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The Joint Legislative Contract Review Committee has questions about a $13 million no-bid contract with a company that has “no corporate headquarters, no telephone listing or Web site.”
A legislative committee issued subpoenas Wednesday for the CEO of a computer company, the state finance director and records of the company’s dealings with the state over the past two years.
The Joint Legislative Contract Review Committee voted 4-1 along party lines to subpoena Janet Lauderdale, CEO of Virginia-based Paragon Source, and state Finance Director Bill Newton.
The committee also is seeking the names, addresses, job descriptions, salaries of people and subcontractors hired by Paragon since 2007.
I’d like to think that a few questions get answered and everyone goes back to work. We’ll see.
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There is a tremendous amount of gnashing of teeth about this at the Governor’s office and at Bradley Byrne HQ by extension. There is a lot that is not kosher with this deal, and the Gov has been hauling in Demo leaders to try to get them to go along without any more public talk about this. The other shoe will drop soon.
What nonsense #1. The Dems had no problem with APPROVING this same contract before. Only reason they’re balking at the EXTENSION of the existing contract they already approved is they need cover on ethics. Elections are getting closer, they have a HORRIBLE record on ethics (i.e., jail terms, not passing any reforms they promised to pass), so they trot this out. The company didn’t have a website the first time the Dems APPROVED this contract, so what’s changed? The calendar, and that’s all this is about. Trying to deflect attention away from their record on ethics.
Nonsense? Why does Contract Review have to get a SUBPOENA to get a simple answer?
This doesn’t smell right, and several newspapers have already pointed this out. And Governor Riley has been personally meeting with Democrat legislators ABOUT THIS CONTRACT. WHY?
I do know this: Riley and Byrne want this to go away. NOW. There’s where the calendar comes in.
#2 I find it odd that you thing $5.9 million and $13 million are the same . . .
As I understand it, the contract with Paragon prohibits subcontracting and assigning without the written consent of the state. Yet Paragon lawyers admit that Paragon subcontracts the work, but they refuse to provide information on the subcontractors. The committees subpoena requires Paragon to turn over information on the subcontractors. It will be very interesting to see who is on that list.
They are the same. Extending an existing contract for doing same work. If they were extending your contract, you’d expect them to pay you, right? And, as I said, the Dems had no problem with the contract until it got closer to election time.
Second: the only Dem who said he met with the Governor was Bedford, who said he met with him about other issues, too, and that the Governor didn’t ask him to vote one way or another on the contract. If you’ve read an article that mentions the Governor met with other Democrats, please post the link.
‘Follow,” it sounds like you’re working for another candidate in the GOP primary with your several references to Byrne (who has nothing to do with the subject being discussed). Which just goes to prove my original point: this is all about politics.
It seems a new version of an old story is starting to come to the surface here – it’s not the crime that gets you, but the (attempted) cover-up.
A Republican brought this up for scrutiny, so don’t try and say this is a partisan issue. Bill Johnson thinks its something that needs to be addressed and the governor who won by running against no-bid contracts should have no problem with transparency on any contract.
I’m not working for any governor candidate. But I do happen to know that the Governor has met with other Democrat legislative leaders solely about this contract. Why is this so important to him? And why is it so imprtant that nobody connected to the contract talk publicly?
There is no getting around that this stinks.
And #6 when you double the size of payment, that isn’t “extending” a contract. That constitutes a fundamental change in terms. That isn’t “extending” a contract on this planet. By your definition, if a football player being paid $5 million a year signs a contract upping his salery to $ 10 million per year it is an “extension.” That’s just a bizarre argument.
What’s the cover up? Holmes requested records from the Finance Department. The Finance Department doesn’t have the records they asked for, so the Dems issue subpoenas. You can’t turn over what you don’t have.
#11 that is my whole point in my post about subcontracting. The Finance Department should have that information, because consent of the state is required for Paragon to hire subcontractors.
Don’t you think it is strange (and a bit insulting and arrogant) that someone who expects taxpayers to hand them $13 million will not come out in public after repeated requests and explain why they should get our money?
I say we start demanding this contract to be cancelled.
May be wrong but this appears to have the Millers and Jim Main all over it.
From what I have heard, the address of this company that apparently only has a pobox and a cell phone, also shares the address with some prominent montgomery/auburn businessman bankowner I believe it was said, that this address is also used on his reportings to the SEC.. Havent researched it further yet, butj ust heard someone typed the address of paragon source into google and found the link
really ¿¿
#2 and 6. The first contract was never submitted to the Contract Review Committee. It was signed without bids or RFPs after the period when Riley was sneaking all such contracts through AUM’s Center for Outreach and when the Committee told them that all contracts must be submitted. Nobody but Riley approved the first one. The Millers; Bob Childree, former comptroller, and Andy Hornsby, former Finance Asst., were all in attendance at Wednesday’s hearing, along with Ken Wallace and others from Riley’s inner circle. They were petulant/nervous. The woman lived in Sandra Jansky’s duplex. Jansky was the risk manager at Colonial and had a dubious background in Florida banks. Are they connected?
#11. Finance miraculously turned boxes of documents over to the Committee on Friday. You must be on Riley’s payroll. Who else, besides the taxpayers, is getting screwed over this deal?
“The woman lived in Sandra Jansky’s duplex”
I just searched 8368 WEXFORD WAY MONTGOMERY, AL 36117
and these are NOT duplexes. They are newer garden homes.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/8337-Wexford-Way_Montgomery_AL_36117_1108573815?mp=1