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After last week’s dramatic board meeting, in which Bryan Reece was reinstated as the active district chancellor of Contra Costa Community College after a brief administrative leave, questions remain about the investigation in course on undisclosed “personnel matters” involving the first year chancellor.
Details of the underlying investigation remain confidential, with district officials declining to comment, citing board policy. Reece did not address the details of the investigation in public comments so far, and he hasn’t responded to requests for comment this week.
However, an email complaint that was distributed to district leaders and others several months before Reece’s administrative leave sheds light on the controversy surrounding Reece earlier this year.
The email, a copy of which was obtained by DanvilleSanRamon.com, accused Reece of potential ethical and legal violations regarding a $ 10 million contract initially awarded by the district to VisionPoint Marketing for work to increase enrollment.
With the subject line “Bid Rigging at Contra Costa Community College District”, the email was sent on April 29 to competing vendors, district board members, county office and student media. by a shipper whose identity and connection to the district are still unclear.
The email sender accused Reece of manipulating the public tendering process for VisionPoint and a $ 10 million contract; VisionPoint was the same company that the district paid $ 25,000 earlier in the year to get help on the Request for Proposals (RFP) that was soliciting bids for the contract.
The email complaint alleged unethical behavior on the part of the Chancellor in creating the difficult bidding process – which would ultimately be reconsidered by the board, which rescinded the eight-figure contract from VisionPoint and went with another company on different terms.
“The issue that caused the district to cancel the contract award to VisionPoint was that the company was asked to help us write the RFP, and then we allowed them to bid on the RFP, and ultimately was selected, which led to the claim they had an unfair advantage, ”said Tim Leong, district public information officer, in an email to DanvilleSanRamon this week.
“We are currently reviewing our business procedures to make sure we capture this experience so that this does not happen again,” Leong added.
Leong declined to say whether the ongoing investigation involving Reece was linked to allegations of collusion in the VisionPoint bidding process since the spring.
While it is not clear from the publicly available information whether these allegations were the catalyst for the ongoing investigation of Reece, it would not be surprising to some on the ground in the district, according to Neal Skapura, president of Classified Union Local 1 and English instructor at Diablo Valley College.
“Why is (the board of directors) hiding behind the idea that the investigation must continue? It is quite clear that he is under investigation for supply adjustment,” Skapura said.
Reece, who begin as chancellor of the CCCCD on November 1, a few days before the general election where two board members would be eliminated, was placed on administrative leave with pay September 14 by the current board in a 3-0 vote (with one absence and one abstention), citing an undisclosed personal investigation.
Just over two weeks later, a new majority of the board decided 3-2 to reinstate Reece as chancellor as of the vote that took place shortly after midnight on the morning of October 1. The vote came after more than an hour of passionate public commentary primarily expressing support for Reece and then more than six hours of closed-door discussion.
Details of the investigation remain unknown, but district leaders have confirmed that the investigation is still ongoing after the board vote in favor of Reece’s reinstatement. Although Reece did not respond to requests for comment on the investigation, he discussed what he saw as problems with the district’s investigation process during his public comment on September 30 ahead of the council vote. administration to let him return to work while the investigation continued. .
Cancellation of the award of a call for tenders
The CCCCD board of directors initially approved an agreement with VisionPoint to assist the company with the bidding process for $ 25,000 at the meeting of the Trustees on February 25. VisionPoint, on staff recommendation, then won the marketing services contract to boost signups with its $ 10 million bid at the April 28 board meeting – a day before dispatch. April 29 complaint email to competing vendors, district officials and student media. .
At a subsequent board meeting on May 26, board chairman Andy Li referred to an email the district received indicating issues with the appeals process. ‘offers for the marketing contract. It is not clear whether Li was referring to the April 29 “bid-rigging” email in his public comments in May.
“Following the board’s approval to enter into contract negotiations, we received an email suggesting that our tendering process may have been flawed,” Li said in a board report. administration of the May 26 district meeting. “The email listed several issues to consider. We immediately asked two attorneys and our executive vice chancellor to assess the concerns. The attorneys concluded that there was a claim in the email. mail that could be accurate and to make sure we were avoiding any risk to the district, we look last. “
The trustees unanimously voted to cancel the contract with VisionPoint at their May 26 meeting. They heard a presentation from Interact Communications and awarded them a marketing services contract on August 11.
The contract initially awarded to VisionPoint was $ 10 million, for services to be provided until 2024.
When contacted this week to comment on the bidding process and the particular sign-up marketing needs VisionPoint was tasked with addressing, a company spokesperson said he didn’t was not information they could share.
“As a matter of principle, we do not disclose information derived from our analysis of the strategic situations of customers or potential customers,” said Dana Cruikshank in an email on behalf of VisionPoint. “Generally speaking, the need to increase enrollment is common to many higher education institutions. “
The board of directors voted in favor of awarding a marketing services contract to Interact Communications, at a rate of just over $ 2 million for the first year of services provided.
“We sought the advice of our legal counsel to assess our options and recommendations,” Leong said of the cancellation process. “This contribution was presented to the governing board who ultimately agreed that it was in the district’s interest to terminate the VisionPoint contract. This topic also received media coverage and a contribution from community, and I’m sure everything was factored into the board’s decision. “
The April 29 complaint email claimed that VisionPoint had been awarded a $ 150,000 contract for marketing services at Norco College in Riverside County – shortly after Reece was put on leave and finally finished as president there in June 2019, but he was still leading the contract review and selection process, according to the email.
In addition to alleging that Reece may have colluded with VisionPoint, the email complaint to CCCCD claimed that the bidding process “had been rigged, manipulated, and the vendor had been shortlisted by Chancellor Bryan. Reece, “citing violations of the district’s trade procedures for several appeals. the chancellor’s actions “not only unethical, but potentially illegal”.
The email also called the board members “accomplices” to their initial vote to award the $ 10 million contract to VisionPoint. The sender urged the district to investigate a potential motivation for the alleged bid-rigging.
The complaint email preceded the board’s decision to terminate VisionPoint’s contract on May 26 – a decision taken on the advice of the district legal counsel, according to Leong.
Leong said he was not aware of any further action taken by the board in response to the district legal adviser’s comments on the tender process in question.
Skapura said that in his opinion an unethical relationship with VisionPoint would be the character of what he described as Reece’s “quid pro quo” style of thinking.
“I think his reward would be if the marketing company would eventually help him with his book when he became a consultant after this place,” Skapura said. “If the report is released, I strongly suspect that it would be maintained there. “
“This is how it works,” Skapura said. “Does the end justify the means? Totally ignoring all protocols, all board policies. “
Skapura said it was no surprise that Reece was able to rally supporters at the September 30 meeting ahead of his reinstatement as chancellor. He suggested that Reece was happy to provide support to groups such as the branches of the NAACP and United Faculty on behalf of their goals, as long as they were willing to reciprocate.
“This kind of stuff really looks like street theater,” Skapura said. “It’s just a show, and it’s a distraction from why we were actually there. And why we were actually there to watch is that it is being surveyed for personalization offers, and the board of directors put him on administrative leave. “
Although he had an overview of the situation as a union official, Skapura stressed that one of the most frustrating aspects was the lack of transparency on the board, and said he wanted the conversations on Reece are based more on documented facts than speculation.
Leong also admitted that speculation and rumors were rampant in the district amid Reece’s investigation.
“There are a lot of rumors going around today about the recent decision to put him on paid administrative leave and then bring him back,” Leong said. “As we cannot comment on personnel matters, the official information void is filled with a lot of speculation and rumor.”
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