The City of Bridgeport, Connecticut fired two city employees in late January 2012 for their role in setting up a minority business that obtained more than $380,000 of work as subcontractors on the City's public works projects.
City's WMBE Requirements: The City has requirements that contractors must use minority business enterprises (MBEs) and women business enterprises (WBEs) for at least 30% of every public works project.
Conflict of Interest: The following three City employees set up the company, Nybor Construction:
- Director of construction administration (Arthur Harris), who was responsible for overseeing all City construction projects and in helping make decisions on awards
- WMBE contract compliance officer (Dennis Scinto, Jr.) who was only individual responsible for ensuring compliance with the City's MBE ordinance
- Administrative assistant in the public works department (Robyn Stephanie Waul-Blake). The company was apparently run from Waul-Blake's apartment
City's Ethics Code: The City's ethics ordinance states that no employee "shall use his position to secure or to grant special consideration, treatment, advantage, privilege or exemption to himself or any person beyond that which is available to every other person."
More Information: For more information, click here to read a number of news articles from www.ctpost.com
Mike Purdy's Public Contracting Blog© 2012 by Michael E. Purdy Associates, LLChttp://PublicContracting.blogspot.com
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