The City of Inglewood has continued a trend of publishing the weekly council agenda on Friday’s. The upcoming March 12, 2019 meeting includes payments to outside city consultants, some of which are attached to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (LACMTA) and none are within Inglewood city limits.
2UrbanGirls initiated a public records request related to Courtney Torres Consulting (CTC), which requested when the city council approved her contract to provide media messaging on behalf of the city. She is paid $5,000 monthly and to date we haven’t recieved a date of when her services were approved. The city, in fact, requested more time to produce the document. CTC is based in Sherman Oaks, CA.
CTC didn’t have a payment for services on the last warrant register, but is back this week. Research shows she is on the approved LACMTA vendor list, from which the city has entered into many “no bid” contracts, piggy backing on contracts awarded to LA County vendors. Our current security contract, which exceeds $500,000, was also no bid. The accompanying staff report detailed how LA County put out a bid for services, and approved Cypress Security LLC, based in Orange County. This circumvents an open process where Inglewood based businesses are afforded an opportunity to compete.
Many of the consultants being hired are not minority owned companies either.
It appears that City Manager Artie Fields signature is back to normal as he has signed a document for graphics installation at Parking Garage #2 on Locust and Manchester. His signature came under scrutiny, on last weeks council agenda. A regular 2UrbanGirls reader cried “he [Fields] must be tired from signing so many documents”. Um, no.
Related: Is the Inglewood City Manager’s Signature Being Forged
Despite the influx of revenue based on new projects in the city, Human Resources Director Jose Cortes has opted not to hire any new building inspectors. The city council will instead approve Agreement 18-205, in the amount of $150,000, to Alhambra, CA based JLee Engineering Inc.
How is all the new development benefiting Inglewood businesses and residents?
