{"id":22462,"date":"2010-10-15T01:05:40","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T07:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=22462"},"modified":"2010-10-18T09:14:46","modified_gmt":"2010-10-18T15:14:46","slug":"family-tie-colored-da%e2%80%99s-2003-bidding-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/10\/family-tie-colored-da%e2%80%99s-2003-bidding-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Family tie colored DA\u2019s 2003 bidding process"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Susana Martinez (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Winning company\u2019s employee is the brother-in-law of prosecutor who accepted bids on behalf of Martinez\u2019s office<\/h4>\n

There was an unusual connection in 2003 between the man who submitted a bid on behalf of his company to District Attorney Susana Martinez\u2019s<\/a> office for development of a new case management system and the employee who accepted it.<\/p>\n

Michael Beddo, the technology director for the winning company, Data Ventures<\/a>, is the brother-in-law of Janetta Hicks, a former prosecutor in Martinez\u2019s office who accepted the bids on behalf of the office. Beddo authored the company\u2019s bid letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NMPolitics.net discovered no statutes that the situation clearly violated, and those involved say the deal was legal. Martinez said there was nothing improper about the situation because neither Hicks nor Beddo had a financial interest in the company, which is owned by Coca-Cola.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is inappropriate for someone with a financial interest in a contract to be involved in awarding it, or in the procurement process,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n

But what about the appearance created by the family tie between Hicks and Beddo? Given the fact that Martinez has set herself up as the gubernatorial candidate with the instincts and courage to clean up corruption and put an end to conflicts of interest in Santa Fe, NMPolitics.net decided the situation was worth a closer look.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially true because this is the second situation involving Hicks and a potential conflict that has gained media attention during Martinez\u2019s run for governor. As the Albuquerque Journal has reported (here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a> and\u00a0here<\/a>), Martinez\u2019s office purchased more than $60,000 in office supplies and equipment from a company owned by Hicks while she was working there.<\/p>\n

Hicks is now a district attorney in Eastern New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Those involved say situation was legal<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Janetta Hicks<\/p><\/div>\n

The state procurement code prohibits a public employee from \u201cdirectly or indirectly\u201d participating in a procurement process \u201cwhen the employee knows that the employee or any member of the employee\u2019s immediate family has a financial interest in the business seeking or obtaining a contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those involved say Beddo and Hicks had no financial interest in the company.<\/p>\n

Hicks wrote in an e-mail that her \u201conly involvement in the procurement process was in gathering the proposals received.\u201d She said she \u201cdid not participate in contract negotiations.\u201d Martinez said the same thing.<\/p>\n

Beddo hasn\u2019t responded to a message sent by NMPolitics.net through Facebook, but Data Ventures provided a statement that says \u201ceverything about our response to the 2003 request for proposal\u00a0from the \u00a0Las Cruces District Attorney\u2019s Office and our fulfillment of the contract resulting from it was legal and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company said Data Ventures Managing Director Terry Montgomery, not Beddo, handled contract negotiations. It also said \u201cno individual at Data Ventures\u201d had any \u201cpersonal gain\u201d from the agreement.<\/p>\n

The contract was for a statewide case management system that would allow district attorneys across New Mexico to access each others\u2019 information for the first time. Martinez and others said the decision on which company to hire was made by the state\u2019s district attorneys, who \u00a0voted unanimously to give the contract to Data Ventures instead of the other bidder, Sigma 4 Inc.<\/a> of Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

Both Hicks and Kelly Kuenstler, the current head of the state\u2019s Administrative Office of the District Attorneys (AODA), said that vote took place on Dec. 19, 2003. Kuenstler said her office was unable to locate minutes to show that the vote was held on that date.<\/p>\n

Joyce Bustos, who ran AODA at the time of the Data Ventures contract, said she doesn\u2019t think the state\u2019s district attorneys were told when they voted to hire Data Ventures that Beddo was Hicks\u2019 brother-in-law. Bustos said she wasn\u2019t aware of the connection until recently.<\/p>\n

Kuenstler said Martinez was aware at the time of the connection.<\/p>\n

The new system was paid for by Martinez\u2019s office with money from a federal grant.<\/p>\n

Selecting Data Ventures<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Both companies sent bids to Hicks on Dec. 1, 2003 in response to a Nov. 18, 2003 notice published in the Las Cruces Sun-News.<\/p>\n

