From: create_communitas@yahoo.com
To: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 06:53:14 -0800
Subject: Re: [HistoricWashington] WAMU MetroConnection McMillan Report
It's not true that there wasn't a competitive process. Tony Norman keeps saying that despite the fact that he knows the opposite to be true.
In 2006, the National Capital Revitalization Corporation (NCRC) issued an RFQ to select a development partner for the McMillan site. The selection process spanned several months and included several community meetings and votes-- votes Mr. Norman participated in, and for which VMP had the support of Mr. Norman. The initial process was conducted by Mayor Fenty, signed off on by McMillan Advisory Group leader Mr. Norman, and later evaluated and held up by Mayor Gray.
The eventual five bidders were judged on their land development capabilities-- vertical development and financial capability. Community members attended tours of the vertical development projects evaluated for all five bidders. In July 2007, Vision McMillan Partners was selected from among the five bidders by NCRC because of their collective experience with complex development projects that present a number of overlapping priorities such as historic preservation and open space development.
Since being selected by a competitive process, VMP has continued to meet with the community-- via regular sessions with the MAG, on which Mr. Norman continues to sit, and several community-wide planning and input processes. As a direct result the project has grown and changed dramatically. It incorporates much of what the neighborhoods surrounding the site have asked for, including 12 acres of park and open space, a grocery store, small scale retail, employment opportunities, preservation of all of the above ground assets-- the washers, change houses and silos will all be preserved- and the preservation of two underground cells.
There are many varying viewpoints on this project, further complicated by the long lifespan of this project. As a result some of the history of the actual project gets muddied.
Tania Jackson
Neighborhood Outreach Coordinator
Vision McMillan Partners
Visit EnvisionMcMillan.Com for more information
18 comments:
So in an effort to address this question I FOIA'ed and posted the 2006 solicitation that Ms. Jackson references in the above email. You can find it on the MAG website here: http://mcmillanadvisorygroup.wordpress.com/mcmillan-development-plans/contractual-agreements-vmp-and-the-district/phase-i-land-development-solicitation-for-land-development-partner-2006/
I do not know the process by which VMP was selected to serve as the vertical developer. The solicitation is for the Land Development portion of this work only (process leading up to vertical development of the site) with the intention being to compete the vertical development portion at a later date - see p.14 of the solicitation whereby it states: "Developers for subsequent (vertical development) phases will be selected via future public solicitations. Through this Solicitation, NCRC will identify, evaluate and select a Land Development Partner for Phase I – Land Development only."
That is all that I know of the process but hopefully it clarifies the matter a bit.
Mathew Bader
McMillan Advisory Group Bloomingdale Civic Association Representative
The issue here isn't that there wasn't any RFP issued, the issue is that it wasn't a "full and open" competition...meaning that only 5 pre-selected groups were allowed to participate, having already been shortlisted by the NCRC. So in essence, the issue is why did these groups get privileged treatment and shortlisted....on what criteria or basis? Why wasn't a full fair and open solicitation issued per standard federal gov't best practice (not that this was a federal matter, but federal regs should be a good standard)? I think another important point here that would be interesting to know is to go back and see who the shortlisted entities were and how many of those entities have now been integrated into the VMP consortium. I think that the answers to these questions are the ones that are needed to demonstrate some level of transparency and show people in DC that this isn't just another incidence of DC corruption. (Nice articled in WaPo this week showing DC as the most corrupt administrative area per capita in all the USA, btw). DC gov't's bad rep is only further bolstered by these unexplained and unorthodox procurement processes. So, Who gets on the shortlist and why?
Ok so are Todd and Mathew suggesting that we start all over?
Mona,
I was simply trying to clarify the matter raised in the above email from Ms. Jackson. It may be that I do not have all of the facts surrounding the decision whereby Vision McMillan Partners was selected both as Land Development Partner and the Vertical Developer for this site. If that is the case, I certainly welcome any additional evidence which attests to the Vertical Development portion of this site.
I am happy to share my personal thoughts on the matter offline if you are interested. Please feel free to email me at mathew.bader@gmail.com and we can speak on the matter further.
Thanks,
Mathew Bader
McMillan Advisory Group (MAG) Bloomingdale Civic Association (BCA) Representative
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Folks are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts." And, facts are stubborn things.
In this case, with the disposition of such a large piece of publicly-owned property, there certainly should have been a competition. I guess, the Bethesda-based developer recognizes this is a weakness in their campaign, which is why they are now stating that there was a competition.
