Why is Veterans Services Corporation so entrenched in the D.C. Lottery
By Jeffrey Anderson
Among the reasons members of the D.C. Council offered for waiving procurement law to approve a no-bid, $215 million lottery contract with Intralot, was that the city had to beat Maryland to the sports betting market.
Yet absent from the political rhetoric surrounding that contract in the final days of the recent legislative session were a pair of documents from the Maryland Lottery that D.C. Lottery officials never shared with the Council.
The documents, obtained by District Dig through a Freedom of Information Act request, contain findings by the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency that eviscerated Intralot’s joint venture partner, Veterans Services Corporation (“VSC”), which will receive $110 million as a subcontractor to Intralot to operate and manage the D.C. Lottery and sports betting contract.
In conducting a competitive bid process, the Maryland Lottery’s Evaluation Committee described VSC as the joint venture’s weak link in terms of organization, management and finances. A bid protest decision by the Agency underscored that conclusion.
A sloppy bid submission littered with inconsistencies, conflicts, material omissions and embarrassing typographical errors led Maryland Lottery officials to determine that VSC lacked “fiscal integrity and resources.”
The joint venture between VSC and Intralot—the incumbent lottery contractor in D.C., re-branded for Maryland as “Gaming Innovations”—“brings no business value,” and presents “unwarranted downside risk,” officials found. “Gaming Innovations is weaker than Intralot on its own.”
Members of the Council confirm they had never seen the evaluation report or bid protest decision until The Dig provided them with a copy and asked for comment. Few responded to questions and none of those who did respond would directly address the findings.
In an email, Nicole Jordan, Director of Marketing and Communications for the D.C. Lottery’s Office of Lottery and Charitable Games, said the Maryland bid protest decision “was widely distributed” to members of the Office of Gaming and Lottery when it was released, but that the report “was not re-distributed during negotiations.”
Jordan defended the decision to withhold the documents by pointing out that the Maryland and D.C. lotteries have different specifications, and emphasized that the D.C. contract is with Intralot, with VSC as a subcontractor, whereas in Maryland, the two were bidding as a joint venture.
“VSC will serve as the operational manager for the Lottery in the new gaming system and related services contract, a role it has been successfully executing for last nine years,” Jordan said. (The new contract became effective July 16, she added, and Intralot will begin its new billing on October 1.)
Prompted by lobbying from Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey DeWitt, former Committee on Finance and Revenue Chairman Jack Evans, and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, the Council approved the contract in the final days of a heated legislative session.
In waiving all of the procurement laws in the D.C. Code, the proponents cited time delays associated with competitive bidding, burdensome appeals, the immediate need for sports betting revenue, and the avoidance of insider jockeying among local contractors.
Opponents derided the measure as short-sighted insider dealing and bad public policy. By eschewing competition and negotiating solely with the incumbent contract holder Intralot, which handed a majority-share subcontract to VSC—a well-connected firm—and a number of lesser subs with their own connections, the Council seemed to be doing just what Mendelson said he was trying to avoid.
Gaming industry observers and procurement law experts say the Council has made a mockery of basic principles of government contracting that it might someday regret.
Charles Gillespie, CEO of gambling.com, a site that monitors online gambling vendors, told the Washington Business Journal earlier this year that D.C. would lose out on revenue by allowing Intralot to have a monopoly on online gambling. “Sports betting, for a variety of reasons, is [a] completely different product than the lottery,” Gillespie told WBJ, conceding the impulse to launch sports betting before Maryland and Virginia, which he said could still outperform D.C. down the road with a free-market approach that maximizes performance potential.
“This has [the] potential to set a very dangerous precedent in terms of how not to do this,” he said. “If D.C. has this really crummy Intralot monopoly, they’re going to lose all the business to the other states anyways.”
Which casts doubt on the decision by D.C. Lottery officials to not share the Maryland Lottery’s grim assessment of VSC with the Council, as fiduciary duty might require; and causes one to wonder what Council deliberations would have looked like had they known of it. Above all it raises a question as to why the lottery seems like such a lock for VSC, which has walked away with a majority share for the second time in 10 years, without ever having competed for it.
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Intralot originally won the D.C. Lottery contract in 2009 through competitive bidding and, under political pressure to replace its chosen local partner, subcontracted the operation to DC09 LLC, a joint venture with VSC as 51 percent owner that incorporated in Delaware, in March 2010.
