Cornerstone Receives $248,000 Contract

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My comment & questions will be in Italic.

The City of WPB entered into a contract (# 27128) The $248,000.00 contract was awarded to Rick Asnani the Founder and President of Cornerstone Solutions. According to their website they are: “a full-service political consulting and strategic communications firm” Please note dates, The entire contract can be read below and the following documents are included.

4/1/2021 Memo (1) page

4/02/2021 “EMERGENCY SERVICES AGREEMENT FOR COVID-19 VACCINATION ADMINISTRATION PROGRAM” Agreement between the City & Cornerstone) (14 page)

March 29,2021 DECLARATION OF EMERGENCY PROCUREMENT “This form must be completed when declaring an emergency procurement to be authorized by the Mayor and submitted to the Director of Procurement.” (2) pages.

By declaring an emergency City Commissioners will not be asked to approve the expenditure. Were Commissioners aware of the contract?

March 2021 “City of West Palm Beach: COVID 19 Vaccination”
Submitted by: Cornerstone Solutions Prepared by: Rick Asnani, President & CEO”     (8 pages) No date was listed, just month & year.

03/29/2021  “Department requesting emergency determination Housing and Community Development.”
Name: Jennifer Ferriol: Director of Housing and Community (2 pages)
Date emergency initially identified: 03/13/2020
By Whom: President of the United States.
Signed by: Jennifer Ferriol: March 29, 2021
Nathaniel Rubel: Procurement Official: March 30,2021
Mayor Keith James: 3/30 /21
Why is Jennifer Ferriol, Director of Housing and Community requesting emergency determination? Is she qualified to determine an emergence or was it at James direction?

Frank Hayden was Director of Procurement, and if you ask people who have worked with him they will tell you he is a man of integrity with a great work ethic. Mr. Hayden was responsible for informing Mayor James he must put out to bid a contract for a security company, but James gave the 8 million dollars contract to PSC, the city was sued, and James walked it back. Mr. Hayden recently was transferred to the Office of Economic Opportunity. I question if his transfer had anything to do with a $248,000.00 contract to Cornerstone. Possibly he didn’t want his signature on the “Department requesting emergency determination”

If the President of the United States identified an emergency on 03/13/2020, why did it take a full year for the City to declare it’s own emergency, and give another no-bid contract to a Political Advisor, when the media has kept us informed with up to the minute information for over a year?

WPB will hold a General Municipal Election on Tuesday, March 8, 2022 to elect 3 City Commissioners. Commissioner Fox, Lambert and Shoaf have qualified for re-election. Both Fox and Lambert will have Cornerstone Solutions as their political consulting firm.

Cornerstone Solutions (Rick Asnani) was Keith James political consultant and ran his campaign for City Commissioner for 8 years, and was instrumental in getting him elected as Mayor. James will be looking for his second term as Mayor in 2023 and Cornerstone will once again be his go to guy. I hope the residents of WPB are not funding his campaign.

March 29, 2021 to April 2,2021: 4 days from start to finish a new contract appears and taxpayers are out $248,000.00. Mr. Asnani has been seen in City Hall on a regular basis and I am curious to know if more contracts to Cornerstone are out there. Without declaring an emergency, the City can award contracts under $50,000.00 without City Commission approval. 

Read the contract and additional documents below.

Cornerstone Contract $248,000.00

Cornerstone  Invoices.

Cornerstone Transmittal_Memo (invoices)

The end