As they know very well, there are laws and procedures that govern private development of taxpayer-owned property, so now they are using the phrase "competitive process" to describe the dog and pony show that resulted in the CIty handing EYA the non-vertical development rights. (which now apparently include being in charge of the vertical rights as well) Under EYA's direction, vertical rights are being handed to the highest bidder, which appears to be Trammel Crow, who are spreading $100k around the Council and will most likely have plenty to kick back to EYA when the real money starts rolling in. Of course, Trammel Crow, the current historic consultant, the medical building partner, and I don't know how many others were never part of the initial team, but this is not important as there was never any detailed plan, original cost estimate or public benefit package. These would have been required had there been any type of objective competition.
Instead, former City employees teamed up with City-favored personalities and EYA, who paid Harry Thomas tens of thousands of dollars (for which HE went to jail) and, VIOLA, the Bethesda-based EYA was handed development rights over this taxpayer-owned property.
Regardless of what happens next, EYA's payment to Thomas has already paid off. They have collected millions of dollars for their stellar design (was this neighborhood clamoring for more pop-ups?) and community outreach efforts.
If this project was being built anywhere else, EPA would be asking for an environmental impact statement and there would have been a competition of ideas. The competition would have included a cost-benefit analysis and there would have been a very public process which would have given this neighborhood a formal opportunity to weigh in.
I support intelligent development of this unique property, but that was never going to happen in this corrupt process. I'm against rewarding the people who paid off Harry Thomas Jr. I'm against taking such a unique property and making it into another Shirlington, to the maximum extent possible.
Each step of the way, our corrupt City officials have avoided any type of competition in order to hand this public property to their friends.
Today, there is new evidence of the corruption. John Salatti and Tony Norman had to jump through quite a few hoops just to get permission to show neighbors the uniquenes and beauty of this property. With each tour they gave, they gained more opponents to this corrupt process. Suddenly, the City denied them access to the property. Much like any other corrupt, dishonest government, they were told that they could not visit the site because the City was concerned about their safety.
This morning, I took a picture of the the massive amount of cement, re-bar, vehicles, equipment, and workers on the property. So, stacks and stacks of re-bar are OK, but pedestrians are not allowed.
It was a lie to deny access to folks who wanted to see the property (for their own safety), just as it is a lie to say that EYA won a competition to develop this taxpayer-owned property.
I'm no expert on development law, but I've learned to look deeper when you know people are being dishonest.
Corruption is Theft from the Poor
Bishops of Southern Africa
Hi Mona,
I don't think Matt or I am suggesting anything more than the process should be completely transparent. What the neighborhood or community wants to do about whatever they learn is the business of the community.
Every parent knows this trick: my 4 year old son gets up in the morning and I tell him "do you want to wear the red shirt or the green shirt?"... he chooses and thinks he made a real choice. However he eventually becomes aware that he never was offered the brown, blue, pink or yellow shirts.
There are aspects that I like about this current plan. But what i dont like a all is that it seems there was alot of closed door deals made in the early days with the NCRC (before they were dissolved and rolled into the Deputy Mayors office) between the partners at hand.
In federal contracting a bidding team should not change between the submission and implementation. The team is fixed at the beginning of the process. The VMP consortium has changed significantly. This means that the team that won the bid are not the same people that bid. This is just dishonest on the face of it.
Remember VMP vigorously resists publication of the details of the deal with the city. This alone should raise eyebrows as by this very action the deal becomes non-transparent.
Mona, if you don't care how taxpayer resources are handled in this city, that is your choice. But realize when the people don't have any say in how their public resources are managed in reality we are no longer living in a democracy. If we find out all is not as it should be, should we start over? That is an open question... but the ends don't justify the means.... we should at the very least expect our officials to answer our questions.
Is it a little late in the game to be worried about how they got the contract?
It's not too late in the game for the entire process to be laid out and explained to the DC constituency. VMP has not done this and the reason why they have not only serves to create more doubt. Again, this is a piece of land worth tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of dollars. It belonged to the taxpayers and was maintained by them for decades. VMP even got paid for coming up with the plans for this site. This past week, WaPO classed DC as far and away the most corrupt gov't of any state or administrative district in the country per capita. Far and away. I think that DC has alot of work to do to try to achieve the confidence of the residents here. This type of thing isn't helping.
I don’t understand why we linger here with the same moral argument on the topic of how VMP won the contract. There’s nothing VMP can say to make the opposition feel there wasn’t some sort of corruption, so why does VMP take the bait and defend the process over and over again.
