The Baltimore City comptroller accused Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of lying Wednesday about a $659,000 information technology contract that included over $20,000 worth of video telephone equipment for City Hall.
BY MAYORAL AIDE; ILLEGAL DEAL WAS CUT,
BOARD OF ESTIMATES TOLD WEDNESDAY
The mayor is ‘not being truthful, …not being honest.’
— City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt
By Alan Z. Forman
Without specifically using the word, the city comptroller called Baltimore’s mayor a liar Wednesday during a contentious Board of Estimates meeting at City Hall which began with routine business but ended up with Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on the hot seat, accused of cutting an illegal deal to install more than $650,000 worth of high-tech equipment in City Hall offices, including several dozen video telephones costing nearly $21,000.
As first reported Wednesday evening by WBFF-Fox45-TV, the comptroller, Joan M. Pratt, charged Rawlings-Blake with “not being truthful, …not being honest,” and said the mayor’s actions violated the City Charter by attempting to “take over the duties of the comptroller.”
Pratt was referring to what she said was an illegal purchase that bypassed the city’s competitive bidding process, accomplished “under the mayor’s direction [by] Mr. Rico [J.] Singleton,” Blake’s erstwhile Director of Information Technology, who Pratt said “violated the City Charter in several ways.”
She was interrupted by City Solicitor George Nilson, who attempted to defend the mayor by declaring: “There’s no charter violation here that I see at all.”
Nilson was scolded for interrupting the comptroller by City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young, the chairman of the Board of Estimates, who said he received one of the $1,000 phones in question despite not having asked for it.
“I didn’t request it, but it was in my office,” Young said.
City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt called Baltimore's mayor a liar at a Board of Estimates meeting Wed. at City Hall.
Using funds earmarked for an IBM computer contract, Pratt said Singleton instead purchased several dozen Cisco desktop telephones — which Voice of Baltimore has learned included six for the mayor, Council President Young and other top officials — some costing as much as $1,000 each, with touch screens and video conferencing capability, a total expenditure of $20,800 for the phones.
The $659,000 information technology contract never went before the city’s spending panel, she said, and usurped her authority as comptroller over communications-related purchases.
“None of the items of the contract allow for the purchase of telephone equipment,” Pratt charged.
Singleton resigned in February after an audit determined that in his previous job, as deputy chief information officer for the New York State Office of Technology, he had negotiated employment for his girlfriend and had interviewed for a job himself with a software vendor that was awarded a major contract, which was ultimately terminated, costing the state $1.5 million.
He was hired by Rawlings-Blake as Baltimore’s chief information officer in December 2010.
Pratt said she requested information from the mayor’s office regarding the number of phones that were purchased and in which offices they were installed, but that when she asked for a meeting with the mayor to discuss the issue, she was ignored.
Rawlings-Blake did not respond to Pratt’s charges at the meeting, attempting to remain calm by sipping a cup of coffee throughout.
“First of all you told an untruth and said that you didn’t know that this equipment was installed,” Pratt said. “And you did, because it was on your desk…
“So you approved for Rico Singleton to spend $659,000 of city funds illegally.”
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org
CHECK OUT FOX45’S VIDEO COVERAGE OF THE BOARD OF ESTIMATES MEETING (click here)
