In California: Who is stopping Investigations & has been busy changing Laws to suit the Scams

In California, this is how all investigations were stopped in my case where I reported illegally sole-sourced construction products in bidding at the University of California, San Francisco where I worked as a Senior Architect in the (huge) Facilities Department – and then got fired for whistleblowing to the FBI:



1. Although the FBI did find that the Tremco Specs reported to them were illegal – against the California Public Contract Code and subsequently ruled illegal by the California State Auditor – the Federal and State Attorney Generals took a “pass” on prosecutions.



It turned out that “Everybody” was involved in the kickbacks, according to a sneering former Contracts Manager – and also according to the former President of the San Francisco Unified School District’s School Board and their Facilities Committee - four years after the FBI talked to the Contracts Manager and the latter, two years after the Contracts Manager made her statement to me…



In fact, the former School Board President took me to see our famous Mayor in or about 2002 – and he expressed great anger at me for what I was doing – non verbally, of course. Later, that same Mayor, when a client who was a Judge and former law partner of that Mayor took the Tremco In-House documents in to show the Mayor, said he “supported _____ - the former School Board President.” The Judge’s reaction to the Tremco In-House Training Documents? “You mean they WROTE this down????” as he read it, fascinated….



The Former UCSF Contracts Manager by her own admission and statements to me about who got what, lied to the FBI that there were no kickbacks involved. Worse, one of the other persons the FBI was sent to – another secretary - turned - Contracts-Manager – turned out to be the daughter-in-law of the San Francisco Chief of Police…and she had the FBI Agents meet her in a San Francisco Neighborhood Police Station, surrounded by SF Cops “protecting her” and she apparently was taping the FBI Agents – whereupon the FBI Agents called me up, screaming “She’s Dirty, She’s Dirty, She’s Dirty” to my great shock.



The FBI Agents were then sent to a new Firestone Roofing Rep who unbeknownst to me was a former Tremco rep – which rep years later admitted to me that I saw him go in to my boss and tell him that I had gone to the FBI –and which the FBI Agent did not deny under deposition – Get how this works?



The “upstanding” folks in your community “smiling in your face” – all "dirty"…..



a. Guess what Union the California State Attorney General was in? The Roofer’s Union – because his family was in the roofing contracting business. (according to the local roofing union rep).



Guess where that State Attorney General is now? He is the California State Treasurer – and awaiting a probably successful run (as a Democrat) for the next Governor of California. State Attorney Generals should not be members of the organizations that could be lobbying them, or organizations that represent the businesses close family are in.



b. So if the California State Attorney General was busy helping his buddies rather than doing his job, where was the Federal Attorney General who was in charge of prosecutions brought to them by the FBI in my case?



He is now the head of – get this – the FBI.



And we hear the FBI Agents need to know who got what in kickbacks to do anything, anywhere….



Why can’t the FBI do their job without having to have myself, for instance, get kickbacks and report myself to them, or see someone actually get a kickback and be told that was what it was for by the person who gave it or the person who got it?



Did you get that? Is a bad child going to tell on itself? And who’s going to put themselves at personal and professional risk to make the case and do the investigator’s jobs?



Investigations should never be hampered by completely unrealistic, impractical “forms” of “investigations” – or left to those who have to run for office, and “get in bed with lobbyists”.



2. The California State Auditor in California and Wisconsin appear to be the only two states found (so far) to have the distinction of being controlled by – you got it -POLITICIANS corruptible by lobbyist influence.



The California Legislature has a “Joint Legislative Audit Committee” (JLAC). That committee successfully stopped the State Auditor from looking into any roofing contracts at UCSF for six years…..and then only to look at one of over 20 years’ worth on a campus with over 110 buildings (many more now).



When the California House Minority Leader asked in May 2005 for a major statewide audit of roofing projects in schools, the “political consultant” hired in to “bar the door” of JLAC hissed – and I mean hissed – over the phone after calling many weeks later to see what was happening, at the behest of the Minority Leader – and said that he “was going to send the request over to the State Attorney General’s Offices.”



Turned out that that “political consultant” had been on his City Council and School Board and had been instrumental in voting in the use of a certain manufacturer’s roofing products on at least two projects. He lived in the town of the roof consultant who wrote one of the supporting letters to the House Minority Leader.



