Craig Malisow reports on the Houston Press blog that Houston consultant Gerry Fusco is apparently the “change agent” for BARC that Mayor Bill White’s press staff recently promised:
BARC has inked a six-month contract with Houston consultant Gerry Fusco to address physical, financial and operational procedures at the troubled animal-control facility.
Houston Health and Human Services spokeswoman Kathy Barton told Hair Balls that Fusco will be paid approximately $200,000 and is slated to begin Thursday.
Conveniently, the contract extends just past the end of Mayor White’s term, which seems calculated to make this issue go away so he can focus on that Senate race.
Fusco, who appears to be a Six-Sigma practitioner, does not appear to have any particular expertise in managing an animal-care facility such as BARC. According to Malisow, his hefty contract has apparently been designed so that he can begin work immediately, with Council’s rubberstamping of the mayor’s spending to follow in two weeks.
THAT raises questions of how and why Fusco was selected as the “change agent” to clean up BARC immediately (after so many years of neglect), why it couldn’t have waited for a proper public discussion at Council, and just who Busco might know at City Hall.
If that last sounds overly cynical, we would point out that Mayor White’s other recent spending proposal for about the same amount seems to have run into a little roadblock today, according to KRIV-26’s Isiah Carey:
WE’VE LEARNED A VOTE BY HOUSTON’S CITY COUNCIL ON A PROPOSAL TO HIRE TWO LAW FIRMS TO ADDRESS SENSITIVITY IN THE FIRE DEPARTMENT WILL LIKELY BE DELAYED TOMORROW. THIS COMES AS HOUSTON CITY ATTORNEY ARTURO MICHEL ADMITS TIES TO AT LEAST ONE OF THE AGENCIES HE PLAYED A ROLE IN CHOOSING. MICHEL PLANS TO SEND A MEMO TO COUNCIL MEMBERS ON WEDNESDAY TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE.
HOUSTON CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JOLANDA JONES TELLS FOX 26 SHE HAS PLANS TO TAGGED THE PROPOSAL TO HIRE THE TWO OUTSIDE FIRMS. JONES WENT ON TO SAY SHE’S LIKE TO SEE AN AGENCY WITH MORE EXPERTISE IN THE FIELD OF HUMAN RESOURCES HANDLE THE MATTER.
Houston’s passive Council will almost certainly roll over for the mayor in two weeks, but it really shouldn’t. It’s not at all clear why these firms were chosen or what their mandate will be, and the public deserves to know those details. Furthermore, while $200,000 may not seem like a lot of money to someone who’s busy raising millions for a Senate race, it’s not an insignificant sum, and a little (or even a lot of) sunshine is always preferable to no-bid contracts put together by staffers for a seemingly distracted mayor.*
* We learned this lesson during the Lee Brown era.
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