Friday, April 16, 2010

The Art of the Cherry Pick

Reading the recently released emails city tech. contractor Sunblock reportedly recovered from Mayor Nagin's missing email database is kind of like watching Fox News....the information seems suspiciously orchestrated.

Nagin administration releases some of the mayor's newly found e-mails

Let's see.....Ray never threatened Fielkow, Karen Gadbois is lying about NOAH, Ray was concerned about Councilperson Head's safety in council chambers, The Time Picayune, Lee Zurik and bloggers are evil, Chris Rose is an asshole (Honore concurs), Ray was worried about General Mize clearing "legal hurdles" regarding the Federal City development (very strategic Ray as we both know there's good reason to be worried), and most importantly....Ray Nagin is the second coming of Martin Luther King, Jr.

What an interesting smattering of data.

I'm glad we're paying SunBlock upwards of 80k to perform that mystical voodoo they do to recapture these important moments in our city's history. Too bad SunBlock won't comment on the ancient Chinese secret they used to get those choice emails...I have a hunch I know how it works though....wanna hear my theory? No? Well bugger off, I'm gonna tell you anyway.

I think it happened like this....after CTO Harrison Boyd had a city employee (was that you Mikey?) illegally wipe out the mayor's emails, he doesn't count on Mark Lewis and the LTC going off the reservation and ratting him out. He is then forced to shut them out and goes back to his home court of D.C. to rustle up a more loyal peep, David Sun and Sunblock, at an initial cost of 15k. Sunblock assures us they can find those pesky missing emails using some super secret gizmo technology the LTC and Carrolton Technologies don't have access to. Of course the 15k is just the appetizer and for their loyalty and compliance, Boyd inflates their contract towards 6 numbers and then has them selectively produce a string of harmless emails in an attempt to quell the controversy....strategically waiting until the near end of the mayor's term to throw that meatless bone to the hounds of inquisition.

You see Boyd has a history of tapping his home court resources when he needs help, i.e., Telecommunications Development Corp. (TDC), the city's current prime IT vendor who Boyd contracted last summer to handle things like....ohhh say....the same thing he payed SunBlock an extra 50k to do... create "data rentention and implementation policies". That sounds so technical doesn't it?

I wonder if David Sun can comment on exactly what SunBlock did to help the city accomplish the data retention and implementation policies. I realize the super secret method they used to retrieve the missing emails may fall under proprietary company methodology, but I would really like to find out exactly what SunBlock did to address "data retention" that our prime IT contractor TDC couldn't accomplish under their multi-million dollar contract. Is that too much to ask?

Come to think of it, let's ask TDC why they weren't capable of performing that task. Maybe we should place a call to TDC Vice-President Roger Richmond....you know Harrison Boyd's wife's sister's son. If we get him or Harrison on the phone, maybe we can also ask them how the IT staffing company, Strategic Staffing, didn't win the IT contract even though they were the lowest bidders.

I get it H.B., you gotta have people under your thumb who you can trust....like your nephew, huh?

That's some darn good cherry pickin'....but I'm curious...is it actually legal?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

...And he's BACK!

Missed you, man.

Editilla~New Orleans Ladder said...

Oh yeah, this was coitanly woit'da wait!

Anonymous said...

Solid story, AZ, but speaking of cherry picking, the beatings in the quarter is a big deal and I'll put money down that it was the protester kids.

bruthaman1 said...

the mayor/city council should have been forced to release all of their emails by now. neither branch of the city gov't has clean hands in this. didn't stacey head try to get tracie washington's property taxed raised? wasn't that in one of her emails that was released? that seems highly unethical if not lllegal. if all the emails were released from both sides there would be no way anyone could cry favortism.

Editilla~New Orleans Ladder said...

And guess what, mentor of urban diction, I got a term published on Urban Dictionary!
"Hat Tweet". Y'all can go check it out.

But for this post I have another submission to fly:
"Ray Algebra"
I'm having a little trouble with a definition and hope y'all might help.
I guess it bounces on the term "Lei Algebra" which is so far above my 4 Flunked attempts at Real Algebra, which was itself quite beyond my 4th grade Math skills in the first place.
"Nola has 200 Million Apples. C Ray takes 22 Million of those apples and gives them to MWH who has 29 Million apples...."
See? I need help. The math here is far beyond Abstract and moving into the realm of the Surreal.
Ray Algebra.

Anywayz, we got you hangin'5X5, Mon Ashe.

Anonymous said...

Given that Harrison Boyd, under Hiz Honor's professional services selection process, was the sole individual that reviewed the proposals and made the recommendation to hire his Nephew's Company over lower bids and more qualified proposers and then Boyd negotiated the Contract with his nephew, would that not be collusion and as the contract uses Federal funds is Harrison looking at some potential major jail time.

Anonymous said...

"didn't stacey head try to get tracie washington's property taxed raised?"

no.

mcbrid35 said...

TDC's $2.2 million amendment (increase from $450,000), which also extended the term of the contract through September of this year:

http://egov.cityofno.com/ECRS_ConView/DisplayContract.aspx?FID=0000000000000000000000000004957

Anonymous said...

@az - how do we know TDC is Boyd's nephew? If true, isn't that a HUGE thing? And completely unethical?

@bruthaman - I've seen you on the nola.com comments. You usually defend Nagin, no? Are you here to misdirect us to White?

Anonymous said...

as for the initial email deletion, i have to wonder how John Kusion, Ciber's Exchange administrator who sat in the data center, couldnt have known what went down.

think he got the axe when Ciber left..?

Anonymous said...

The following is NOT a website mentioned at the supposedly inclusive VA project meetings hosted by the VA and AECOM. Why not?

MAYOR'S OFFICE LAUNCHES WEB SITE ABOUT VA HOSPITAL PLANNING
"The Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Development Administration and the Regional Planning Commission announced the launch of a Web site to inform the community about site preparation activities within the 30-acre VA Medical Center footprint and other development projects within the vicinity.
RPC and ORDA are working to assist in the delivery of a construction-ready site for the VAMC project. The Web site, www.nolamedzone.com, offers information about medical zone’s plans and who is involved...." --New Orleans CityBusiness May 30, 2009

The site it is hosted on the Regional Planning Commission's offsite servers "as a public service"

Why are there at least three websites giving out hospital project information when this is so obviously one large project that should have had one main information clearinghouse? The websites www.valsumedcenters.com and www.lsuamc.com are official. There may also be another official site having to do with Section 106 Review. And, of course, there's the above-mentioned mayor's office affiliated website.

Anonymous said...

Lest we forget: Hizzoner is not just sketchy...he is also batsh*t crazy.

It's entirely possible that in C. Ray's fantasy world releasing these emails is somehow going to stave off an obstruction charge.

Not sure that's gonna work out as well in the real world...

Editilla~New Orleans Ladder said...

Anon, I tread lightly here, but It would have been a single target to oppose in order to gain Charity Hospital. It is a single behemoth. But it hit the ground in so many different places, speeds, and sizes that there was simply no way to stand before the development.
Of the 3 "entities" you mentioned, I counted 2 PR firms Each. Of those 3 were dedicated to presenting the "New Charity Teaching Hospital" or some such boo'rah.
And of course the Economimic Development Task Force bent over for this because many of them wrote the script. OK, I'm getting thinly veiled here so there.
Rebuilding Charity was such a goddamn no-brainer as presented well by SaveCharityHospital.com

Zombie Word Thingy Formentor (ZWTFr) for this comment?
[vistes]
Indeed, we shall see, eh?