3.  The Governor’s Offices got the Dept. of Education to “look into” the matter.



Not only did we catch them in a lie, they said only 5 roofs in California were done to any of the big three from 2000 to 2005, while in one County they listed having looked into, the local paper came out with many more than the one the Dept. of Education listed having gone to one of the three, in an article on June 29, 2003 (Monterey County Herald.)



When asked for their complete list of roofs, it was denied, and when asked for the list of warranties on all the roofs redone in that same time period, we were told they had no such thing…..



4. Laws have gotten changed – to benefit the perps.



Here’s how:

a. Whistleblowers now have to report all accusations to the State Attorney General’s offices or lose their rights – as if they have any in California to begin with.



In other words, a politician gets to hear who of the lobbyists he is protecting might have gotten caught – and get the details to perps to coverup, so then nothing has to be done. It’s so easy to stop investigations now.



b. For the first time we’ve heard of since the Qui Tam Laws were created 400 to 500 years ago in England – where anyone who catches overcharges to the government can sue those overcharging whether or not the government decides to prosecute the case themselves – the California State Attorney General (remember, a politician) now has the right to summarily dismiss the case without the person or person(s) who catch those overcharging the government allowed to pursue the case (wherein the government still receives a portion of the overcharges).



In fact, the California Supreme Court Justice who ruled in my case pointed out that the Qui Tam Law had changed and warned me off of filing any such case. The question is why – and it is very, very interesting.



c. The Public Contract Codes – which require competitive bidding – usually in most states and federal contracts, require to be listed in bidding documents “three products and the words ‘or equal’.”



In California, up until 2003, the law read “two products and the words ‘or equal’.”



The Asphalt Industry, through road paving contractors and Pacific Gas and Electric in an “engineering contractor’s association”, got the law changed to – get this – only having to list “one product and no equals, only if the specifier happened to know of another equal product…”



Since when does an architect not do their fiduciary duty to the taxpayer and not look into and specify equals?



FYI, the Asphalt Industry openly stopped the Roof Consultants in Texas from having a law that forced competitive bidding in school roofing contracts, in the early 2000’s. Whose next? Or have they already taken care of that law for other states – whoops, for themselves?



d. My last Attorney, a UC Davis grad and who whistleblew in National Institutes of Health contracting procedures at UC San Diego, discovered that the University of California was operating outside its Charter/Land Grant Act.



The University of California (UC) was formed with an Academic Senate that ruled the whole of University operations in their Land Grant Charter, the Organic Act (in the 1800’s); freedoms were given the Academics only. In the late 1960’s and 1970’s, UC’s Administrative arm pulled out from under the Academic Senate, called the “Office of the President”, and get this - took with them the freedoms granted Academics and assumed all freedoms, stating that they “did not have to obey any laws in their business operations.” Absurd? It gets worse….



It apparently got so bad the California State Legislature in the late 1970’s enacted a California Constitutional Amendment stating that UC had to competitively bid construction contracts…the main point lost that UC had no right to assume any freedom they wanted in any business operations…..



Now how does this relate to others?



Expect a “push” – as is happening in other states - to allow Administrators to take on “Academic Freedoms” in Business Operations – and circumventing all laws, as the California Supreme Court finally ruled UC Administrators could do – in my case – saying, and I quote, that “UC was a fourth branch of government” and therefore did not have to obey any laws – and that includes competitive bidding laws, you name it….



Administrators do not and should not ever be exempt from the laws, especially in Education and especially in Government.

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What a thievery scheme! Helped by politicians….laws changed, intents of laws changed to help buddies of buddies.  Professionals who have fiduciary duties are backed into corners or participate in the scams, overtly or by sole-source specifying.



Seems like our system of government has been corrupted and changed to benefit a whole lot of losers stealing from all of us – and our kid’s education and futures, does it not?



And worse, if you think about it – all that asphalt sold way before it should have been needed, over and over again, helping by those repeated sales the countries supporting terrorists….



Everyone needs to do what Cincinnati Public Schools did - ban the perps – permanently….and more.



And get the business of education back to education, not focused on redoing facilities.



Think: If we are going to outwork and outsmart the world to stay strong, we need to have everyone as well educated as possible – not stealing and driving us into the ground, destroying our best resources. __________________________________________________________