Business
Coppers Complicate Cleaning Contract Caper
July 19, 2011 
Fourth District Judge Thomas Neville has issued a final decision “Denying in Larger Part and Granting in Smaller Part” the Boise City motion to keep certain e-mails secret in the saga of the Clearview Cleaning contracdt.
BACKGROUND–
In mid February Clearview was awarded a janitorial contract for about $368,000 to clean Boise’s City HAll, Police and Fire headquarters, and the downtown Library. The firm submitted the names of employees who were be assigned to the various projects for the purpose of background checks.
On the eve of work beginning on the deal Team Dave did a complete turn around. With no prior notice, they rescinded the agreement claiming the same departments that offered the glowing endorsement now recommend a cancellation. There was only one sentence of explanation: “Irregularities were discovered and the decision was made to cancel the contract.”
CONCLUSION–
Based on the information contained in the documents released by court order, it was a pretty benign issue and certainly not worthy of pulling the $368,000 rug out from under Clearview.
We get it from inside the PD that command staff was “not comfortable” with one or more of the workers. Looks like the Clearview staffers were not properly vetted prior to beginning the contract.
The problem as we see it is the clumsy manner in which the deal was handled. Instead of reassigning a worker or two off the police cleaning detail, the city took away the entire contract. They paid $43,000 to Clearview after taking away the contract. Even worse, it appears to us the person or persons in question were merely related to those of concern.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Jul 19, 2011, 11:36 am
It is pretty much a universal requirement that no govt. employee can,t be convicted of a felony or a serious misdemeanor. Cleaning offices does require a level of honesty and integrity but the actual work is not something requiring a high level security clearance. Bonding of the employee usually takes care of most things of employee/employer trust and honesty.
People grow and change with time. I would have a problem not condemning someone for a problem that happened way back in their life. Good behavior should count for something. Time and maturity generally happen sooner or later in most people’s lives. They see the value of conforming to the norms of society.
Career criminals are another matter. You would not want them as an employee and their records speak loudly via a background check.
Jul 19, 2011, 2:35 pm
The city’s treatment of Clearview in this matter is abominable. Even if they had cause to deny the contract, to wait until the last minute with no explanation or if giving an explanation without giving them opportunity to correct what was bothering them smacks of double-dealing. So now we have the lame explanation and you know what? It still smells.
Jul 19, 2011, 4:51 pm
We have a sensitive, new age police force. The Fung shue was just wrong. So pathetic how the deciders in this day and age act. Oh yeah, I forgot, terrorism, we are at war!
Jul 20, 2011, 7:57 am
Dave, I saw this issue in the Statesman on Wednesday. Should have known that it appeared first here. Shame on me for not checking your site more frequently.
This whole episode stinks. It sounds to me as if its not a question of someone who would be working knowing someone who might have a record for something but rather… someone wanted the original cleaning company to have the contract. They were outbid? No problem, we’ll void the contract. Transparency? Uh, well its an ongoing investigation so we can’t talk about it. Well, they can talk about it if they’d like, they just use the ongoing investigation as an excuse.
I hope the Clearview people sue the pants off the City, Kerns, Bieter and anyone else who had a part in this. Only then can the public get the truth.
PS Dave. If you have copies of the emails, could you post them or to a link where they would be?