I’ve lived in Bloomingdale for just over 2 years, and the comments on this blog don’t seem to change. As much as I respect those who fight corruption, I just don’t have the energy to devote to that cause. I’m most interested in new updates and open discussion about the progress of McMillan.
Looking for a "new update?" Watch the Zoning Commission setdown half-hour video: http://view.earthchannel.com/PlayerController.aspx?PGD=dczoning&iID=1502
Well, you know we could move past it very easily if VMP clearly explained the process and we could also get answers to our questions. But they don't. It concerns me that so many people are simply willing to overlook corruption in our city simply because it gets them what they want. You'll get your grocery store and your park...that's certain. But you may not get your democracy back.
Why should they bother answering your questions? No matter what response they are always going to be accused of doing something wrong. It isn't going to stop the naysayers from accusing them of wrong doing so why in the world would they answer one question when they don't have to. If they have even a half decent lawyer they will tell them the same thing
Why should they bother? For several reasons: Because there remains significant opposition to this project across DC and they still have alot of hurdles to jump through. Again, this isn't conjecture. As Paul says, it's fact. It's not my opinion that the VMP consortium was pre-selected and shortlisted. That's a fact. Is it a crime? I'm not sure and I'm not going that far. I don't know the DC regs that well. It certainly isn't best practice or in the interest of transparency from any procurement standard (believe me I deal with gov't procurements on a daily basis). It is also a fact that the consortium membership has changed since the "competition." That is a fact and not an opinion. This would indeed be unlawful from a federal regs standpoint. Is it from a DC regs standpoint? I suspect so. Further, is sole sourcing the vertical development legal without an RFP? I suspect not.
But whatever. They can refuse to answer if they want .... per their half decent lawyer's recommendation...but obfuscation only looks like guilt. I mean if it's all above board, why not write a single simple email that explains it all.
Because no matter what they say the people who are trying to make this into a massive vegetable garden with solar panels are going to find something to pick at and try and delay this project. So the best course they can take is silence. Plus they have better ways to spend their time then answering a bunch of questions from people whose mission in life it to stop/delay this project.
Right...a little massive appropriation of taxpayer land and resources by private interests for personal gain never hurt anybody! Why it's practically a tradition here with our city council. Why change now?
The people who "want to make this into a massive vegetable garden" are a very small minority. Most people want to see this elevated taxpayer-owned property turned into something special. Those who have followed EYA's "development planning," have seen plans with virtually no park space, and with cul de sacs that would have resulted in folks living on Channing looking at the backyards of EYA's Frankenstein vision of abutting the Bloomingdale Cityscape with new suburban-style development. But for concerned, involved neighbors, (and God weighing in with the flooding), EYA was poised to build a true monstrosity on this site.
At each and every opportunity, EYA was ignoring the most basic City planning rules in order to maximize square footage, which is exactly what you would expect a private corporation to do when they are being handed such a gift by corrupt City officials like Harry Thomas Jr. It's really odd to me that Harry Thomas Jr went to jail, while the people that paid him the money get to be instant millionaires. Why is everyone OK with this? From some comments here, I guess the reason is that folks feel powerless, which is exactly how corrupt systems want you to feel.
The reason to demand a competition is to solicit imaginative designs worthy of this unique space. A competition would give us cost/benefit analyses, transparency and a true opportunity to see what will be built across the street. There will be no building any time soon anyway. Now is the time to stop this travesty.
Many of us had some hope that the historic designation and the review board would throw this "design" in the toilet. But, we didn't know the design could be simultaneously approved and disapproved by the board, who chose to speak against the design yet voted in favor of allowing EYA to move forward.
It's like Alice in Wonderland.
I've noticed that many of the Save McMillan Park signs are in the same yards as Muriel Bowser signs. Can anyone inform us of Bowser's views?
Channing is now going to be looking on to park space and 1/3 of present design is for park space. Harry Thomas is where he belongs, in jail, and any dirty dealing that went on with this should have been addressed at his trial. How do you know that VMP paid him? How do you know they aren't the ones who helped put him in jail for asking for bribes. Just cause dirt dude was in office while the deal came along doesn't make all involved dirty. Can't throw VMP under the bus cause they had to deal with the elected official that Ward 5 voted into office.
As for Muriel Bowser...you should see how lacking she has been in Ward 4 as a councilperson to get your answer on her. Ask the people in neighborhood where she is allowing a jail diversion group home to be located behind an elementary school. Muriel Bowsers views are in her own self interest.
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