John Ullom isn’t used to hearing too many “thank yous” from municipal officials. The Half Moon Bay resident holds a reputation for challenging local government action or lack thereof.
Last week, however, Ullom received a letter of appreciation from San Mateo County Harbor District Interim General Manager Glen Lazof. Lazof thanked him for voicing his concerns “rather persistently” back in June in regard to district spending for IT equipment that couldn’t be found.
Ullom’s repeated inquiries prompted the interim general manager to start an internal investigation, and the district staff was able to locate documentation that indicated the district paid $34,689.31 to information technology vendor the Well Connected Office back in 2012. Though it paid for the equipment, the district now maintains the company never delivered it. The private company agreed and has sent the district a full refund.
Ullom says he and others stumbled into the revelation accidentally.
In the spring, fellow Half Moon Bay resident David Eblovi visited the harbor “to see what a $10,000 server looked like,” Ullom wrote in an email. The nearly $35,000 price tag struck Eblovi and Ullom, who both have backgrounds in IT, as high.
“We were just thinking (the Harbor District) was spending way too much money,” said Ullom, who worked on the investigation with Harbor Commissioner Sabrina Brennan. “We weren’t expecting that it wasn’t there.”
When Lazof stepped in as the interim general manager this summer, he said he heard the Harbor District was owed a deposit credit. When he came across an invoice a few weeks later indicating a deposit credit was made from the Well Connected Office he thought the issue was resolved and he could move on.
“I thought that was the end of it,” Lazof said.
“We kept getting these emails from John Ullom,” Lazof said. “It wasn’t entirely clear to me what he meant.”
Lazof and his staff did some digging. “I really wanted to find out how it could happen,” he said. “There are a number of checks and balances, and every one of them fell through for one way or another.”
For example, the staff discovered invoices that weren’t matching up with equipment the district received from the IT vendor, and paperwork seemed to indicate that somewhere along the line district officials decided they didn’t need the equipment after all. The internal investigation took months. Lazof indicated in his letter to Ullom that, in the future, the district would stick to procedures designed to make sure the special district, funded by taxpayers, gets what it pays for from vendors.
“John is a gadfly and that’s an important role,” Lazof said. “Writing a letter like that is not something you do with a lot of pride, but that fact was he was right. He helped us.”
Ullom insists that Brennan was the one who first looked into the issue. His role was merely to help her interpret some of the data and to “pester (the harbor district) until they capitulated.”
The district is still in need of better servers but plans to be smarter in making the purchase this time around. Lazof says he hopes to use vendor recommendations but plans for the district to make the purchases on the open market.
(5) comments
Bravo! Just left a review on Yelp for The Well Connected Office in Hollister, CA.
Thanks but you should all know what it is I did to provoke the refund.
I PESTERED THEM!
That is it. There was no investigative work. There was no genius involved. Other than being a pain in their ass, I did nothing. So thanks for thanking me for being a pain in the ass.
Here is the frustrating part.
Sabrina Brennan is the one who deserves the credit. She saw some data that looked odd. Sabrina doesn't have the skill set required to evaluate tech data so she reached out to people in the community in hopes of understanding.
Commissioner Brennan was vilified for having the gall to ask a question. If she had not asked the question, nobody would even know that 35,000 tax dollars had been wasted on equipment the district not only didn't need, it didn't even know it was missing. Watch Mr. Bernardo use this issue to advance Cartel Management's goal of silencing Sabrina Brennan. Be sure to watch until Bernardo gets a standing ovation from Cartel Management supporters: -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeKDoX0zlE&feature=youtu.be&t=1h29m53s
Does anybody think that this episode is only example of this kind of fraud, waste, and abuse that can be uncovered at the SMCHD? Does anybody think we are so clever that we dialed in on the only example of this kind of sloppiness?
Here is a link to the letter I received: http://skygizmo.com/PRA/Pester.pdf
Notice the explanation of how this screwed up transaction was obfuscated by the actions of staff. Does anybody still think the only example of fiscal ineptitude at best and fraud at worst has been uncovered by little old me?
Nicole David, Robert Bernardo, and Pietro Parravano all used Sabrina Brennan's simple questions as one of their excuses to strip her of her presidency. That is the real story here. If Sabrina had just kept her mouth shut like a good little girl, Nicole David wouldn't have even been a factor in the election.
I'll leave you all with this. The Mosquito Vector Control District was run by crooks for two years. They stole millions of dollars. One Board Member asked some questions. Staff was outraged that an elected board member crossed the same lines that Sabrina Brennan has been accused of crossing. You all do recall how that one turned out, don't you?
"Grand jury: Mosquito district manager and board enabled employees to steal!' -- http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23697553/grand-jury-mosquito-district-manager-and-board-enabled
Want to make a difference? Contact Nicole David and ask her to publicly thank Sabrina Brennan for caring enough to ask a question. Don't bother with Parravano because he has proven twice that he is corrupt. Don't bother with Robert Berardo as the only think he cares about is preening himself in front of an appreciative audience.
Nicole David promised the voters of San Mateo County that she would call for a "Forensic Audit" of the district. They now have 35 grand to use to perform that audit. Here is Commissioner David's email address. You know what do do.
ndavid@smharbor.com
Start withy that and then let Sabrina Brennan know you appreciate the courage it took to expose the Harbor District for what it is. She has been abused and attacked by such as Nicole David, Jim Tucker, Jeff Clark, and Cartel Management for over three years yet she refuses to backdown. What more could anybody ask from a politician?
Thank-you John and the rest of the team that helped uncover this attempted rip-off. I wonder what they same team could uncover if they were permitted to look through the HMB's books and records.
We all owe Mr. Ullom a Thank You. Keep up the good work throughout our community. [beam][beam][beam]
Nice!
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.