It must be great to retire from employment with the City of Coeur d’Alene and quickly have the City reward you and your spouse with an employee consulting services contract.
I was searching through some calendar year 2007 Coeur d’Alene City Council minutes and stumbled across these three items.
1. October 2, 2007, Coeur d’Alene City Council passed resolution no. 07-063 authorizing an employee consulting services contract with Wendy Carpenter and Tim Trout, wife and husband. Is Wendy Carpenter not the recently retired City police chief and her husband not the recently retired City code enforcement officer?
2. September 4, 2007, Coeur d’Alene City Council passed resolution no. 07-058 authorizing a contract for employee consulting services with Richard F. Suchocki and Georgia A. Suchocki, husband and wife. Is Richard Suchocki not a recently retired city engineer?
3. May 15, 2007, Coeur d’Alene City Council passed resolution no. 07-041 authorizing a contract for employee consulting services with Dan and Doris Cochran, husband and wife. Is Dan Cochran not a recently retired deputy fire chief?
It would be interesting to see what employee consulting services these retirees and their spouses are providing under these contracts. It would also be nice to know the dollar value of each contract.
Such a deal!
Addendum on 02-19-2008: I have just mailed an Idaho Public Records Law request to the Coeur d’Alene City Clerk asking for the details of each of these agreements.
Addendum on 02-22-2008: Coeur d’Alene City Clerk Susan Weathers called me on the telephone to let me know my Idaho Public Records Law request information was available for pickup at City Hall. There was no charge for the information. I got it and am reviewing it now. The results will be topic of an upcoming post.
The bigger question is was the process followed fairly and properly to hire these consultants?
Taxpayers are “owed” the most highly qualified consultants available. The way you get these is to openly solicit nationwide for bids from the most highly experienced firms with proven track records and impeccable references. The response to these solicitations are then carefully scored by a panel and follow an impartial scoring metric. Anyone associated with a bidder is disqualified from participating in the evaluation process. The evaluation process is maintained for public record and scrutiny / challenge from non-selectees. This to keep the process honest.
It’s our tax money – did we get the best or the buddies?
Comment by CDAShenanigans — February 20, 2008 @ 5:56 am
Will be very interested to hear what you find out….
Comment by sam2u — February 20, 2008 @ 6:30 am
That’s great – I hope they don’t want 500 dollars and like sums to produce them for you.
Comment by Stebbijo — February 20, 2008 @ 6:49 am
Too bad the leadership cannot merely recognize the controversy and provide any sort of position statement. Again they fail on their promise of delivering greater government transparency. No doubt the opposite will be the case. They will impose fees or otherwise obstruct efforts to learn the details of these contracts.
Comment by Wallypog — February 21, 2008 @ 7:25 am
It is entirely possible that the City may be doing something completely legitimate here. If so, the City ought to just come out and say in plain language what it’s doing.
Comment by Bill — February 21, 2008 @ 8:11 am