. The proposed changes are the second attempt to reform the process. The last was in 1998.

Committee members agreed on 22 recommendations, each dealing with keeping the bid solicitation and approval process for projects worth millions of dollars above-board and away from the influence of lobbyists.

But when committee member Shirley Grindle, a longtime government activist, saw the report this weekend, she realized that it now has 23 recommendations. The new one says that if competing contractors are closely ranked, the Board of Supervisors has the right to use “local preference” to make its selection.

This is a boon to local lobbyists, Grindle said.

She and other committee members interpreted the unexpected addition as a pretext by Smith to “put the bidding system right back in the hands of influential lobbyists,” she said.

Ironically, Smith appointed the review committee last year when he was board chairman. In a telephone interview, Smith said he told his staff to make the additional recommendation to give the board greater options.

“The door has been wide open for lobbyists for the last 25 to 30 years,” Smith said. “All we’re doing is trying to maintain board options and not be a rubber stamp for staff. The board reserves the right to make decisions.”

Grindle said she and other committee members will protest the addition at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

The additional recommendation “opens a door for the lobbyists to come right through,” said committee member Victor Opincar, a vice president of Boyle Engineering in Newport Beach.

The fear, Grindle said, is that out-of-county firms ranked in the top spot may not receive the contract if the rankings are close.

Orange County has given lobbyists wide latitude, unlike Los Angeles County, where they are required to register. Last year’s bidding for the county’s $300-million data-processing contract saw new lobbyists emerge from all corners, among them a former supervisor and Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly.

“It’s not fair to bidders to get ranked No. 1 when these politicians get swayed by the lobbyists,” Grindle said. “Here it doesn’t matter how you’re ranked but who you hire as a lobbyist.”

The county restructured its bidding process in 1998 after the Orange County Grand Jury and several engineering and architectural associations called for reform.

In the past, staff members had studied the bids and provided supervisors with a list of up to three unranked finalists. Supervisors then made the decision, often after lobbyists for competing firms made their pitches.

Defenders of the process insisted that it provided supervisors with relevant information and ensured that elected officials--not support staff--control the selection of contractors. Critics, however, complained that it left companies little choice but to hire lobbyists, who sometimes hold campaign fund-raisers or contribute money to supervisors.

The 1998 reforms added weight to the county staff’s rating of bids and decreased lobbyists’ influence. In addition, if board members reject the staff’s recommendation, they usually explain why in open session at a board meeting.

At the time, Orange County was the only urban county in California that gave supervisors a central role in selecting contractors. Under the old system, county officials collected the bids and sent two or three finalists to the supervisors without ranking them.

Ultimate authority rests with the board, which can accept or disregard the recommendation--a method Grindle and other committee members had hoped their reforms would change.

“With the added recommendation [by Smith], I’m afraid that the lobbyists will be in the supervisors’ offices, working them over,” Opincar said. “It’s a door for the lobbyists to come right in and sway the board members into making a favorable decision.”