The Threshold
Community Transit's Board of Directors never voted on the Tapia Productions contract. It did not have to. The award came in under the number that would have required them.
Every figure on this page is from one document: the agency's own August 1, 2019 memo to its Finance, Performance & Oversight Committee.
June 13, 2019 — The award
The limit is measured per contract year. The contract was five years. At $120,000 a year that is $600,000 of public money, awarded without the Board voting on any of it.
FPOC memo, August 1, 2019, Status
Forty-nine days later
On August 1, 2019, Larry Olson and Ginny Justiniano write to the Finance, Performance & Oversight Committee.
Seven weeks after signing, the work that fit inside $120,000 no longer fit inside $150,000.
FPOC memo, August 1, 2019
The budget was already there
The money for multi-year web consulting had been appropriated before the memo asking for it was written.
The ask
Two and a half times the amount awarded. The Board is asked to approve the increase, having never been asked to approve the contract.
What the memo does not say
It does not mention that Tapia Productions is owned by the husband of a manager in the Information Technology department the contract serves. Community Transit had put that in writing to her almost two years earlier, on August 15, 2017, and told her it was grounds for discharge.
Ten weeks before this memo, on May 30, 2019, Phil Tapia signed Form 7.02 certifying under penalty of perjury that the work created no conflict of interest.
Read Exhibit 01, The Contract →The documents
Original, exactly as Community Transit produced it. Nothing has been edited.