Kuenstler, who was Martinez\u2019s office manager when Data Ventures was hired in 2003, said the DAs opted to hire Data Ventures because its bid was cheaper and because Sigma 4\u2019s system \u201cwas an intelligence gathering system, not a case management system, so it actually wasn\u2019t even responsive to our request.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its bid letter<\/a>, Data Ventures proposed building the system for $80,000 and letting the state\u2019s DAs retain the rights so there wouldn\u2019t be recurring costs. The final cost of Sigma 4\u2019s proposal isn\u2019t clear in its bid letter<\/a>, but Kuenstler said it amounted to more than $4 million.<\/p>\n

In spite of what Data Venture\u2019s initial bid letter states, Kuenstler said the company\u2019s \u201coriginal proposal\u201d came in at $250,000. Invoices and payment vouchers indicate that the system ended up costing about twice that amount.<\/p>\n

NMPolitics.net was not able to obtain any contract entered into between Martinez\u2019s office or AODA and Data Ventures before the company started work on the system in late 2003 or early 2004. The Martinez campaign was unable to produce such a contract.<\/p>\n

NMPolitics.net has filed a records request with Martinez\u2019s office to see if a formal request will turn up something the campaign could not.<\/p>\n

There is a contract<\/a> between Data Ventures and AODA dated Aug. 7, 2006. Before that, Martinez\u2019s office had been making payments, but at that time AODA took over payments.<\/p>\n

The first invoice to Martinez\u2019s office is dated Jan. 8, 2004 and states that it was for \u201cwork completed in through Dec. 15, 2003.\u201d That could indicate that Data Ventures\u2019 work started almost immediately after the company submitted its Dec. 1, 2003 bid \u2013 and before the DAs voted on Dec. 19, 2003 to hire Data Ventures.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s not clear when Data Ventures actually started its work. Records indicate that the DA\u2019s office cancelled payment on the Jan. 8, 2004 invoice, which was for $12,825. The Martinez campaign gave no explanation for why that check was cancelled.<\/p>\n

The next invoice, for $23,000, indicates that it was for work done in January 2004.<\/p>\n

Sigma 4 wasn\u2019t notified in writing that it didn\u2019t receive the contract until almost a year later. The notification letter<\/a> is dated Dec. 18, 2004.<\/p>\n

The letter was sent by Kuenstler, who told NMPolitics.net that Sigma 4 \u201cwas notified by me via telephone\u201d that it did not receive the contract shortly after the DAs made their decision. She said the company later requested written notification.<\/p>\n

Repeated attempts to reach Sigma 4 President Stanley Sobczynski for this article were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

A big improvement<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Before the Data Ventures system, the state DAs\u2019 computer systems weren\u2019t linked to each other \u2013 which made it difficult to obtain information about prior convictions and pending charges in other areas of the state against people they were prosecuting.<\/p>\n

Bustos said her office had gone to the Legislature for years with a proposal to develop a new system that would link all the district attorney offices, but lawmakers didn\u2019t provide the funding.<\/p>\n

In 2003, Martinez\u2019s office won a hefty federal grant, and she offered to spend some of the money on the new, statewide case management system, Bustos said. The other DAs agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just so happy to have Susana share with us,\u201d Bustos said, adding that she can\u2019t overstate how beneficial the new system was because of the new level of information sharing it allowed. Once the DAs were linked together under the new Data Ventures system, they were also able to connect with a system that allows information sharing with other law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n

The DAs still use the Data Ventures system today.<\/p>\n

Beddo was very involved in the development of the case management system. Invoices indicate that he was one of two company employees who spent the most time working on it.<\/p>\n

Hicks was also involved as a member of an IT workgroup put together by AODA. Documents indicate that she was one of the people reviewing the system for the DAs and requesting changes. Bustos said Hicks also trained others to use the system.<\/p>\n

Like Bustos, the AODA\u2019s IT director, Eddie Chavez, spoke highly of the system. He said the approximately $500,000 cost was a \u201cpretty good bang for the buck.\u201d Today, he said, comparable systems can cost between $1.5 million and $5 million.<\/p>\n

The fact that the old system inhibited information sharing, Martinez said, \u201cposed a significant threat to public safety, especially with defendants who moved from one jurisdiction to another, like those in the country illegally.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said New Mexico became the first state with a system that allowed DAs to track defendants\u2019 case histories from any jurisdiction in the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was an unusual connection in 2003 between the man who submitted a bid on behalf of his company to District Attorney Susana Martinez\u2019s office for development of a new case management system and the employee who accepted it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-22462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}