Contracts
In Delray Beach, it’s always something about a contract.
Three years ago, it was the trash contract. Off and on, it’s the beach services contract. Now it’s the city’s towing contract, for vehicles that are badly damaged in collisions, towed as part of code enforcement, etc.
Delray Beach’s current contract is with Beck’s Towing of Boynton Beach. The contract is up, and bidding had been set to start early this month, based on a request for proposal from the police department.
Then City Commissioner Shelly Petrolia, through a source she declines to identify, notified the staff of a Delray Beach police report from 2012. The investigation concerned complaints of fraud by the owner of a Delray Beach towing and custom car company. He and other “associates” would arrive at accident scenes and solicit work from victims, the report said, “under the umbrella of Beck’s Towing.” They would bill themselves as the “accident assistance team.”
A Beck’s employee would tow the cars to Beck’s, the report said, for the contractual fee of $110. From there, however, towing fees to the body shops could be six or seven times higher. Such practices, the report noted, happened only when the victims had “adequate insurance.” The city began to receive numerous reports of “predatory towing.”
In addition to the higher towing fees, the police report said, the “associates” referred victims to certain lawyers and chiropractors for “kickback fees.” Also, the report said, victims would be overcharged for work and in some cases the target of the investigation would “lien vehicles illegally.” Those soliciting victims sometimes arrived before the police, according to the investigation, and they never helped with accident cleanup.
Petrolia’s timing was fortunate. The three-year contract proposal was so far along that the “cone of silence” was about to take effect. That happens when a contract has been written and has gone out for bid. After that, the city can make no changes, and only certain staff members can have contact with the bidders.
The report led to the arrest of one man on three charges, two of them grand theft, in March 2013. In October 2013, the state attorney’s office declined to prosecute, a spokesman said. Yet a Delray Beach Police Department spokesman told me the investigation is continuing.
After learning of the report, Petrolia met with City Manager Don Cooper, City Attorney Noel Pfeffer and Police Chief Jeffrey Goldman. Despite the failure to prosecute, Cooper said in an interview Monday that he found the police report “pretty disturbing.” The city is “reworking the contract.”
Rather than one vendor, the city may rotate the work among as many as three companies. The city will “look at some requirements to ensure” ethical practices. Petrolia suggested that the city require companies to post a bond, payable if the company—or anyone connected with the company—engages in predatory practices. The city would define those practices.
Another question, of course, is whether the police department’s legal staff that drew up the proposal knew about the 2012 report and/or any ongoing investigation. If the contract renewal was considered routine, the proposal could have gone out largely unchanged, and thus— consciously or not—written to favor Beck’s. Staff in any department can get comfortable with longtime vendors. Petrolia has contacted the Office of Inspector General, which advises local governments on contracts and bidding. In an email to Petrolia, Cooper said he wanted to make the contract “open and fair.”
Cooper said he hopes to have the towing contract proposal finished by the end of this month or in early July. When I called Beck’s Towing on Monday, an employee told me that owner Steven Beck is recovering from surgery and won’t be back in the office for a month.
So far, so good
Cooper also said that Delray Beach’s shift last week to a new trash hauler was fairly smooth.
Out of 45,000 pickups, Cooper said, Southern Waste Systems missed 600. Based on his experience overseeing a similar shift in Port St. Lucie, Cooper said the early results were encouraging. Any problems, he said, would show up in the first 30 days “for sure.” Anything that lingered through the first 90 days would be a problem.
After extricating itself from the contract extension to Waste Management that a previous city commission awarded without bidding in 2012, Delray Beach put the trash contract out for bid. The new contract should save Delray Beach roughly $9 million over six years.
Tri-County expansion
An organization that has done much good in the Boca Raton community and beyond wants to do even more.
According to a memo to the city council for tonight’s meeting from City Manager Leif Ahnell, the Tri-County Humane Society—which last year changed its name to Tri-County Animal Rescue—hopes to become “the largest, 100 percent no-kill regional animal rescue non-profit that operates 100 percent on donations.” The city once operated the facility on Boca Rio Road. It began as the Boca Raton Humane Society when the city bought the land from Palm Beach County in 1987. The city now leases the land to the shelter for $1 per year.
Tri-County Animal Rescue, which serves Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties but in 2013 took pets orphaned by an Oklahoma tornado, wants to build a nearly 10,000 square foot facility to isolate newly rescued cats and dogs during assessment and treatment. Doing so requires amending the 30-year lease that took effect 10 years ago. Under city rules, that amounts to a sale of city property, which requires review by the Planning and Zoning Board. That will happen in July.
The action is more technical than controversial. The shelter has approval for the site plan, and Ahnell recommends amending the lease. Also not in dispute is the sad fact that demand for such a shelter keeps growing. There remain too many irresponsible pet owners.
Hasner’s new gig
Adam Hasner, who represented southeastern Palm Beach County for eight years in the Florida House and made unsuccessful runs for Congress, is in the private sector, though he’s still sort of in politics.
Hasner is in charge of marketing and communications for People’s Trust, the Deerfield Beach property insurance company. Hasner said he had been helping with issues related to the company’s new building that faces Interstate 95, and was asked to join full-time. The job still brings him into contact with elected and unelected public officials, but for now active politics is in his past tense.
Wily coyotes
South Floridians regularly read about “coyotes” who smuggle illegal immigrants to this area. In the last week, though, the story in West Boca has been real coyotes.
At least two have attacked pets. On Sunday, trappers caught one, though no one knows if it’s the animal that killed a dog. Understandably, neighbors are worried.
Consider, though, that the attacks happened in neighborhoods so far west that they nearly abut the current Everglades border and are on land that was part of the aboriginal Everglades. When we push that far into Nature and Nature responds, who’s more to blame?
About the Author
Randy Schultz was born in Hartford, Conn., and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1974. He has lived in South Florida since then, and in Boca Raton since 1985. Schultz spent nearly 40 years in daily journalism at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, most recently as editorial page editor at the Post. His wife, Shelley, is director of The Learning Network at Pine Crest School. His son, an attorney, and daughter-in-law and three grandchildren also live in Boca Raton. His daughter is a veterinarian who lives in Baltimore.
