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your support. Here's wsoctv's write up on the release of
the state auditor's preliminary report on Cat's Safety Charlotte Area
Transit Safety or Charlotte Area Transit System Safety. North Carolina
Auditor Dave Bullock said that in twenty eighteen, the cat's
armed security contract called for between sixty eight and eighty
eight personnel. However, there were only thirty nine armed security officers,
despite the contract increasing in cost from five point nine
million to its current eighteen point four million. Okay, so
the costs triple and the number of armed security guards
declines by forty percent. At first. Bullock said that the
security contractor PSS Professional Security Services was only hired to
provide unarmed security because they broke the contract into two
pieces for armed versus unarmed security. PSS got that. The
auditor said that CATS limited its selections from this contract
to firms that were registered in the city's Business Inclusion Program,
which is the goal of that program is to direct
city contracts to businesses that are owned by women and minorities.
CATS then terminated its contract with the armed security vendor
due to poor performance, and then expanded the PSS contract
to add the armed security responsibilities to PSS, but there
was no competitive bid put out for that contract. Again,
they just handed it off to PSS, even though they
split it up the first time. Gave PSS the bigger
contract for the unarmed security component. They gave another company
that didn't have to be women or minority owned. I
don't know what that. I don't know if they if
it is G fours or sorry Strategic Security. I don't
know if they're minority owned or what. But they won
the initial contract and then they got kicked out for
failure to perform. But there's no data, there's no explanation
of how they failed to perform, and then the city
just turned around and gave it gave that contract to
PSS in response to the audit, Mayor vy Lyles defended PSS, saying,
this report appears to suggest that PSS is not qualified,
but fails to offer specific evidence to support this conclusion.
And when we spoke to the auditor in the last hour,
he said, they never made that accusation. She's just reaching
she's trying to find some excuse for something to come
after them over. But they don't make the assertion that PSS.
They don't even make a suggestion that PSS is not qualified.
They simply pointed out that race was a factor when
you went out for these bids. And that's an important
piece of information because it does raise the question of
are they qualified. The Auditor's office isn't saying they are
or are not. They're just pointing out that PSS got
the contract based on race, based on your city policy,
and then they got the second contract without going through
rebidding process. That's why I said last hour that this
just smacks of cronyism. To me, that's what it smacks of.
You got the first contract and now we're just going
to fold this other one in after we let the
other company go. But the mayor says PSS has met
contract requirements and continues to provide satisfactory services. And as
the auditor said in the last hour, what are those metrics?
We don't know. You say, Okay, they're doing a fine
job providing adequate, satisfactory services. What are like, how do
you measure that? So here's the from the preliminary findings.
The scope of work for the original twenty eighteen contract
indicates that the armed personnel would be armed with either
a firearm or a taser. Additionally, at this time, again
six years ago, the number of armed personnel that the
company that had a contract at that time. The number
of armed personnel was required to provide cats under the
original twenty eighteen contract is not clear. We don't know
how many gfours was required to provide cats. It's unclear.
The price proposal attached to the contract, as Exhibit B
shows G four S would provide approximately sixty eight armed
company police, but the contract scope of work indicates that
the city requested and G four S agreed to provide
eighty eight sworn company police. So the State Auditor's Office
is still working to confirm exactly how many armed security
personnel G four S provided two cats under that contract.
In twenty eighteen. So that's why they've got this range
of either sixty eight or eighty eight. We don't know
what the number is. And this is why because in
the price proposal, gfours said, here's our price, here's our like,
you put this out for solicitation for bids, here's our bid,
sixty eight armed company police. And Katz comes back and says, now,
our scope of work is eighty eight police. We want
eighty eight police. We don't know if gfours provided that
or not, but they still got the contract either way.
The fact that Katz requested in the scope of work
eighty eight armed officers but then allowed PSS to only
run thirty nine this year, like, that's a choice. That
was a choice they wanted. They wanted to push I
guess more of the personnel into the unarmed category. On
October one, twenty twenty one, that contract for gfours was
then assigned to a company called Universal Protection Service LLC,
but it was doing business as ally. You've probably seen
them around Allied Universal Security Services. Because Allied had materially
absorbed G four S. Okay, so I guess a merger
of some kind. They bought G four S so they
amended the contract. Additionally, the city then exercised both of
the one year renewal terms which were part of the
original contract. So, and this is pretty standard in a contract.
You do an initial term for you know, two years,
three years, whatever, and then you get like the renewals,
you know, one year renewal, one year renewal, and then
you go and do another RFP request for proposal, you
put it out for bid again. So that meant that
their contract went through October twenty twenty three, but a
year prior, in October twenty two, in its letter exercising
the second renewal option, the city told Allied that the
city was quote currently in the process of procuring a
new transit security contract to take over the provision of
the CATS security services after the second and final renewal
option of Allies contract expired. So they were told a
year prior, we're going to be going out forbid again.
