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Lynx. And Links

Well, that should take care of that!

Unless Lynx Technology Group chooses to appeal Judge Linda Feinberg’s decision yesterday (I can’t believe the City of Trenton would be foolish enough to appeal!), we can now add Lynx to the string of Bad Ideas to come out of the Mack Administration.

Judge Feinberg pretty much laughed Trenton’s defense out of her courtroom, ripping the entire process by which the City repeatedly pushed City Council to approved the IT contract to the unready and inexperienced computer consulting firm. Speaking of the city’s process, she said “this is sloppy, and this bid, if properly evaluated in the first place, would not have made it to council for a vote one time, let alone two times.” I admire the Judge’s restraint in not inserting more adjectives and exclamation points. Since this was a judicial ruling, I will suppose she had to be temperate in her language.

I won’t say much more about the judge’s decision. It is not very ambiguous and leaves little to argue over. The City now must decide how it will handle its IT services, across all of its dozens of specialized software applications and hundreds of pieces of hardware. According to the account in the Trentonian, City Attorney Marc McKithen speculated that the city might take on IT services in-house.

Having just being schooled by Judge Feinberg about how brilliantly the city handled its Purchasing and Contracts process, and earlier showing such professional distinction in the way it packaged several city-owned properties for sale, taking on all the City’s Information needs in-house should be a breeze! Especially after laying off our IT Director in the Fall.

What could possibly go wrong?

There’s no need to answer that!

Before I move on, I just want to remind you how much political capital and personal credibility had been put on the line in this matter- and lost –  all for this Lynx Technology contract, by the Mayor and especially those 3 Council members who switched their first votes rejecting the Lynx deal to ones that approved it:

  • Councilman Zac Chester strongly defended switching his earlier “No” vote to approval, saying in a press release, “(Lynx) was the lowest bidder, gave a presentation that showed they are capable of doing the required work, and was found acceptable for consideration by the (state) Department of Community Affairs…No other factors influenced my decision.”
  • Councilwoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson claimed she conducted a significant personal investigation into the contract before switching her “No” vote, an investigation that apparently included adopting many of the arguments and much of the language in Lynx’s proposal.  She assured her constituents that her due diligence proved she was making the right decision.
  • Councilwoman Phyllis Holly-Ward let her constituents down by abdicating any attempt at reasoning her way to an independent decision on the merits of the contract. Referring to the same DCA letter as Mr. Chester had,  that supposedly vetted and approved Lynx, Ms. Holly-Ward literally said in open Council meeting, “I will also let the State make my decision.”

Now, I don’t intend to beat up on these three any more than is necessary to show that they made a bad decision to approve this contract. I want them to do a better job on Council, and I really do want to support them.

However, I do want to say that each of these three –  as well as Ms. Kathy McBride and Mr. Alex Bethea, who fully backed  Lynx and the Mayor from  the beginning of the process – Council members made this bad decision after having received much, much more than ample information and advice about the serious deficiencies in the Bidding process, in Lynx’s proposal itself and in the way that City ran – rather, mismanaged according to Judge Feinberg – the whole deal.

In several open City Council sessions, in private conversations and emails, online and on blog posts, citizens such as George Daugherty, Jim Carlucci, Robert Chilson, Dan Dodson and I offered our opinions and factual advice on this matter. Advice that was ignored at the time but, as it now turns out, Judge Feinberg for one happens to agree with.

Now, there was no obligation on the part of those Council members to have paid any of us any attention. They were all duly elected to make these kinds of tough decisions, and to bear the consequences and criticisms of being right or wrong. In this instance, it is manifestly clear that the decision to grant a City contract to Lynx Techology Group was one of those Wrong Decisions. The Judge also called it “sloppy,” and “a mess.”

I hope that each of those three Council members – who voted correctly the first time around but who, for whatever individual reasons they did so, flip-flopped their positions to allow a majority to approve that misbegotten deal – can learn from this experience. I hope they can learn to be more critical thinkers on Council, and to be more active and questioning, challenging not only whatever comes from the Administration, but also the advice and counsel that those of us who are outside the small circle of their City Hall familiars will continue to provide. Do your homework, ask good questions. Make better, and more informed decisions!

This Lynx deal joins a long, long list of Horrible, Horrible Deals, Decisions and Appointments produced by the Mack Administration. They all give us a very clear picture of the kind of leadership we have seen from Mr. Mack. Of course, none of this is news to you!

In these latter days, as we are see more and more  linkage between several of these stories and decisions and people, every single matter coming from the Administration  before Council these days represents a potential timebomb, both for Council members individually and for all of Trenton’s citizens.

Every member of Council must work smart, work hard, and work wise. They have to get their game on.

1 comment to Lynx. And Links

  • Brian

    You make a very revealing statement regarding the same language as the proposal. Through my many emails to her (Ms. Jackson) about this situation and the whole Lawyer fiasco, she proved that she knows how to copy and paste very well with no logical structure to her responses. I think you are wrong when you say that you should not beat the council members up any more than is necessary. While they are not paid a whole lot of money to do what they do, they do have a responsibility to the people of Trenton and by going against most of us on it in the way that she (Ms. Jackson) did, stinks of personal adgenda! This is my take on Ms. Jackson through her emails. As far as the rest of council I can only go by what I am reading and it seems they are in a similar situation.
    Just my 2 cents.