An Open Letter to Governor Jerry Brown, California State Senators and Assemblymen and women:
Fourteen years ago this week, I found myself forced to go to the FBI and report illegally sole-sourced construction products in higher education - because no one would do the right thing in six years at my job.
A woman architect 20 years my senior and a colleague at the job had killed herself in utter frustration of the lack of adherence to public contract codes at the University of California - where we worked.
A woman architect 20 years my senior and a colleague at the job had killed herself in utter frustration of the lack of adherence to public contract codes at the University of California - where we worked.
Run out of the job in early retirement for arguing with bosses over continuing and wholesale illegal construction specifications put out in bids, she had begged me between gulping sobs, on the phone from her home in Mill Valley, "Janet, you just have to do something about all those illegal contracts going on at UC- how do they keep getting away with it?!?!" over and over....and the next day......
And so I have - don't even think I'm going away, either, until this is done.
Eight years ago, the State Auditor was finally allowed by the Legislators controlling them to do an Investigative Report on the same specs of one of 20 years' worth of similar specifications on an over 110-building campus. SIX YEARS after my initial report.....
Last year, finally, the Legislature heard about the depth and breadth of the scam statewide, and the State Auditor's report. They passed an emergency law that was gutted of the key provisions to stop the scam (AB 635). THIRTEEN AND A HALF YEARS after my initial report....
It has cost California over $1 billion dollars since my first report.
In contrast, the largest land mass state east of the Mississippi smelled a rat with similar specs from the same manufacturers in December, 2010, and stopped the scam in two and a half weeks - statewide.
Just how much longer is California going to fiddle while its' credit and economy burns to the ground?
Gov. Brown, if you truly want to stop the bleeding, you'll give me a call. I can easily give you a short list of what needs to be changed - to assure continuing massive fraud and waste of the taxpayer dollar stops - and especially in K-12 and College/University funding.
It's so simple....but you haven't "got it" - yet.
Sincerely, Janet Campbell, Architect
Formerly on the Georgia Board of the American Institute of Architects, elected from the 1200-member Atlanta Chapter three years in a row, 97% of the vote each time......
