BY BARRY LEVINSON
DID ANYONE SUSPECT IT WOULD TAKE THIS LONG FOR THE FPD AND CITY MANAGER TO COME TO THE SAME RECOMMENDATION THAT HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY SHOT DOWN FOR THE LAST 8 YEARS?
- Fullerton’s Police Chief Dan Hughes
Fullerton’s City Manager Joe Felz
I wonder how many Fullertonians know that the city has given one tow truck company a monopoly on all Fullerton city business since the 1960’s, approximately 50 years. We all know that a lack of competition is bad for the consumer and for the taxpayer. It drives prices up. So why has the FPD including new chief Dan Hughes fought so hard to keep that business in the hands of just one tow truck company, Anaheim Towing. I asked Dan Hughes that question shortly after he became Acting Police Chief. He denied that he cared one way or the other but then the consultant report the FPD contracted for proposed to give all the business again to Anaheim Towing,with only a very small amount of actual work to go to a back-up company that would only be called if Anaheim Towing was not able to handle all work.
The city council had specifically instructed our city manager, Joe Felz to initiate a RFP (Request for Proposal) to go out soliciting bids to divide up the Fullerton City tow truck work between at least two or three different companies equally. What was Mr. Felz’s answer when asked by the council why he had failed to do what the council instructed him to do? He said he misunderstood the council’s instructions. So many more months were wasted because the city manager did not understand the instructions and for some reason never thought to ask the council for clarification or go back to the video that is online for every council meeting.This consultant report was done by former police officers, now consultants. After they presented it to the council in 2012, they had to admit that all their data was straight from the FPD without any verification by the consultants themselves. This is not an audit but in the accounting business is known as a compilation because all they are doing is compiling information given to them into a user-friendly format. These reports are understood to provide no assurances that the information is correct since no effort was undertaken to verify any of the information contained in this compilation report. So the city paid these consultants tens of thousands of dollars for a report that added little or no value. Good job FPD! Unfortunately, many city governments request this type of consultant report rather frequently. A city tells the consultant what conclusions they want to see and the consultant for a handsome fee is glad to provide a very nice report that supports the cities desired results. These reports may not be completely inaccurate or misleading but fall short of the totally objective reports that the public both deserves and should demand.Based on this revelation it was back to the drawing board for the FPD to come up with a better plan! That was supposed to take 4-6 months. Now two years later, I see another attempt by the FPD, the presenting department to get a new tow-trucking contract passed by council on March 18, 2014. After all these many years, with various different councils trying to get a new towing contract with several new tow trucking companies to support our FPD, we see a very familiar recommendation from our FPD. They have rated the same company we have given a monopoly to for over 50 years as the top rated company, Anaheim-Fullerton (formerly Anaheim Towing) and they recommend that we give all the business to only one or at most two companies. FPD must believe that monopolies are good and competition is bad!However, FPD should know that monopolies with the same company are not the way to go forward. We have seen the problems related to towing companies and their relationships with several California cities including El Monte. Should we not heed some of the past and current council members who state it is time to give this contract to different tow companies? I am just having a real hard time understanding what the FPD considers fair andcompetitive when they continue to cling to recommending one company above all others for the last 50 plus years! My education,(MBA), work experience (Ernst & Young CPA firm and Northrop Grumman), in the financial, accounting and auditing fields informs me that having a monopoly with the same company for over 50 years is a terrible business practice. The fact that the FPD wants to extend this practice should send up red flags over every residence and business in this city.
Barry Levinson
#1 by Anonymous on March 15, 2014 - 5:56 pm
Question to Fullerton city council: Is everything associated with our city corrupted?