Honesty
Dear Honest People:
I was watching an interview recently — it doesn’t matter who was
being interviewed, or what about — when someone was asked how to deal
with bad news and bad publicity. "Transparency," he answered, "Be
transparent."
Transparent? When did "transparent" replace "honest?" When was the
last time someone said, "Just be honest?"
Honesty is an old-fashioned virtue, and transparency is its modern,
up-to-date replacement. But it doesn’t seem sufficient, somehow.
And how, exactly, is this a related to the District of Columbia? Have
you been to a forum for the candidates in the special election for an
at-large councilmember’s seat?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Creatives Versus Geeks
Star Lawrence,
jkellaw@aol.com
I do a site on creativity (
),
but I think you are right about the economic blowback from hipness [themail,
March 23]. Out here in the Great Hated State of Arizona, two suburbs
recently had geek appreciation days — we actively court the silicon set.
Maybe the crossover comes when the geeks get a movie made about them and
inch toward hipness. Remember, The Big Bang Theory is the number one
show and most Americans don’t know a God Particle from a dust bunny.
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The United Medical Center Betrayal
Samuel Jordan,
Samuel.Jordan@msn.com
Friends, a back to basics discussion is in order regarding the United
Medical Center saga that is playing out east of the river, hidden from
view. First, however, context is appropriate. The threatened downsizing
(from two hundred twenty beds in use daily to sixty or fewer beds) and
sale of UMC occurs when community-based, safety net hospitals, and
critical health services needed by low-income communities and
communities of color across the country are being privatized, downsized,
or closed.
Consulting firms like McGladrey and Huron are the instruments of Wall
Street’s aggressive appropriation of the resources of the public sector.
Both firms, hired by the District to put a gloss on the UMC betrayal,
have had particularly embarrassing turns recently with financial sector
regulators and formal audits. In a September 2011 press advisory, the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charged the "national
Accounting Firm McGladrey & Pullen, LLP, and Partner David Shane with
Failure to Properly Audit One World Capital Group, a Former Registered
Futures Commission Merchant." McGladrey was required to "pay $900,000
and institute remedial measures, and Shane to pay $100,000 personally to
settle CFTC action."
In July and August of 2009 Reuters and Bloomberg reported that
Huron’s board audit committee discovered that shareholders of four Huron
business acquisitions, between 2005 and 2007, redistributed portions of
their acquisition-related payments among themselves and to certain Huron
employees. This led to Huron restating financial results for 2006, 2007,
2008 and first quarter 2009 and the resignation of CEO Gary Holdren,
Chief Financial Officer Gary Burge, as well as Chief Accounting Officer
Wayne Lipski. As a result, Huron’s shares dropped $30.66 (69 percent) on
August 2, 2009. The scandal generated concerns that "Huron’s problems
may have resulted from a carryover of corporate culture from Arthur
Andersen, which collapsed in connection to the 2002 Enron scandal."
In November, 2011, McGladrey opined in an eight-week $428,000 report
that UMC should be downsized — without the benefit of a community health
care needs assessment. Now, Huron, under its contract approved by DC
council on February 19, 2013, is conducting a community health care
needs assessment, although the contract also requires it to downsize the
hospital "in consonance with" McGladrey Option #2. With such a
pre-determination, is the assessment now superfluous and lacking
credibility, whatever its findings? Can the study lead to the conclusion
that UMC should be maintained as a full-service, acute-care hospital,
while Huron complies with the terms of its contract and develops, then
implements a plan to downsize? The $12.7 million may easily become
thirty million dollars. Citing the need to "cut the cash umbilical," the
DC council has nevertheless approved a contract without a fiscal limit.
That is Huron’s niche.
How will the District and UMC’s Board of Trustees reconcile the
downsize mandate of the McGladrey Report with a credible study? They are
trying to maintain the fiction they have conveyed in public meetings
that there will be no downsizing and that the terms of the Huron
contract can be dismissed or simply modified. This creates another
problem. Huron’s competitors for the contract were bidding on a project
that required a strategic plan "in consonance" with McGladrey’s Option
#2. If that is no longer the required performance, the contract should
be re-bid. However, if the competitors are unwilling "to roil the
waters," and afraid to alienate the District’s procurement czars, this
issue will not be raised.
It is worth noting that Huron won with a bid of $12.7 million for a
ten million dollar contract. Normally, a contract overrun occurs after
the agreement is signed. The ten million dollars for a UMC "turnaround"
was not well justified for many inquirers. An additional $2.7 million
has left even more questions without answers. Who is by law supposed to
follow the public’s money? All bidders for the turnaround contract were
required by the solicitation to submit proof of an agreement with a
District-certified, minority-owned enterprise subcontractor for at least
35 percent of the principal contract’s value at the response deadline.
Huron did not have a certified minority enterprise at the deadline, but
was given more time to correct the deficiency. Who is by law supposed to
enforce the District’s procurement regulations?
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Candidates Forum on Reentry Services, March 30
B. Patterson, thebpatterson@rcn.com
Candidates for at-large councilmember in the April 23 special
election will speak at a forum on reentry services this Saturday, March
30, from 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., at the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, R
and 7th Streets, NW.
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