Possible reason the WPB CRA Is Losing Millions!
September 1, 2022
Below is a section of the City’s IA (Internal Audit) the City’s watchdog who reports on waste, fraud and abuse was release June 22, 2020, and is the first report issued. The audit is ongoing.
“Community Redevelopment Areas are established by local governments to carry out redevelopment activities that include reducing or eliminating blight, improving the economic health of an area, and encouraging investments.
The WPB CRA works with residents, property owners, businesses, developers and other community organizations to foster redevelopment within the CRA Districts.”
CRA Funding:
The primary funding source available to the CRA consists of Tax Increment Revenues. Tax Increment Revenues are a unique tool available to cities and counties for redevelopment activities and are used to leverage public funds to promote private sector activity in the targeted redevelopment areas.
4. Contract Procurement can be read on page 14.
First Contract:
“After a competitive bidding process, the City entered into an agreement with RMA to staff the CRA with an initial term of three years that was extended by an additional two years, for a total of five years, thereby exhausting all available extensions.
The contract was executed in December 2013 and was scheduled to expire in December 2018. However, in 2016, the Palm Beach County Inspector General’s Office (IG) issued Investigative Report No. 2016-0002 that included a review of the procurement process for this contract. We reviewed the IG report and the City’s procurement documents related to this contract. We found that the IG report was sufficiently reliable to provide an independent assessment of the procurement process for this first contract. A copy of the IG report including the related documents can be found in the Attachments section of this report. We note that the IG report recommended reviewing the contract and taking appropriate action. Thus, we focused our efforts on assessing the procurement of the second contract.
Second Contract:
We reviewed the documents related to the second contract with RMA and found that in September 2018, a new contract was executed between the City and RMA without going through a competitive bidding process and was approved by the Commissioners. We found that the contract value after five years was about $6.4 million to a single vendor. This contract was brought before the City Commissioners for approval in August 2018, as Resolution No. 242-18, which did not meet the Procurement Code requirements. Specifically, the requirements not met were placing an RFP/RFQ for vendors to competitively bid on the contract. We found that the supporting documents did not clearly indicate that 1. New competitive bids were required to obtain a new contract, and 2. The Commissioners were being asked to waive this particular requirement. We acknowledge that it is within the Commissioners discretion to waive procurement requirements, however, requests made to Commissioners should be clear and transparent, particularly in high-dollar contracts to single vendors.”
“Rasing questions about contract awarded to RMA”
By: Niels Heimeriks Posted at 3:19 PM, Sep 28, 2016 and last updated 3:20 PM, Sep 28, 2016
“A report by the Palm Beach County Inspector General’s Office released today is highly critical of the city of West Palm Beach, its former spokesperson Elliot Cohen and a city contractor in charge of redevelopment.
The Inspector general concludes that former city spokesperson Elliot Cohen disclosed classified information to the public; that he used his position and city resources to run his private side business, and that he improperly had a side job with a city contractor.
But the county watchdog goes even further, saying that Cohen misused his position to solicit business for his private firm.
As a result the O.I.G. brings into question whether the more than $3 million the city has paid RMA was wasteful, or even fraudulent spending, and recommends the city review its contract.”
Below is the story written by WPTV Chanel 5 Niels Heimeriks
Jon Ward was the Executive Director of the Community Redevelopment Agency before Mayor James replaced him with city employee Christopher Roog, although RMA employees are still on the job.
I placed a PRR (Public records Request) for information on how much money the City actually paid out for the still closed Sunset lounge, and received an invoice for $150.00 for the information, which I am not willing to pay.
“Jon Ward, executive director of the Community Redevelopment Agency, noted that several significant projects are getting underway, after years of studies by urban design consultants.”
https://rma.us.com/just-in-west-palm-beach-digs-into-clematis-street-makeover/
What is the hourly salary?
Urban Design Assistant $105.00/Hr; Urban Designer 1 $115.00/Hr; Urban Designer 11 $125.00/Hr; Sr. Urban Designer $150.00/Hr; Director- Urban Design & Planning $185.00/Hr.
A reader of WPB Watch also placed a PRR and received the response below which was shared with me, and I am now sharing with readers. Click on the picture to enlarge.
