Plaintiff says Greg Meffert ordered crime cameras from Dell before he left New Orleans City Hall
Perrin testified that he met in February 2005, more than a year into the crime camera project, with Chris Drake, one of St. Pierre's employees who worked in the city's tech office. It was at that meeting at Mr. John's Steakhouse that Drake floated the idea of having some of the work go to St. Pierre's companies.
"I was shocked the words came out of Chris’ mouth. He said Mr. Meffert told him this was the largest tech project in the city at the time 'and we didn’t even have a piece of it.' I thought that was kind of strange that (Meffert) was using the word 'we,'" Perrin said.
"I said, Chris, I don’t think this is ethical. He said they had already passed it by the city attorney, who said it would not be a conflict. I said, 'Chris, these guys worked way too hard to put this system together and for you to take one of them out and put yourself in would be wrong.' So, I declined."
That pretty much sums up how Meffert, St. Pierre, Drake, Domke viewed the city tech department....if there's a contract to be let...WE deserve it.To me, the most interesting role in this whole mess is Mark Kurt's. I get this picture of Kurt as being the reluctant soldier. I think he really hated the position he was in and he knew it reeked to high heaven, but he probably got so far into it that he had to continue. He didn't want the CTO position in the first place but Nagin "assured" him he was the man for the job. I think when Stacy Head started putting pressure on him to answer questions about the cameras and then when the story started making its way into the press, he saw the writing on the wall and bailed out while he could. Note Kurt's comment to Perrin that Meffert had laid a turd on his desk before he left....I really think Kurt felt like he was trapped from the beginning...and he was.
Interesting to note that in the period immediately following Kurt's departure, Benetech was hired...without bid...to run the city's IT services as an interim contractor. Anthony Jones was eventually promoted to the CTO position...even though he didn't have the credentials to acquire the job. For that matter, Benetech wasn't qualified to do the job as the only "tech" part of their resume was creating security cards for casinos and NASA. Now of course they're doing everything from the French Market to a 100 million dollar ACE contract. I don't know what kind of stroke Bennett has but he's pulling the moon down from the sky.
Oh and when they "passed it by the city attorney" who said it was ok....who the hell would say that is ok?
UPDATE: This explain's a lot:
as for benetech, they have this service disabled veteran owned small business deal that gets them set aside government contracts. iarrons dad, bill, must have slipped on a bannana peel while in the army medical corps. when associated contractors was bought by HSOA bill bennett was listed as owning 1/3 of a.c. making them unqualified as a SDVOSB. that did not stop them. in investor presentations HSOA would tell people of this SDVOSB scam they had going. this is a slap in the face to all truly disabled veterans.
10 comments:
I was in a slow but steady reading mode until I got the line about passing it by a City Attorney who OK'd it.
Who the fuck was THAT?
Penya Moses-Fields has some explaining to do. Either she is in on all of this, in which case, I hope they disbar her and put her in jail, or she is totally incompetant at managing her staff.
She's not retarded. She got through law school and she landed a plum job. If she knew things were this out of control, why the hell didn't she just resign or call in some help or something? Instead we get denials and shit eating grins from all of them.
At this point, I'd be for firing and disbarring every single city attorney and making sure that only lawyers who have NEVER worked for a politician are hired to fill their places.
As we see from your little friend, even the lawyers, who were supposed to be GIVING the legal and ethical advice, were trying to get a piece.
These people SUCK.
The rest of it wasn't about city attorneys any more, but by then I wasn't feeling chill as I read along.
I want to howl at the MOON.
This is ugly and it breaks my heart that these people are getting city paychecks, some of them will get city pensions, they have taken side work "consulting" on how to screw the city, they gave themselves "pieces" of the contracts they were in charge of awarding...
This HURTS to read about. I am so disapointed in them. I am tired of having to affect a cynical attitude.
I want to believe that people don't wake up in the morning with a "Bwah-Ha-Ha-Ha, how can I do some evil TODAY?" but I swear these people must do just that.
Who is included in Meffert's evil little "We" in this context?
Anon #1, I don't think Penya Moses-Fields is the City Attorney referred to. Based on the timing, my bet it's Sherri Landry.
Regarding Kurt...Zombie, you hit it dead on. Kurt wanted out and Ciber offered him an escaped route. Muppet was pissed at Ciber because he wanted to hire Kurt but Kurt wanted none of him.
Word from the HALLS (City Hall that is..)is that the Mayor is going to have to explain why when Kurt suggested putting the contract back out for RFP after he had his ass handed to him by Stacy Head, the Mayor replied "NO".
I heard Kurt saved this email exchange before the emails were purged or deleted from the system and that is the email that will save his ass from the camera mess. However, once the criminal probe starts and indictments are handed out I don't think Kurt will be able to survive. In the face of jail time, it's every man for himself. Muppet looks like the type that needs the comfort of his "peeps" behind bars.
Um, what's the deal with Ciber?
They bribed Anthony Jones, right? They were in on that flight to Chigago with Fradella, Bennett, and the rest of the bad guys, but Kurt saw them as a way OUT of Meffert's corrupt rackets?
So are they OK or not OK?
Nationally, there are plenty of people raising concerns about them over the way they do the 'independant' testing of voting machines, but how are they in this local soap opera these days?
Are ya fur 'em 'r agin 'em?
"$100 million dollar ACE contract"
Army Corps of Engineers?!?! Which contract is that?
Ciber = very bad
just my opinion
Clay, I linked it in the original post
as for benetech, they have this service disabled veteran owned small business deal that gets them set aside government contracts. iarrons dad, bill, must have slipped on a bannana peel while in the army medical corps. when associated contractors was bought by HSOA bill bennett was listed as owning 1/3 of a.c. making them unqualified as a SDVOSB. that did not stop them. in investor presentations HSOA would tell people of this SDVOSB scam they had going. this is a slap in the face to all truly disabled veterans.
Couldn't agree more with your take on Kurt, AZ. My feelings exactly.
How does all of this affect the second civil lawsuit that Camsoft is filing or has already filed. All of these deals that were cut have to be recalculated. Didn't Camsoft lead the Baton Rouge camera proposal with Southern as a subcontractor?
Based on the comments here, I'd like to know more about:
- Camsoft
- How Aaron Bennett qualifies as a disabled vetran.
- The Army Corps of Engineers contracts
- The City Attorneys.
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