BALDWIN PARK >> A firm that was the focus of an FBI bribery probe in 2011 will be able to charge the city up to $120,000 for services without council approval after the Baldwin Park city council amended three contracts at its Wednesday meeting.
The council voted 4-1, with Mayor Pro Tem Cruz Baca dissenting, to change the contracts for Advanced Applied Engineering, Vanir Construction Management and La Cañada Design Group.
The three firms contract with the city through On-Call Professional Services Agreements, which were approved June 18, 2014. AAE was contracted to provide engineering-related services, including traffic design, construction management and inspections. Vanir was hired for construction-related tasks, including project management, inspections services, landscape architecture design services, grant writing and community relations. La Cañada Design was hired to perform architectural design services.
What are the changes?
Previously, the companies had to get council approval for any project or service that would cost the city more than $10,000. Now, the city’s CEO or public works director can approve a task order up to $120,000 without council’s approval. The council instead will receive a quarterly report listing the work orders.
At the Aug. 19 meeting, Councilman Ricardo Pacheco also expanded the scope of services AAE can provide to include “contract administration, including value engineering, constructability and quality control.” However, Wednesday’s staff report also lists building inspection and plan checking in its amendment to the AAE contract.
Who is AAE?
Advanced Applied Engineering, which is now called Infrastructure Engineers, is helmed by Sid Mousavi, who worked for the city from 1992-98 as its public works director and for a while as its interim city manager. AAE was named in a 2011 audit by the state Controller’s Office for its work as Montebello’s city engineers, with the report saying the city likely violated its own ordinance in having the firm give itself contracts instead of going through a bidding process. The firm also was the subject of an FBI investigation into alleged bribery related to contract approval in Maywood.
A spokesperson for the FBI said, per policy, she could not comment on any investigation or even confirm if there was an investigation. A message left for Mousavi was not returned.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Councilman Ricardo Pacheco defended the expansion of the contracts by clarifying the change would affect three contracts and not just AAE, that there already had been a bidding process to select the three firms so another bid request was unnecessary, and the contracts would be drawing from special funds and not the city’s general fund.
“You can’t assign projects at $10,000 each,” Pacheco said Friday. “$120,000 is about the typical cost for an engineering project.”
Why did Baca object?
Allowing the companies to perform work up to $120,000 without council approval could result in the firms charging the city up to $1 million in less than a year, the mayor pro tem said at Wednesday’s meeting.
“Whether it’s special funds or general funds, in 10 months there could be a million dollars or more spent,” she said. “And I feel that we as council members have to have control of that (money).”
Several public comment speakers also questioned the increased limit for the three contracts and its timing, two months before council elections.
Mayor Manuel Lozano and councilmembers Monica Garcia and Pacheco are up for re-election. Baca, who has two years left in her term, is challenging Lozano for the mayor’s seat.
In February, Pacheco received a $500 donation from AAE, according to campaign finance documents. However, Pacheco said the donation was unrelated to the amendment and said AAE had given campaign contributions to all of the other council members.
“It’s campaign time,” he said. “We can expect Cruz Baca to be on attack.”
A review of campaign finance documents shows Councilwoman Susan Rubio received a $500 donation from AAE in November 2013 and Baca received a $500 donation from AAE in October 2013. No other donations from AAE were immediately found in a review of campaign documents of the council members as far back as 2007.
