Lobbyist Firm Donates to City Campaign,
Gets No-Bid Contract

Three months before a City contract held by Townsend Public Affairs, Inc. was due to expire, the lobbyist firm's owner, Chris Townsend, donated $2,500 to the campaign to pass Measure N.

Now the city council is set to extend Townsend's contract to lobby for Oakland in the state capitol, tossing aside the requirement for competitive bidding. At $10,000 per month, the 11-month no-bid deal gives Townsend $110,000.

Another Townsend client is the California Capital Group, run by Phil Tagami, developer and political insider. Tagami has extracted millions of dollars in subsidies and sweetheart deals from the City of Oakland that are now under federal investigation; no charges have been filed.

Townsend also holds a contract from the Chabot Space and Science Center. Visitors buying admission tickets to the Center will be happy to know that running Chabot required $35,000 of lobbying in Sacramento last year.

Measure N proposed to build a $100 million palace library downtown while throwing a few crumbs to branches in the neighborhoods. Councilmember Quan was boss of the campaign for Measure N. Despite the absence of any fundraising by the grass-roots opposition, Quan raised over $150,000, much of it from a dozen large donations from businesses like Townsend Public Affairs that have or seek City contracts.

What compelling interest worth $2,500 does Chris Townsend, owner of a lobbying firm based in Irvine, have in the Oakland library? Does he check out books on public ethics that he cannot find anywhere else?

Questioned about accepting contributions from businesses holding and seeking City contracts, councilmember Quan replied, "Do a few City contractors give money to politics? Yes, and they should."

Previously, councilmember Quan took money from the City treasury to print and mail a campaign brochure for an increase in the Landscape and Lighting Assessment tax.

The contract deal is scheduled as a consent item at the March 20 city council meeting. A report by a City staffer offers the excuse, "Townsend … has developed a knowledge of Oakland's legislative needs and challenges that is invaluable to the City's advocacy efforts." (Agenda report, p. 2) In other words, once a political favorite gets in, there are no grounds for accepting a better bid from anyone else.

As recently as 2004, a City employee did the lobbying in Sacramento. The employee worked full-time for Oakland – for less money than Townsend charges. Townsend Public Affairs consists of half a dozen registered lobbyists, each of whom juggles about ten clients.

Maybe the overloaded client roster helps explain why Oakland bungled renewal of a sideshow law in the state legislature. A 2002 statute sponsored by the City had a five-year time limit. Last year Oakland "failed to provide required documentation [to the legislature] demonstrating the law's success before the statute expired." (San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 18, 2007)

A City employee is not an easy mark to contribute $2,500 to campaigns run by a councilmember. As Halliburton in Iraq demonstrates, privatization of government invites corruption. We don't know whether Townsend approached Quan with a $2,500 check or whether Quan called on Townsend with a few words about his soon-to-expire contract. Either way, Townsend built the cost into the price paid by the City for supposed services.

Campaign disclosure of Measure N contribution. No-bid contract followed

All the councilmembers are complicit in this corruption unless they demand that the contract go out to bid or an employee be hired. More important, an honest councilmember will insist on reform that bans City contractors from contributing to ballot campaigns for council measures.

Update: The Townsend contract expired Dec. 5, 2007. However, the council received a staff proposal, which it will no doubt approve, to spend another $125,000 extending the Townsend contract to Oct. 31, 2008, again without competitive bids. The staff proposal was signed off by both the mayor's director and deputy director of intergovernmental affairs – positions in the bloated office of the mayor that Dellums insisted on earlier this year.