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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Follow the money


So, did the City get any banking services proposals?
 
Plainfield residents may only wish they could take the advice of the Watergate scandal's 'Deep Throat' whistleblower and 'follow the money' -- the 'money' being Plainfield's banking depository arrangements.

The Robinson-Briggs administration revealed to the City Council in November that it had not received any qualifying proposals to its RFP (request for proposals) for banking services for 2013 issued on October 25, 2012. At the same time, Director Al Restaino advised Council that the Robinson-Briggs administration would re-issue an RFP, hoping for a better outcome the second time around.

Since then, the public has not heard anything about the disposition of the banking services question.

The re-issued RFP can be found on the city's website (see here).

The RFP states that proposals were to be received by January 8, 2013, at which time they were to be publicly opened. It is now more than three weeks past the due date and we have heard nothing about the matter.

Scanning through the document, I noted that 'Table 1', which outlines the anticipated procurement schedule, appears not to have been updated from the original October document and still shows a schedule of receipt of Proposals on 11/20/2012 with approval by the Council before 12/31/2012 for a contract for 2013 services. Kind of sloppy to repurpose the original document without updating the schedule.

The total property tax levy for 2012 was in excess of $87 million, nothing to sneeze at despite the low interest rates prevailing, and certainly of interest to SOME financial institution or institutions, wouldn't you think?

Director Restaino told the Council that the city never even received one written proposal on the earlier RFP, and only had one inquiry and that the City had to do a better job at getting the word out.

So, did they?

And if there are no Proposals submitted, can you guess what institution is providing banking services by default?

Having trouble? Think WBLS affair.




-- Dan Damon [follow]



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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My guess is Plainfield's horrible reputation preceeds it. Unfortunately, this administration has made a pariah out of this city. People will not work here, people want to leave, and now banks will haven othing to do with us.

Anonymous said...

Same thing Restano said when "The Incubator" received the grant for employment training RFP. Fortunately, the organization that submitted it had their copies dated and stamped received. Of course, when confronted, the truth never came out. And yes the FBI is still looking at that, more than ten people have been interviewed, including me. They should just stop saying there is a fair practise and just give it to whomever the flavor of the month is. Plainfield needs to wake up and smell the coffee; the town has been dying a slow death from a thousand lashes.