In anticipation of a new Maryland Lottery contract on the horizon, VSC founder and DC09 President Emmanuel Bailey registered Vital Services Contractors in D.C. as a trade name for VSC on October 14, 2014, and promptly registered VSC in Maryland as a foreign corporation, at 55 M Street SE, where DC09 is located, on December 3, 2014.
He listed himself as Resident Agent at his home in Burtonsville, Maryland, according to filings with the Maryland Department of Taxation and Assessment.
In December 2015, Maryland’s gaming control agency issued a request for proposal (“RFP”) for its Lottery Central Monitoring and Control System “to obtain state-of-the-art information technology, equipment and marketing services to drive all Lottery sales.”
Bailey then registered Vital Services Contractors as a trade name for VSC at an office suite in Lanham, Maryland, as a “management Operations and Services firm specializing in Gaming Operation management, IT, Business Services and Staff Augmentation serving Government and Industry.”
A few months later, on April 14, 2016, a new joint venture between VSC and Intralot—“Gaming Innovations LLC”— registered as a “General Purpose” company at that same Lanham address, with Jay Lapine, Intralot’s General Counsel and Vice President, listed without a business title. The company filed no annual reports, personal taxes or assessments for 2016.
The Maryland RFP contained six levels of prioritized criteria and 35 unranked criteria. By June 2016, Gaming Innovations and two other competitors, Scientific Games Corporation and International Game Technology (formerly GTech) had submitted best and final offers.
The proposal by Gaming Innovations was doomed from the start. Maryland adopted an “extensive cost-benefit analysis” that focused on superior technology, and a key selling point for Gaming Innovations was its lowball price, which the chief procurement officer and the chair of the Evaluation Committee told Lottery Director Gordon Medenica was “inverse to its capability,” according to the August 2016 Committee report.
The Committee also looked at the composition of the competing ventures. Whereas IGT, based in Providence, RI, and Scientific Games, based in Las Vegas, were easy to identify, the evaluators saw Gaming Innovations as a cipher, a virtual nonentity created for the sole purpose of bidding on the contract, they wrote, in their report to Medenica. It didn’t even have a real physical presence in Maryland at the time, the report states.
The submission of financial capabilities and legal actions “applied exclusively to Intralot only,” they wrote, noting that “No information was submitted for [Gaming Innovations] or for [joint venture] member VSC,” and “No financial information of any type was provided for VSC.”
Though Gaming Innovations updated the summary as requested, the evaluators observed similar errors related to the Minority Business Enterprise and Veteran-Owned Small Business Enterprise submissions, a certification that confers a competitive advantage for minority contractors.
“Numerous aspects of the [bid proposal] and subsequent discussions and clarifications contained inconsistencies, conflicts and/or omissions that raised much concern…about [Gaming Innovations’] responsibility,” the Committee wrote. “These concerns led to serious consideration of a determination that Gaming Innovations was not a ‘Responsible Offeror.’”
The disjointed submission, the Committee concluded, was the product of a hasty decision by Intralot to form a joint venture with VSC after exploring a stand-alone proposal with several other minority subcontractors. “The [joint venture] members…were unable to present a well-defined operational structure,” they wrote. “Nearly all interactions at meetings and in written communication with the Committee were dominated by Intralot, with VSC having no participation.”
Nevertheless, the Committee decided to allow Gaming Innovations to enter the competition, subjecting it to deeper scrutiny. But evaluators soon determined the problems with Gaming Innovations flowed from VSC, according to their report.
Sometimes VSC was described as playing a significant role as a “field services provider” in a 50/50 partnership with Intralot as “technology provider,” the Committee wrote. Yet it also repeatedly was referred to as a subcontractor, according to the report.
In spite of a requirement that the venture be responsible for products and services, “Representatives of both Intralot and VSC have repeatedly stated that Intralot, not [Gaming Innovations], will be responsible for fulfilling all contractual obligations,” the report states.
However, it states, “The owner of VSC advised the Committee that VSC had no capital to invest in the [joint venture] and that Intralot would provide all funding and equipment. It was evident to the Committee that GI is not an equal partnership, despite the claimed 50/50 relationship…VSC has no capital; has very limited business or industry experience; and was unable to provide a coherent and consistent explanation of the role it will play in the operation of the gaming system.”
When pressed, “VSC stated that it is unable to perform any task, including establishing and beginning operation of the field service organization, without financial and material help from Intralot,” the Committee wrote.
