Kaufert ---Bows out of Race for Speaker, Voted Miss Congeniality

Wow. That Dean Kaufert is a really nice guy.

Earlier this summer when former DOA Secretary Marc Marotta appeared before the Joint Finance Committee amid concerns that Doyle’s top aids were interfering with the bidding process for state contracts, Kaufert was almost apologetic for taking up his time.

Today after Kaufert learned that Marotta had lied to the Joint Finance Committee in June when he testified that he never got involved with companies bidding for state business once the selection process had begun, Kaufert was willing to view it as simply an “oversight” on Marotta’s part.

Here’s what Marotta told the Joint Finance Committee in June:

"Once a decision is made, the secretary gets out of the way" and does not discuss it with vendors, lawmakers or lobbyists.

"I adhered very strictly to those principles with regard to any communication at all" with potential vendors, he said.

"Any inquiries, whether I spoke with them or not, were quickly referred to the procurement staff" who were actually handling the bids.

The only “oversight” Marotta had was that he never thought anyone would actually plough through his calendar and find the one on one meeting he held with Doug Weas, President of the company who was awarded the $68 million dollar Kenilworth contract.

The meeting between Marotta and Weas took place in April 2004 at the Milwaukee Athletic Club, smack dab in the middle of the bidding process. Seven weeks later, Weas Development was awarded the contract by a panel that included two DOA Officials who served at the pleasure of Marc Marotta.

To add insult to injury, the state is being sued for $5 million because Marotta convinced the State Building Commission to re-bid the contract, which had already been awarded to another company. Marotta told the Commission the do-over was needed to avoid a legal challenge by yet another bidder.

One would think Marotta, who claimed to have strict policy of being hands-off in the bidding process, would have stayed as far away from the second Kenilworth procurement as possible.
Yesterday Marotta’s spokesperson said Marotta also met with officials of the competing companies but executives of both companies said that wasn’t true either.

Kaufert said the revelations about Marotta’s testimony would not concern him unless it was part of a pattern.

I guess nice guys like Dean Kaufert see oversights where the rest of us see patterns.