Governor Riley’s Office Called

They’re not in.

Alabama Governor Bob Riley is under “attack.”

Poor thing!

Hey… Bob! If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

Drivel…

That’s how I’d characterize a recent e-mail I received from “Constituent Services” in response to my question.

Here’s the bulk of the no-answer reply they sent.

Oh! My question?

“How much has Governor Riley spent on ‘No-Bid’ contracts?”

“Thank you for your phone call to Governor Riley today regarding the news report you heard about no-bid contract totals.

“The short answer is that figure is just absolutely not accurate.

“It includes contracts that – by law – cannot be bid by the state, including contracts regarding work on federally-funded projects and contracts that are certified as being sole source contracts. Sole source contracts, by definition and by law, cannot be bid. That figure also includes contracts that actually went through a competitive bid process called RFP – Requests for Proposals. It also includes thousands of contracts that are for separate branches of government and for government agencies that are not under the control of the Governor. For example, there are millions & millions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts in that amount that were awarded by the Legislature, the Courts, the Attorney General’s Office, the Department of Agriculture and Industries, etc.”

Notice how the “short answer” denies the claim, and the bullshit that follows is a smoke screen cover-up for an answer they don’t want to give.

The gentle reader should bear in mind, as well, that the “sole source” contract (about which I called previously – see “My conversation with Governor Riley’s assistant“) includes the $13,000,000 No-Bid contract (er, excuse me… Bob’s office calls it a ‘sole source‘ even though the Huntsville Times reported that over 150 companies in Huntsville alone could perform the contract) to “Paragon” which is the out-of-state, no-Internet-address, no-email-address, no-business-license, no-phone-number,  computer “company” that is updating the state’s mainframe computers.

Y’know… somethin’s kinda’ fishy-stinkin’ weird when even Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, Apple, IBM or Cray can’t do the work!