By Linda P. Campbell
lcampbell@ star-telegram.com
My continuing cynicism about the Fort Worth school board is fueled by what looks like evidence of public business being manipulated -- and not to benefit children or taxpayers.
Last July, Trustee Carlos Vasquez led the board, on a 7-2 vote, to fire the district's collector of delinquent taxes, rebid the lucrative contract and impose an "immediate gag rule" against any contact or lobbying by law firms submitting proposals.
Yet there was frequent contact. Much of it was between Vasquez and Mario Perez, a partner at Austin-based Linebarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson, the firm that won the contract three months later.
Perez also called and sent text messages to other board members during the no-lobbying period.
He drafted questions with passages that match verbatim some that Vasquez and Trustee Juan Rangel asked during the Oct. 12, 2010, meeting at which the new contract was awarded.
Lawyers for Linebarger and the Tarrant County firm that had held the contract for 17 years -- Perdue, Brackett, Flores, Utt & Burns Joint Venture -- explained their bids that night. Perez exchanged text messages with Trustee Ann Sutherland moments before she asked questions of the Perdue team, phone records show.
Trustees voted 6-3 to hire Linebarger for five years, rejecting district administrators' recommendation to stay with Perdue. Votes for Linebarger came from Trustees Vasquez, Rangel, Sutherland, Tobi Jackson, Judy Needham and T.A. Sims.
Perez says his contacts with board members were "entirely appropriate" and no different from those of Perdue. But there was comparatively little communication between trustees and Perdue lawyers during the pre-award period. Several board members said they didn't talk to either side about the bids. And Perdue lawyers didn't devise questions for trustees to ask or exchange texts with them during the October meeting.
The switch in firms happened a few months after 2010 elections that shifted the makeup of the school board. Sutherland and Jackson defeated incumbents who had voted in late 2009 to extend Perdue's contract two years. Vasquez, Rangel and Sims opposed that extension.
It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to be suspicious.
This looks to me like behind-the-scenes collusion involving a trio of trustees -- Vasquez, Rangel and Sutherland -- who repeatedly give lip service to transparency in the public's business.
The integrity of public process matters, especially when big money's involved.
Tax collection firms send notices to delinquent taxpayers, and the bill includes an additional fee -- as much as 20 percent of the amount owed. The public entity gets any taxes collected and the collection firm keeps the fees, which can total millions of dollars a year.
Despite the board's ban on "any contact or lobbying" by applicant firms, Linebarger's Perez was often on the phone with Trustees Vasquez, Rangel, Sutherland and Jackson in July-October 2010.
Vasquez said the gag order left board members free to question lawyers about the bids. But in this case Perez often initiated the contact, according to public phone records and other records obtained by the
Star-Telegram.
Vasquez told the Editorial Board he and Perez are close friends, sometimes talking twice a day or more. Vasquez also acknowledged discussing the delinquent tax proposals with Perez: "I had questions for him."
Yet Vasquez also told the Editorial Board, "To be honest, I don't know exactly what he does" for Linebarger.
Vasquez volunteered that he exchanged text messages with Perez and City Councilman Sal Espino the night of the board's contract vote to ask the length of a typical contract period.
But, Vasquez said, "Mario [Perez] never gave me documents. Mario never contacted me or tried to persuade me."
I'm skeptical, given that Perez acknowledged drafting questions he said "needed to be asked so an informed decision could be made" about the contract.
Vasquez and Rangel were the only trustees to ask in-depth questions of both the Perdue and Linebarger teams at the Oct. 12 board meeting.
I received drafts of Perez's questions from an anonymous source: Four computer files, time-stamped two nights before the board meeting, with two sets of questions for Perdue and two for Linebarger.
My problem isn't with the questions' content. It's with the whole idea of a vendor in competition for a public contract orchestrating trustees' moves.
When I showed Vasquez copies of the questions, he said, "I don't remember him giving me that. I don't remember seeing this."
Perez said he doesn't know to what extent trustees relied upon his draft in formulating questions about the contract proposals.
That strikes me as disingenuous.
Perez took part in Linebarger's presentation at the meeting and spoke about the firm's local ties. When that team finished, Trustee Christene Moss thanked them and said, "I thought it was so convenient for you to have handouts for all of my colleagues' questions."
Sutherland's questions to Perdue weren't in Perez's draft that I received, but she exchanged text messages with Perez immediately before she spoke. Sure, they might have been texting about the weather, but I doubt it. She asked detailed questions about Linebarger and Perdue tax collection histories, with references such as "I'm told this" and "This is what I'm told."
Sutherland told me she recalled texting Perez during the meeting but didn't remember what it was about. Nor did she recall what she discussed with him on the phone during the no-lobbying period.
"I was trying to be as fair as I could be to both firms," she told me.
In an e-mail, Rangel said he "had communications with both firms," but he didn't answer questions about whom he contacted.
He said gag rules are intended "to protect against unwanted communication from vendors" and "to allow elected trustees to independently gather whatever information is relevant to the decision."
Yes, trustees should collect relevant information. But should one of the bidders play such a powerful role in determining what's relevant?
Jackson said she was in touch with Perez because their daughters play together often. She said she deliberately avoided discussing the contract with him and made up her mind after studying the firms' proposals.
Phone records show Perez sent Jackson several texts during the October meeting but she didn't respond until well after the vote. She said she didn't recall texting him but it might have been about plans for board members to meet the Linebarger team for dinner after the meeting. Most of the trustees who voted for Linebarger attended, two of them told me.
Trustee Judy Needham said that during the gag-rule period she ran into Barbara Williams of Linebarger and spoke to Luke Ellis of Brackett & Ellis (part of the joint venture), both of them her longtime friends. Part of her conversation with Ellis was about the contract, she said.
Trustee T.A. Sims said he "didn't talk to anyone from either of the firms."
Betsy Parmer, who managed the Perdue joint venture office, said lawyers responded to inquiries but didn't initiate contact with trustees about the tax collection contract during the gag-rule period.
Parmer now has a consulting contract with Linebarger.
Maybe Linebarger can do the work better, as it claims. Higher collections of taxes would be a public benefit.
Still, I can't shake the sense that some board members engaged in a charade in conjunction with someone competing for a public contract. And the public ought to know if elected officials aren't being open and honest.
Linda P. Campbell is a Star-Telegram editorial writer.817-390-7867
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