Gallant and Friends, Part 1

Lately, our Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant has come under the spotlight with her decisions on contracting work for Alameda. She’s been awarding city contracts to her former bosses and colleagues without getting approval from the City Council. She’s able to do so because individual contracts have been less than $75,000. Anything over that requires a Council vote, so these contracts are off the radar.

Westhoff, Cone & Holmstedt, Graphtek, and Rips Consulting are city contract holders because of their relationship with Ms. Gallant. And how did these out-of-towners get city contracts over local Alameda businesses? Because Gallant never put these contracts up for open bidding. Again, transparency is lost.

And of course Ms. Gallant adds more fuel to the fire when any kind of inquiry is directed at her; she goes on the defensive. It looks more suspicious when she acts as if she is being attacked by the councilmembers when questioned over her doings.

On another project it looks like she may be passing on her tricks to her protégé Deputy City Manager Jennifer Ott. The inexperienced DCM might be doing Ms. Gallant’s bidding, such as leading City Planning meetings in place of the Interim City Manager. It’s an ambitious delegation of power, which includes Ms. Ott running meetings with 13 or more corporate lawyers and planners, and making decisions about the biggest land use project Alameda has seen, Alameda Point.

So, Ms. Ott hires Economic & Planning Systems (EPS), her former employer, to evaluate Suncal’s pro forma for Alameda Point. EPS came back with a report that said Suncal grossly underestimated costs for the Alameda Point redevelopment and that Alameda does not have enough reserves for the project. EPS’s report isn’t representative because they took their assumptions from a textbook and not from Alameda, California or any current market data.

It seems open competition is out the door. Whether or not these contracts or findings are just, it’s hard to find the transparency. It looks as if an in with Ms. Gallant or Ms. Ott may come with special privileges. This doesn’t benefit Alameda or the future of Alameda Point.