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Review of Go Hillsborough contract may not end with sheriff's investigation

 
Published Sept. 26, 2015

TAMPA — Sheriff David Gee may be an outside-the-box choice to investigate a Go Hillsborough contract and restore public confidence in the county's transportation initiative.

But the sheriff may not be able to lift every cloud hanging over Go Hillsborough.

In an unusual request, County Administrator Mike Merrill last week asked the sheriff to look at a $1.35 million contract with Parsons Brinckerhoff, a multinational engineering firm hired to conduct public outreach for the Go Hillsborough transportation referendum.

Merrill wants Gee's office to determine whether any county or state laws were broken, or any ethics rules violated, amid questions that Parsons was awarded the deal because it hired influential public relations consultant Beth Leytham as a subcontractor.

If the sheriff does clear Go Hillsborough, that could help the proposed referendum regain the support it's losing on the County Commission. If commissioners don't vote to put the proposed sales tax on the 2016 ballot, then voters won't even get the chance to decide whether they want to fund new transit and road projects.

But the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office may not be able to answer every question hanging over Go Hillsborough. Commissioner Kevin Beckner, who supports the referendum, said he has two questions about the contract:

Was the contract illegally steered toward Parsons?

And did the county follow proper procurement procedure?

Beckner said the Sheriff's Office can handle the first question, but not the second. That's why he wants an outside auditor brought in to conduct its own review of the contract.

"We would not expect law enforcement to have intricate knowledge of procurement process," Beckner said. "Nor would we expect an auditor to know if a law was violated."

Critics of the deal with Parsons Brinckerhoff have said the county did not open the contract up to other bids. The county maintains it didn't have to because it awarded the contract to a preapproved contractor that already went through a competitive bid process.

The county did so under the Competitive Consultants Negotiations Act, a Florida statute that allows municipalities to create a short list of companies that can provide engineering, architecture, surveying and mapping services as needed.

Parsons Brinckerhoff was added to that list in 2012 after a competitive search that included 53 firms. Earlier this year, an internal audit determined the Go Hillsborough contract was awarded to Parsons legally.

"It may not have been appropriate to use the CCNA," Beckner said, "but it might not have necessarily been a violation of law."

There may not be any wrongdoing, he said, but the process may have still broken down.

"When we get done with this," the commissioner said, "we don't want there to be any questions that haven't been answered."

Beckner said county internal auditor Peggy Caskey will unveil a proposal at the commission's Oct. 7 meeting asking for an outside, independent auditor to work with the sheriff.

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The Sheriff's Office will hand over its findings to the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office, which prosecutes alleged crimes.

"If requested, we will turn over our findings to any other entities that may have jurisdiction in this matter," said sheriff's spokesman Larry McKinnon.

If ethical violations are found, prosecutors can ask the Florida Commission on Ethics to look at the sheriff's findings. The commission, based in Tallahassee, is a nine-member body that can rule on the conduct of public officials and employees.

It looks like the Go Hillsborough matter is headed for the ethics commission anyway. George Neimann, a Dover community activist who has filed numerous ethical complaints against local officials, said he plans to file a complaint against the county. That would trigger an automatic investigation by the commission.

There's a time crunch element to all of this. Parsons Brinckerhoff is scheduled to prepare a report for the Hillsborough County Policy Leadership Group, an organization of elected county and city officials, on Nov. 5. But Merrill told the company to halt work on the project until the sheriff's investigation is complete.

Parsons' report, to be based on public input, is supposed to identify which road and transit projects should be completed in the first decade of the proposed 30-year sales tax increase. If the leadership group approves the plan, then county commissioners are expected to vote Dec. 2 on whether to put the transportation tax on the 2016 ballot.

Even if Beckner's plan to bring in an outside auditor is implemented, Merrill doesn't anticipate that time line changing.

"We just need to get this thoroughly but expeditiously reviewed," Merrill said, "and put aside this idea that there was anything wrong with the process."

Contact Steve Contorno at scontorno@tampabay.com. Follow @scontorno.