Techconnect: No Public input on Draft RFP, DTIS can release RFI/C submittals but won't & doesn't know the details for their own hearing
Chris Vein, leading the Techconnect Initiative, seems to send minions to do his bidding.
Ron Vinson, DTIS, says many disturbing things on KALW's City Visions Radio show (11/28) regarding TechConnect WiFi
it's a *real disaster* for the City (Real Audio)
21:00 Ron says they are still vetting the input from the RFI/C submittals, yet the RFI/C is already done (11/8/05) with an announcement that it is going to a RFP Bid.
30:00 Ron says they want a process that is as "Transparent as Possible"
31:00 Emy Tseng recounts details of an upcoming hearing - Government Audit and Oversight - GAO, Monday 12th and 1 PM Room 263 City Hall and reiterates a strong desire to include the Community in the whole process (keep this in mind)
It gets much better:
Then, Sydney Levy (Media Alliance) calls in and talks about the hearing too (he knows about it). He then asks Ron if there will be a process for Public Comment on the draft RFP.
Ron gives a long convoluted answer, NO.
48:00 fireworks again, Talking about City Fiber, Ron says the RFP solution has been selected and then backs down (not very convincingly).
Then Tim Pozar asks why the City continues to assistscompanies like Google in keeping most of their proposals secret. Ron says the City is indeed concerned about this and that they could release the documents but are concerned about being sued by the companies over Trade Secrets.
Tim and the Host point out that there is no way for the Public to comment on the solutions being proposed without access to them.
58:00 Lastly, Ron, who's department DTIS has received an official invitation to answer to the Board at the GAO (Government Audit and Oversight) on Monday the 12th 1:00 PM City Hall room 263, doesn't seem to know the time of the meeting (though Tim does) and Ron gives the *wrong* name of the meeting. Emy as noted above had all this information correct. And of course Sydney who called in knew about the hearing too.
Some would call this last point a simple mistake on Ron's part. Others might call it intentional misdirection for the people who show up at City Hall on the hearing day and can't find the meeting location. The meeting name Ron gave was a valid name, but not for this hearing so it sounded correct, but was not. Over the course of my interactions with Ron on this topic, I surprisingly experieneced half answers and misdirections.
Remember that is Ron's job, to provide correct information for the department.
Over the whole course of the show, Ron continued to extoll the City's techconnect website, yet that website has yet to announce anything on it regarding the hearings on Monday the 12th or Friday the 16th.
It seems the City really wants community input doesn't it?
People continue to point out that the RFI/C's have proprietary information in them. Therefore the secrecy is ok.
0) The RFI/C period was officially announced as over by the city on 11/8/05 - Even if this was a completed (and more formal) RFP process, proposals would now be Public Record according the the Sunshine ordinance.
1) No one made companies submit RFI/C's if they wanted to keep it private, this is a public Infrastructure discussion, RFI/C participation was not required for RFP participation.
2) Under the Sunshine Ordinance, companies may not redact large portions and certainly not declare the whole proposal is proprietary (AnchorFree did this- they finally created a one page exec summary that says nothing) Google 100 pages, 6 available to the public.
3) There's not a lot of new ideas under the sun, new chip sets, new business models and rumor spread the internet in hours
4) Some Companies submitted two versions of the proposals Public and for the Mayor's Eyes - there is no way to know what is really being offered
5) Apparently even after the deadline revisions additional submittals occurred - these have not been posted on the city website.
6) In Sunshine communications I have documeted with the City, they are actually helping the companies with the secrecy by saying that it is now not up to the City to say what is and what is not proprietary. Even though the RFI/C itself warned companies that this was all under the Sunshine Ordinance and the there was a reasonable chance this information could become public (and if so they couldn't sue the City) - this was reaffirmed in the pre-RFI/C meeting verbally and transcribed in questions and answers as well.