09-20 and 09-21-10 Special Called Regular Meeting of Fiscal Affairs Committee

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CITY OF LA PORTE, TEXAS Agreed Upon Procedures - Five Points Town Center Project (Continued) September 21, 2010 Selection ofCF Jordan as Proiect Contractor Although the Project was an EDC project and bidding is not required, the Project was competitively bid, with CF Jordan being the low bidder. The project bids were also advertised and approved by both the EDC and Council. 7A. Finding The process by which URS was selected as engllleenng contractor on the Project was not well documented. 7 A Recommendations Although the requirement to formally bid contracts does not apply to EDC's and professional service contracts do not require bidding under state statutes, the EDC should consider documentation of the methods used to evaluate and select contractors in order to increase transparency. 8. Verifv Filinl! of Conflict of Interest bv Board Member: Concerns were expressed that one of the EDC's board members at the time was also an employee ofthe engineering contractor on the Project. Questions were raised about a possible conflict of interest related to this situation. Ed Matuszak, is an employee with URS which was contracted to perform the architectural and engineering portions of the Project. Mr. Matuszak holds the position of Vice President for Project Development with URS and was also one of the EDC's Board members at the time of the Project. Section 5.03 of the EDC's bylaws (Exhibit 2) states that: "The members of the Board of Directors are local public officials within the meaning of the Texas Local Government Code Chapter 171. If a director has a substantial interest in a business entity or real property which is the subject of deliberation by the Board of Directors, the director shall file an affidavit with the secretary of the Corporation stating the nature and extent of the interest. Such affidavit shall be filed prior to any vote or discussion upon the matter by the Board of Directors, and the interested director shall abstain from any vote or decision upon the matter. " Mr. Matuszak abstained on votes related to the project according to Board minutes. He also filed a conflict of interest affidavit (Exhibit 25) on February 4,2008 as required in the EDC's bylaws. However, the affidavit refers to agenda item seven from the February 4, 2008, Board meeting minutes (Exhibit 26) which concerns the Sylvan Beach Shoreline Protection and Beach Re-nourishment Proj ect, not the Proj ect in question. This affidavit does not mention URS directly. The line for business entity is left blank and "I work for the company" is written in below. Chapter 171 specifies only that a conflict of interest form must be filled out detailing the conflict, but not whether it must be filled out for each individual project or even each agenda item. Mr. Matuszak filled out a conflict of interest affidavit for his interest in URS, albeit in relation to a different project, and publicly abstained from votes regarding URS and the Project. 16