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Who is Ken Murray’s campaign manager?
There’s no name on the document for “campaign manager,” but Les Melburg is the only name on Redding City Council candidate Ken Murray’s paperwork listed as a principal member of the campaign committee other than his treasurer, Rick Goyne.
I asked Murray about it.
I have a question about your campaign committee, please. Your papers don’t name a manager but they name Les Melburg as a principal. Is he your manager? If not, do you have one yet? If he is, how will you answer the inevitable questions of that posing the appearance of a conflict of interest? Thanks.
Murray answered:
Les is not my campaign chairman, I am. Rather than having a committee I am enlisting the help of campaign advisers for various discrete tasks. On the forms I filed I included his name along with my own and Rick Goyne my CPA. However only Rick and I signed the form as I chose the nontraditional route rather than a campaign committee. Therefore the form was not offered to Les for signature. I only had one form, and I was under the gun to get the filing in. Les does however support me and will hopefully play a significant role in my re-election efforts. Because I expect significant help from Les I will of course recuse myself if the appearance of a conflict occurs. At this time I don’t see that happening. NM&R already has the contract for schematic design and has offered to evaluate all buildings submitted free. I do expect to vote to go ahead with a police building someplace at the second meeting in Sept. That action, if it passes, does not result in a contract to anyone. Anymore questions feel free to give me a call or email.
Later Murray added:
Actually Les has been involved in all of my campaigns, Bosetti’s campaign, Moty’s campaign, and others. He’s not personally asked me for anything, ever. You could probably count on one hand the number of people in town who have 20+ years experience in “running” a campaign and are still willing to even participate as a partial adviser. You need to have a passion for the process and a passion for the community.
Ken
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That was nice that Mr. Murray got back to you with an explanation.
Now I have more questions. Why is it already a given that NMR will review the building designs in a seemingly advisory role for the City. Even though he has offered his time, doesn’t that sort of give him an unfair advantage in the rest of the RFP process for the search for pre-existing buildings? It is highly unlikely that any existing building is going to be completely to specification for the Police HQ, and clearly architectural services will be necessary in order to successfully pursue the route of buying an existing building. But, based on Mr. Murray’s comments, it seems that it is something of a “done deal” that NMR will provide those services. It seems to me that in terms of public process, it is an unfair advantage to let an architecht who may prospectively bid on a contract for those architectural services to do the initial ‘review’ of buildings…
Seems to me that NMR is regularly involved in the design of gov’t projects, the same way that Gifford Construction is regularly involved in the building for governmental entities. I assume that they are the most qualified, although I don’t know for sure. Perhaps they simply know the right people and have an inside scoop on bidding the project. I understand that in life, business, and politics, what matters is who you know, and this is a small town where many of the “power” players play at the same golf club, attend the same civic meetings, and generally know one another.
I am hopeful for some fresh blood and fresh ideas on the council this election.
Kelly,
Based on the response you have received about your story I thought I would try to further clarify the process. NMR already has the design contract for a new police station whether it be completely new building or retrofit of an existing building. They were awarded the bid in a competitive process a few months back to provide architectural services for a facility. In answer to the question of why NMR and Gifford get so many contracts for government projects there are basically two reasons, neither of which have anything to do with cronyism or golf memberships. As a government agency the city must bid utilizing the legally proscribed methodology. For technical services (such as design) an RFP is advertised. The bidders must submit their proposal in two separate envelopes, one describing the technical expertise of the firm and the other the price being quoted for services. The technical bids are opened first and the bidders are ranked based on a number of factors which include, qualifications of the design team, the names of those who will hold key responsibility for each task, the track record of the bidder on similar projects in the past, and other technical specifications included in the RFP. After the bidders are ranked, and the best is selected for the particular project on technical merit, the price quotes are opened. The contract is awarded to the best technical firm proposal, without regard to price, as required by law. The price is offered is typically then renegotiated by the city to the lowest possible price the successful bidder will accept. If that is above budget the city can then throw out the whole thing, rethink the project, and possibly go out to bid again with the same or altered design and the same or altered schedule.
While all are encouraged to bid only few actually do bid. Generally a government contract requires a performance bond equal to the total project cost. While there are lots of general contractors and architects in town, very few have the financial capacity to secure a bond for millions of dollars. It doesn’t mean they are not good. It does mean they are too small to meet the bid requirements. For example, there may be local contractors who hold licenses to build bridges yet none bid for our Cypress St. bridge. Why? They either don’t have the number of employees to carry out such a large project and/or they don’t have the financial strength to go to their bank or insurance company and buy a seventy million dollar bond. Large companies get large jobs, small companies get smaller jobs. NMR has over 80 employees, has headquarters in Redding plus offices in Chico. They design police buildings, schools, jails and other governent buildings all over the state. Gifford similarly is a very large company headquartered in Redding who also operates outside of the immediate community. We should be proud we have companies of this caliber in Redding.
Thank you for the clarification Mr. Murray. You certainly know better than most how these things work and I appreciate the informative response. I am still hopeful for some fresh blood and fresh ideas on the council, and maybe this issue regarding the appearance of a conflict of interest would solve itself.
The only problem I see has been the “Big Dreams Park” type affair. It began at about 5 million that went over $12, without counting fines, overrides etc., and of course redistribution of many millions of REU money. I have come to the conclusion, one (1) term is enough for anyone. That way, they don’t become entrenched into cronyism.
If existing building would work better and for less money in the long run, then, why not use it. Look at the old Ward’s bulding. It would have cost less to fix it, and been able to afford more books for a library.
Then, look at Hilltop Drive. Take out the old beautiful trees for palms for expenditures that need other places such as streets worth driving rather than praying you don’t ruin your tires and undercarriage of their autos.