Even if VSC was defined as a subcontractor, the Committee found that its management team’s total combined individual business experience—“the majority of which appears to be as part of the operation of the D.C. Lottery under the DC09 LLC structure”—was not considered “a wealth of business or industry experience,” even for a city of D.C.’s size, the report states.
“Intralot itself has far less U.S. experience than the other Offerors,” the Committee added.
Then, citing the paucity of VSC’s full time employees, reliance on self-service lottery terminals (maintained by separate staff), lack of an up-to-date organization chart and contradictions in stating the obligations and liabilities of the joint venture partners, the Committee further found that neither Intralot, nor VSC, nor Gaming Innovations, made much effort to rectify the situation.
“The Committee is skeptical of the arrangement between Intralot and VSC and how it can or would be solidified if [Gaming Innovations] were to be awarded this contract. Numerous requests for an explanation of the separation of responsibilities have generated a different response for each request.”
In spite of such a thorough rejection, Gaming Innovations filed a bid protest. But the Lottery and Gaming Control Agency’s dismissal of the protest was just as brutal.
Among other things, Gaming Innovations claimed the Committee failed to impute the partners’ qualifications to the venture itself, and improperly weighed its structure and VSC’s failure to provide financial information. The Evaluation Committee was prejudiced, they claimed, and unfairly favored the incumbent, Scientific Games, which was awarded the contract.
In defending its lack of financial statements or tax returns, Gaming Innovations claimed it was a newly-created entity. But the Agency noted that even with the line of credit letter it offered from M&T Bank, VSC could not show a commitment to put up any particular amount of money.
“Moreover, Emmanuel Bailey, the President and CEO of VSC, acknowledged to the Evaluation Committee that he and VSC had no financial resources whatsoever to undertake their contract responsibilities during conversion,” the Agency said, according its bid protest decision. “VSC’s lack of fiscal integrity and resources was further shown by the fact that [Bailey] was unable or unwilling to make a cash contribution for membership to the joint venture, and instead made an in-kind contribution of services.”
Gaming Innovations also offered different answers for the same questions, the Agency said, expressing concern that its proposal was so “riddled with basic typographical errors” that the venture and its partners “would be unable to muster the attention to detail or resources critical for this complicated multi-million dollar contract.”
(Gaming Innovations’ proposal contained 24 binders, according to the decision, each with a title on the spine that read, “Lottery Cetral Moitorig and Cotrol System.” On 62 individual pages of the proposal, the header included the word “Qualificaitions.” The 33-page Executive Summary contained at least 53 typographical errors. And there were “at least 74 typographical errors in the first 100 pages of the Proposal alone.” The proposal also misspelled the name of the joint venture’s general manager.)
On May 10, 2017, the Board of Public Works, chaired by Governor Larry Hogan, upheld the rejection of the bid protest, and approved the contract award to Scientific Games, according to a hearing transcript obtained through a FOIA request. Along with an attorney from the Baltimore office of Venable, Bailey appeared beside Byron Boothe, Vice President of Intralot.
Though the Maryland Lottery officials had slammed VSC’s validity, and found that the joint venture rested almost entirely on Intralot’s capacity to perform on the contract, it was Bailey who testified, not Boothe, according to the transcript. Hogan sounded unimpressed.
Neither Bailey nor Boothe responded to numerous requests for comment for this story.
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One of the arguments Gaming Innovations had tried was to compare itself to the experience of DC09 with the D.C. Lottery.
The Intralot-VSC partnership, set up as a subcontract under a 2009 contract award to Intralot, arose from an ignominious chapter in D.C. contracting history: Led by then-Chairman Vince Gray, the Council had nullified an initial competitive award to Intralot for political reasons, then after a second competitive award to Intralot, chased off one local partner, and instead approved Bailey and VSC.
The process was ugly and heavily-documented, by myself while working for The Washington Times, and by several other local reporters. By the time it was over, Gray, then-Finance Committee Chair Jack Evans and deceased former Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham had subjected themselves and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (“OCFO”) to an investigation by the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) and a federal grand jury probe.
While there were no indictments and no findings of conflict or a quid pro quo, the facts detailed in a 2012 OIG report were troubling for all concerned. A whistleblower suit by a former procurement officer who claimed he was fired after refusing to violate procurement law ended, many years later, in a $3.4 million, taxpayer-funded settlement.
The OIG determined that VSC had landed a majority share of the lottery contract despite having no record of performance related to the lottery or any other business, according to the report. It found that VSC was “not qualified” for the procurement codes it was claiming, the report states, and that VSC had failed to “satisfy the requirements of certification as a local business enterprise.” (The OIG also said in its report that Bailey had misrepresented himself while vying for unrelated federal government contracts.)
