re: La Flood Recovery Funds - RESTORE

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Then hell I stand corrected. Why then did either even apply for licensing, why was that point brought up and why was the licensing boards attorney involved?

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NOW, you are getting to the typical LA corruption. The team that scored 3rd place was named Sullivan Horn. Their bid was $100MM more than the winning bidder --AND-- they had nowhere near the past experience with this sort of thing. However, they did have two aces in the hole: 1) Their lobbyist is close with the governor, and 2) The attorney for the state contractor's licensing board had a son working for the Sullivan bros. (not to mention that this attorney has been to jail for fraud, etc. in the past).

Anyway, the governor could have easily said the protest against the winning bidder doesn't hold water because there is no reason a program manager would need a contractor's license. Again, there is precedent in which program mangers over rebuild projects didn't have such a license. In other cases, the program manager may have held a commercial contractor's license but not a residential license.

I am not alleging the governor did anything illegal at all. In fact, let's agree he didn't since he didn't have anything to gain personally. However, I do wonder how much this lobbyist swayed his opinion because he elected not to intervene. When the contractor's board weighed in (despite a lawyer with a serious conflict of interest), the state decided to go for a rebid. It's just odd that he didn't step in and avoid all of this controversy.

Long story short, I think the lobbyist for Sullivan Horn felt that the fix was in. It likely would have worked except the the media picked up on it and it hit the papers.