#no bid

This is Trump donor and Mar-a-Lago neighbor John Cafaro who got the no-bid contract to install a water purification system for the reflecting pool. He has 2 prior convictions, one for bribing a member of Congress and another for an illegal loan that violated campaign finance laws.

          Terrell Ross and Murray Sinclaire founded Ross, Sinclaire & Associates (RSA).  [Website]  RSA sells bonds for government projects and has ties to several Kentucky lawmakers, mostly Democrats.  RSA gets the contracts for most of Kentucky’s state and local government bond work.

Before joining the Beshear administration Edelen worked as a consultant for RSA and CMW, Inc.:

Edelen’s disclosure, filed last spring, identifies his other sources of income for 2007, including the “consulting fees” he collected from two companies heavily dependent on government contracts: bond firm Ross, Sinclaire Associates and architecture/engineering firm CMW Inc.

The firms paid Edelen a combined $3,750 a month for his help pitching their services to clients in the public and private sectors, he said Wednesday. But the payments ended before he joined the Beshear administration in late 2007, he said. Neither company gets favors from him because of those payments now that he works for the governor, he added.

Ross, Sinclaire did not return a call seeking comment.  (John Cheves, “Lobbyist, official are partners - Beshear staff chief says job not affected,” Herald-Leader, January 1, 2009.)

No-Bid Courthouse Construction Benefits RSA and CMW, Inc.:

Since 1998, the state has designated more than $880 million to build 65 courthouses. Of that, more than half of the contracts—without competitive bidding—have gone to two Kentucky firms whose political connections have included a former transportation secretary, state senators and the son of former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph E. Lambert.

Codell Construction of Winchester has served as the construction manager on 38 of 65 projects—nearly 60 percent of all the jobs—while Ross Sinclaire & Associates has done the bond work on more than 68 percent of the projects in the past decade, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts, which oversees the program. … The AOC, which is not subject to the state’s Open Records Law, said it did not track the exact amounts paid to Ross Sinclaire or Codell.

Under AOC rules, prices for all major contracts are set in advance. Construction management is one of the major contracts that does not require firms to bid for the work. … The same is true for Ross Sinclaire, which gets the lion’s share of courthouse bond business. While that company’s political giving is dwarfed by Codell’s, it employs two legislators: state Sen. R.J. Palmer, D-Winchester, a vice president for financial advising and client development; and state Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville, who wrote the 2000 legislation that codified the AOC’s building process. … The other powerful company that gets the vast majority of business is Ross Sinclaire, which advises counties on their bond issues to pay for the new justice centers. In addition, Ross Sinclaire also wins most of the contracts for other bond work in the state, including schools and other municipal projects. … The financial adviser is paid through a complicated formula that can give it about 1 percent of the bond total. So the company could make as much as $6 million on judicial projects approved since 1998. AOC officials dispute that number, but would not provide an amount. Ross Sinclaire officials did not return calls for this story. … The AOC program shows much more diversity in the awarding of contracts for architecture, which are awarded under the same “request for qualifications” process. Of the 65 courthouses built since 1998, two firms got the most judicial center jobs -19 were awarded to CMW and nine to Brandstetter Carroll, both of Lexington. The remaining projects were divided among 14 different architecture firms.  (Linda B. Blackford, “Two Well-Connected Firms Profit,” Lexington Herald-Leader, September 7, 2008.)

 More on RSA:

          RSA built their underwriting firm on a business model that seems designed to create and exploit conflicts of interest with elected officials as much as the law allows.

Cultivating Political Contacts: Link Using Political Influence:

Thunder Ridge: Julian Carroll brings RSA to Stumbo's Floyd County Fiefdom: Link

Gambling Parlor Law: “Back-Door, Thief-in-The-Night Approach” to Rigging Legislation: Link

Casino Bill: RSA Employee Chosen to Sponsor Beshear’s Gambling Bill: Link

Financial Disclosure Forms:

Greg Stumbo Financial Disclosure Forms: Link

Bob Damron Financial Disclosure Forms: Link

"CGI Federal is the U.S. subsidiary of CGI Group, the Canadian company based in Montreal that won the $93 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services in December 2011 to build Healthcare.gov, the main Obamacare web site."

"John Loonsk, for example, was a former director for health information technology at HHS, which awarded the Obamacare web project. He is now CGI’s chief medical officer, as well as a member of the initiative.

James Peake was secretary of veterans affairs under President George W. Bush, and is now CGI's senior vice president for the health industry sector and an initiative member.

Others include Molly O'Neill, the former chief information officer at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who is now a CGI vice president.

Barbara Fast, a former U.S. Army major general, is a CGI senior vice president for defense matters and part of the initiative.

Patricia Healey was the former chief financial officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She is now a CGI executive consultant."