The city issued an RFP seeking a new contractor, and
that was in July of twenty two. Based on the
Auditor's Office or OSA, the Office of the State Auditor OSA.
Based on osa's initial review, it appears that this RFP
was split into two parts, one part seeking a contractor
to provide sworn company police and armed security personnel collectively
the armed Security services, and then the other part seeking
a different contractor for unarmed security services. So like, if
that is actually the way the proposal was written or
the request for proposal, the solicitation that went out, Like
did they say that we want two different companies here?
What if a company came forward like PSS and they
bid on both they said, we can do both. We're
going to do it all, and we're minority owned and
so we can fulfill your racial checkbox quota thing, and
so we can check that box. But we can do
we can do it all. Maybe they weren't allowed to.
I don't know. I haven't seen what the solicitation said,
but according to this write up in their report that
they wanted a different they were seeking a different contractor
for the unarmed security services. The proposal for unarmed security
services was targeted only to businesses that were registered and
certified with the city's Charlotte Business Inclusion Program, or the CBI.
The CBI program seeks to enhance competition and participation of
minority women in small business enterprises mwsbes in city contracting
leveraging the commitment of city leadership. CBI's goal is to
be a national model in the business inclusion space. To
accomplish this, all city departments have increasingly examined their procurements
and set specific participation goals on a contract by contract basis.
During discussions regarding the request for proposal, City Compliance Officer
Terrence Watson noted that the solicitation for unarmed security services
quote is only open to CBI security firms. It is
not open to other firms, regardless if they have other
certifications by other parties. What does that tell you? They
would not even look at a bid if you were
a white dude, if you were a company owned by
white dude. Like, that's what that says. You got to
be in the CBI program. If you're not credentialed in
that program, you don't get to bid on the bigger
securecurity contract. And this is all for equity. The next day,
mister Watson sent another email emphasizing that the advertisement must
mention the unarmed scopes have been designated as targeted for
CBI security firms only. So they made sure everybody knew
we're not taking any bids. We're not looking at any
bids unless they are compliant with our CBI program. The
requirement that it only accept proposals submitted by CBI certified
vendors functionally excluded other qualified vendors who could have provided
security for the CATS writers. Additionally, certain communications put forth
by the CBI Advisory Committee raise questions about CBI's partisan motives.
All right, if you're listening to this show, you know
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On the text line, I got a message here from
the grumpy major who says the does the audit report
mentioned that PSS Company president Celestine Ratliffe is former command
staff at CMPD. You mentioned cronyism. Well, there you go.
It does not mention her by name. It does mention
that the president is a thirty year CMPD veteran and
her husband is Lee Ratliffe. And I knew Lee Ratliffe
when he was the public information officer for CMPD years ago,
like twenty five years ago, So it does not mention that.
But they've both been, you know, in law enforcement in CMPD.
They've been in the local area for the last you know,
thirty plus years. I gotta believe they know a lot
of these people. In fact, I saw when I was
doing some background research on Lee, when I saw that
he was connected to this PSS I did not know
this is that they started this company. I came across
a couple of videos where he was confronting people. Do
you remember this would have been in like twenty twenty twenty,
nineteen twenty twenty. I want to say, where people these
leftists set up. They set up a tent outside of
the jail and they were offering post release services to
formerly incarcerated persons. Do you remember this? And then they
like the sheriff like didn't want them there and whatever,
like there was a big thing about it. Anyway, Lee Ratliffe,
there's a video of him coming down in his capacity
as PSS. He came down and was talking to these
people trying to get them to clear out, and they
were like recording him. You know who are you? And
you have no authority and all this stuff. And so
he was, I guess, contract with the Mecklenburg County government
to provide security at the government center or the jail
area or something. So he apparently has been getting contracts
with the local government or his company is beginning contracts
with the local government for a little while twenty years so,
I don't know. There is this CBI Charlotte business initiative
the CBI Advisory Committee, and these are volunteers that advise,
that offer their input and such and the Office of
State Auditors report says that certain communications put forth by
the Advisory Committee raise questions about the CBI's partisan motives.
For example, April ninth this year, at a meeting of
the CBI Advisory Committee, there was a discussion about House
Bill one seventy one, that is quote an act eliminating diversity,
equity and inclusion initiatives in state and local government. At
the time, House Bill one seventy one was being debated
and considered by the North Carolina General Assembly. At the
committee meeting, then committee Chair Siara Lilly encouraged committee members
to quote listen to the Republican argument made in support
of the bill during the committee hearings so that they
could quote be prepared to counter it. They go on
to note in a footnote that Lily's LinkedIn profile notes
that she is the quote Senior Vice President of Culture
and Belonging. That's a title at Diversified Maintenance, where she
ensures the company's culture evolves in alignment with its business strategy.
