Posted on 06/19/2002 11:55:38 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
SACRAMENTO--Assemblyman Dean Florez said Tuesday he is not worried that his scathing indictment of incompetence by officials of Gov. Gray Davis' administration in the Oracle computer scandal will bring retribution from the governor.
A spokeswoman for the governor said Davis does not engage in "petty politics," such as refusing to sign bills by lawmakers who criticize him.
But the episode left many people wondering how Florez, a Democrat from Shafter, will fare in Sacramento now that he has cemented a reputation as a maverick who doesn't hesitate to investigate and publicly criticize leaders of his own party.
As the audit panel he chairs wrapped up its probe of the scandal late Monday, Florez issued a statement harshly condemning the failure of administration officials to scrutinize a major software contract, as well as influence peddling by a fellow Latino lawmaker.
"I think we got taken to the cleaners," said Florez, who is running for the state Senate.
"These men and women (administration officials) are paid a great deal of money every year and given enormous staffs to safeguard the public treasury, to make sure taxpayer dollars are put to good use and don't get squandered or misspent," he continued.
"But every agency head involved in this fiasco -- as well as the governor's policy adviser, cabinet secretary and director of e-government -- abdicated their duties (to) the detriment of taxpayers and to the benefit of corporate interests."
Florez also criticized Sen. Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles, the influential chairman of the legislature's Latino Caucus, for allegedly putting undue political pressure on the administration to move ahead with the contract on behalf of his son, an employee of Oracle.
Polanco did not respond to a request for comment.
The statement came at the end of two months of hearings by the committee into a state audit of a no-bid $65 million contract signed by the state last year to buy database software from Oracle Corp.
The audit concluded that the contract would not provide the volume savings promised by sales representatives, and instead could cost the state an unnecessary $41 million.
Neither the audit nor the hearings turned up any evidence that Davis himself knew about the contract at the time, despite the fact that an Oracle lobbyist handed a $25,000 contribution to Davis's campaign from the company to an administration aide shortly after the contract was signed.
The governor has ordered the contract rescinded.
In more than 100 hours of hearings, top administration officials testified that they all thought other administration officials had analyzed the information provided by Logicon, a software reseller that put the deal together.
"No one in this administration crunched Logicon's numbers to see if the deal made sense before they signed on the dotted line," Florez said in his statement.
"One of the most astounding things I heard," he added "and I'm sure every Californian who runs a business was as appalled as I was -- is that no one in this administration ever asked these software vendors for a lower price."
Oracle and Logicon officials insisted throughout the process that they had offered the state a "fabulous" deal with unprecedented discounts, but committee member from both parties said they remained unconvinced.
Florez also heaped scorn on some administration officials for memory lapses and what he called "nonsensical" testimony before the committee.
"The incredibly poor memories of Kari Dohn and Arun Baheti left me wondering how these people get to and from their jobs every day," he said.
Dohn is the governor's policy director and Baheti is the former e-government director who was fired after it was learned he accepted the $25,000 Oracle campaign donation over drinks at a Sacramento restaurant, the name of which he told the committee he couldn't remember.
Davis spokeswoman Hilary McLean said Florez was too harsh.
"Mr. Florez used some pretty caustic and, frankly, unproductive language in his concluding report [Tuesday]," McLean said.
She insisted that the administration provided all the documents and witnesses the committee sought. She also noted that four administration officials involved with the contract have been fired and the governor is working on reforms of the state contracting system.
Florez said he does not expect to suffer payback from the governor or Democratic legislative leaders, and he doesn't regret anything he said.
"I'm not the most popular assemblyman walking the halls, among some folks," he said. "But I'm real proud of what we did."
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Methinks you may be on to something there good sir...
If that's the way his party conducts business, perhaps he should reconsider with whom he associates.
-PJ
1. Disney
2. Stephen King
3. Lucas
4. Ed Asner
5. Goofy
This whole dog and pony show by Florez and the press followup is to deflect what was done to the citizens of California.
Nothing will come of it except Florez will use it to run for a higher Rat office.
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