MTA INSPECTOR FINDS FLAWS IN CONTRACT AWARD : SHORTCOMINGS IN PROCESS CITED.Byline: David Bloom David Bloom (May 22, 1963 – April 6, 2003) was an NBC journalist (co-anchor of Weekend Today and reporter) until his sudden death in 2003 at the age of 39. Early life Daily News Staff Writer An MTA (1) (Message Transfer Agent or Mail Transfer Agent) The store and forward part of a messaging system. See messaging system. (2) See M Technology Association. 1. (messaging) MTA - Message Transfer Agent. inspector general's report has raised serious questions about the process of recommending an Encino-based joint venture for a $65 million subway contract in East Los Angeles East Los Angeles, uninc. city (1990 pop. 126,379), Los Angeles co., S Calif., a residential suburb of Los Angeles, in an industrial area. It has a large Mexican-American population. There is a performing arts center and a cultural center. A junior college is there. . The contract to manage the construction of the Metro Red Line subway extension from Union Station to East Los Angeles is scheduled to be awarded today to Metro East Consultants by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board. Inspector General Art Sinai's investigation questioned numerous areas of the proposed bid award by Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff. The contract was held up after questions arose over how Metro East narrowly beat out another joint venture headed by San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden engineering giant Bechtel Corp. In reviewing the proposed contract award, Sinai found: Two of the companies participating in Metro East's proposal are rated ``unbalanced'' by Dun & Bradstreet, the credit rating agency A credit rating agency (CRA) is a company that assigns credit ratings for issuers of certain types of debt obligations. In most cases, these issuers are companies, cities, non-profit organizations, or national governments issuing debt-like securities that can be traded on a , bringing into question their financial stability. There was no documented proof that company references had been thoroughly checked. An internal MTA memo obtained by the Daily News says ``only limited checks'' were conducted, merely confirming that work had been done - ``not work performance or quality.'' One participant, Jenkins/Gale & Martinez, had a possible conflict of interest because it had already helped design the subway as part of the MTA's consortium of outside design engineers. Such companies are supposed to be barred from then overseeing construction of a project they designed, but an MTA legal opinion also obtained by the Daily News ruled that Jenkins/Gale's participation was too minimal to trigger the conflict rules. New MTA Chief Executive Officer Joseph Drew acknowledged the shortcomings A shortcoming is a character flaw. Shortcomings may also be:
He promised to come forward with reforms in the bid-award and procurement The fancy word for "purchasing." The procurement department within an organization manages all the major purchases. process in the near future. He said these would deal with some of the shortcomings and improve the selection and oversight of companies building the agency's $5.5 billion subway system. |
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