She served as chair of this advisory committee until September
last month. So this raises the question, right, like, if
this is the ideology of the people that are advising
your CBI program, how much of that is pervasive in
the awarding of the contracts? Is the advisory committee weighing
in and making recommendations on particular companies? Are they putting
race at the forefront for equity and inclusion purposes? Would
that have run a foul of the state law? Yeah,
there's a lot in this report that has yet to
be unearthed. And as the auditor kept saying when we
talked with them last hour, this is just a preliminary report.
This is just the information they have, and obviously this
is for the community to digest and to start asking
questions that this report is starting to surface. Here's a
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Audit the State Auditor's report here on the Charlotte Area
transit security. When the city rebid the contracts right, they
split the contracts. In twenty four they split them in half.
They're like one a contract for armed security, one for unarmed.
The city received eight proposals. One of those proposals was
submitted by Allied that had the contract, so they resubmitted
a review panel. Don't know who that review panel was.
They evaluated each of the proposals received and did not
recommend that the city recontract with Allied. Instead, the panel
recommended awarding the armed security services portion to Strategic Security
Corporation and the unarmed security services portion of the RFP
to Professional Police Services PPS but doing business as Professional
Security Services PSS. PSS is AZBI Certified Minority Business Enterprise
and the wife of PSS's founder and CEO was employed
by the CMPD for thirty years. That's the ratlifts. After
the panel reviewed all the submitted proposals, it sought the
City Council's approval to contract with SSC and PSS. This
was then debated. Sorry so this was in twenty twenty three.
City Council debated this. At that meeting, the Brett Kagel
or Brent Cagel rather sorry, who is now the cat's
interim CEO. He pointed out that PSS quote had previously
served the city as a minority business enterprise subcontractor, and
that splitting the RFP into two parts allowed PSS quote
the opportunity to move into the prime contractor position. He
noted that giving PSS this opportunity was a benefit of
breaking the RFP into two pieces, so this was held
up as an advantage as a benefit. The City Council
voted to approve the panel's recommendations. After getting approval from
the City Council, the city executed the contracts with PSS
and SSC. Then in twenty twenty four, the city canceled
its contract with SSC so like a year later canceled
it with SSC because SSC quote failed to meet certain
requirements of the contract and to perform its duties to
the satisfaction of CATS. The cancelation was effective December fourteenth,
twenty twenty four. Around the same time, the city also
changed the contract with PSS so PSS now provides both
armed and unarmed security services. Based on the osays the
Office of State Auditor's initial review, there is no clear
evidence that the city issued a new RFP for the
contract for armed services, nor did they engage in a
competitive procurement process before they amended the PSS contract. The
osay has not come to a conclusion on the quality
of service provided by PSS at this time. That's important
why because the mayor, in response to this said in
her letter, the report appears to suggest that PSS is
not qualified, but fails to offer specific evidence to support
this conclusion. The audit didn't say that. The report didn't
say that. It literally SAYSSA has not come to a
conclusion on the quality of service provided by PSS at
this time. They haven't said that they made no conclusion.
They're just pointing out that PSS got the contract without
a competitive bid process. This from seven oh four number
on the text line the PSS contract reeks of insider
connections and kickbacks. Forget about the CBI or DEI. Nonsense. No, look,
this is what I've said from the beginning. This is
to me, the rub is that there was no competitive
bid process or procurement process that was entered into. It's fine, like,
you don't think this other company is doing a good job,
you want to scrap the contract, fire them for cause,
go for it, but you should say why they're not
performing and you put out another RFP. You go out
and find other companies that now want to bid on
this work. You don't just roll it into the contract
with PSA. Why Because PSS didn't get the contract the
first time, right, PSS didn't get the armed services contract?
Did they come in second? And that's why you rolled
it in because there are certain exceptions for when you
are able to go without a request for proposal process
to go out to you know, for solicitation of bids
and and there's no indication that any of those exceptions
applied here. Now maybe they did, I don't know. It's
not been divulged until right now, it says. The report
says at this preliminary stage, OSA State Auditor has not
yet confirmed the specific reasons why the city canceled its
contract with SSC, So we don't know to me, and
that's why I said, this is what the central issue is.
After reading through this report, for me, it just reeks
of cronyism. And maybe that's completely wrong. I'm totally fine
to say I was totally wrong. There's completely legitimate reasons
why they got the contract without going into a solicitation
for BID's process. Totally happy to acknowledge if they have
a good explanation for why they did it this way,
But we haven't heard that yet. Maybe we'll hear that
at the press conference today. Oh no, sorry, they postponed
the press conference till Friday. I guess they want to
get all of their answers lined up so they can
address all of the points. Let's hope they did a
better job than Mayor vy Lyles did in her letter
to the OSA. And look, if any if there's anything
we can learn from recent experience with the mayor, you
got to give her at least three tries before her
statements are actually responsive. So I'm willing to give her
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dot com. Let me first jump over to the phone.
Let's talk to Joe. Hello, Joe, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Hi, Pete, I think you picked up the wrong line.
This is Jerry.
Speaker 1: Jerry, welcome to the show, it says Joe on the
call screener box here.
Speaker 2: So I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: That's not your fault. It's Bernie. He's fired. Now.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't want to throw Bernie under the bus,
so maybe I said it wrong.
Speaker 1: That's totally fine.
Speaker 2: Pardon me. I heard you say at one point where
you were reading from the report the city council had
to approve blah blah blah. But the question I have
is does this run through the city manager.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all the all of the city departments are under
the city manager's control.
Speaker 2: Right, so I have I've had a problem with him
for a long time because the whole four hundred and
ninety thousand dollars a year just chase me no end.
And what upsets me even more is I don't even
think we have any group or body or organization in
Charlotte that has the gumption or the financial wherewithal to
even like pursue this legally. Like I don't either.
Speaker 1: The Democrats pursue, pursue, pursue what legally well to try to.
Speaker 2: Find a way to get to hold people accountable for this.
If this runs through the city manager's office, why why
are who's going to have a hearing to pull him
in and make him explain all of this because you know,
the city, the city council is not going to do
it right.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the answer though the city council. He works
at the pleasure of the city council.
Speaker 2: So right, And that's what I'm saying that they're like Democrats,
sue Republicans and too oblivion, whether they have legal standing,
whether they have a legal leg to stand, they just
they just sue. And what I'm saying is what upsets
me is that for those of us in Republicans here
in Charlotte that I'm not I don't even want like
revenge or I just want accountability, Like if you've screwed up, Okay,
take some responsibility. We don't have any way of forcing
these people to be held accountable.
Speaker 1: Well, the ballot box is the way you hold them accountable.
You turn up the public pressure on them. But this
is what being in.
Speaker 2: The minority and how you always say, you know, how
you always say the media, democrats and the media. I'm
repeating myself. Yeah, like you know, we could ye the ballot.
Speaker 1: Box right, Well, but this is hang on, but hang on, Jerry,
hang on. This this preliminary report from the Auditor's office
is a good first step. It's identifying certain issues that
need to be looked into and answered for. Because if
this was a decision to split the contract up, right,
did this come from the City Manager's office, did it
come from this the CBI people, the advisory committee to
the CBI, did it come from the city Council, Like,
I don't know, but this this is the first step
in that process. I think so you're saying, I want accountability,
but we don't even know all of the facts yet.
We don't even know who made the decision to split
the contracts. We don't know why they then folded them
back into one company. We don't know any of that yet,
So we don't know who to hold accountable.
Speaker 2: If knowing about the murder of Arena Zaruska and then
having the most horrific video evidence proof of what happened
to her, and yet seventy percent of the people in
the city were still felt moved to vote for in
the primary for Mayor Lyles. I am sorry to say
that I don't really hold out much hope.
Speaker 1: Right, well, seventy.
Speaker 2: The information would come out would change anything at the
ballots off it may not.
Speaker 1: But also, just for context, seventy percent of Democrat primary
voters in a tiny turnout primary, right, so there were
I mean, the vast majority of people in Charlotte registered
to vote did not vote. She won her Democrat primary, Yes,
but the turnout, I forget what it was. Wasn't it
single digits? It was very low.
Speaker 2: So do you think do you honestly think that anything
that any of this the her murder and when and
this news coming out will make a difference.
Speaker 1: I hope so lifeline piecee No, I mean I hope
so so here but here, well, I mean, here's the thing.
I think what you're engaging in is speculative. Right, You're
you're you're already worried that nothing is going to change,
But you've got to go through a process to get
the information and the evidence in order to effectuate that change.
Now if because like I don't know what's going to
come out of the auditor's full audit, right, what if
they can pin it on somebody, What if they can right,
what if there was malfeasins or cronyism or illegal activity
or something like that, Then yeah, I mean I feel
like that probably that could move the needle, But I
don't know that yet. So I'm just in fact gathering
mode at this point because we don't know.
Speaker 2: So will we even have any of that before the election?
Likely not.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that's why you put this report out now,
so we can start asking these questions now. That's what
he said in the interview at noon. He wants the
public to have this information now, and so now maybe
media will start asking some of the questions and I'm
trying to answer to raise some of these questions that
I've got. They need to divulge all of this stuff.
But do I have a lot of confidence that the
city Council is going to act in a transparent manner?
I do not know. I do not I do not
believe that the Charlotte City Government and the City Council
have any desire to be more transparent than they have
been so far. So I can't throw your lifeline, but Jerry,
it's good to hear from you. I appreciate the call.
All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you
so much for listening. I could not do the show
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