During a 2009 site visit to VSC’s headquarters, located at Bailey’s mother’s house in Southeast, staff from the Department of Small and Local Business Development (“DSLBD”) entered a family room with two desktop computers, two desks, one printer, and two executive chairs, the OIG report states. They found no bookkeeping, record keeping, payroll maintenance, telephone service or stationery with the company logo, it states. They learned that Bailey worked primarily from his home in Burtonsville.
Though DSLBD determined that VSC was not qualified for the proper vendor codes and did not meet the requirements for Certified Business Entity (“CBE”) certification, the agency went ahead and approved the certification two days later. Problem solved.
Over 10 years, DC09 has compiled a mixed record with the D.C. Lottery, with officials in recent years striving to recover lost market share of instant tickets that peaked in 2012 but decreased from 2013 to 2015, according to a performance oversight report by the recently-disbanded and re-allocated Finance Committee that Evans chaired for years.
As of January 31, fiscal year 2019 year-to-date transfer of revenue to the city’s General Fund was down 2.2 percent from the last fiscal year, the oversight report states, with sales for the same time period rising 3.2 percent. Conversely, the lottery’s FY 2018 transfer rose 8.55 percent from FY 2017, while sales decreased 3.86 percent.
Sales from terminal games and instant tickets decreased slightly from FY 2017 to FY 2018, but after marginal decreases in the lottery’s Instant “Scratcher” Ticket portfolio in FY 2017 and FY 2018, the lottery “is experiencing growth in FY 2019,” the oversight report states. “We are gradually moving the needle” due to the introduction of new products, the report states.
At the same time, the number of licensed agents has decreased from 497 to 401 since FY 2014.
In general, lottery officials find themselves competing for gaming dollars against larger neighboring state lotteries and for “discretionary dollars” against six nearby casinos, including the MGM Casino at National Harbor, according to the oversight report. A Council staffer whose member sits on the Finance Committee says officials are hoping that sports betting will turn the whole operation around.
Earlier this year, The Dig observed Evans and DeWitt discuss the lottery during a barely attended oversight hearing. In what appeared to be a well-scripted question-and-answer, they spoke of the need to fast-track sports betting in order to upgrade technology and accelerate revenue growth.
But the launch of private operator sports wagering, projected to begin next month, already has been pushed back to early 2020 and figures to miss the Super Bowl.
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On paper, Bailey, who owns the majority of the joint venture with Intralot, looks like a benevolent Fortune 500 CEO. He serves as a Director for the Greater Washington Urban League, Executive Board Committee Member of the Greater Washington Boys & Girls Club of America, and President of the Board of Directors for the Kevin Durant Charity, according to the website for Serving Our Children, where he serves on the Board of Trustees.
He also recently became a Member of the Board of Directors for D.C. Chamber of Commerce.
Bailey also has established himself as a political fundraiser host and sponsor, and a generous political donor, contributing tens of thousands of dollars to candidates over the years personally and through various businesses he owns or has been associated with, according to records filed with the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance.
He contributes to non-profit organizations and just recently gave $20,000 to a community group that took more than 150 kids from Southeast to Six Flags as a retreat from a summer of violence that claimed 11-year-old Karon Brown.
“Mr. Bailey is President and Chief Executive Officer of DC09, LLC. (A Joint Venture with INTRALOT, Incorporated-the 3rd largest Global Gaming Company). INTRALOT employs more than 5,300 professionals, with a presence on 5 continents, 55 jurisdictions and 12 U.S. States. Mr. Bailey’s company is the major owner of the joint venture, and has direct overall vendor management responsibility for the District of Columbia Lottery, managing a $250 million annual book-of-business. Mr. Bailey is the only Minority Operator of a State Lottery System in the $87 Billion U.S. Market,” reads his bio on the web site for the Eastern Kentucky University College of Business Technology, where he spoke last year for the Black History Month Executive Speaker Series.
Perplexed by the contrasting images of Bailey in Maryland versus Bailey in D.C., The Dig went out to see what his respective operations look like.
A key location in Bailey’s corporate constellation is a nondescript office park in Lanham, Maryland, at 4415 Nicole Drive, Suite B, about a 20 minute drive from the District. Though there is no visible signage for VSC or Vital Services Contactors—neither of which have websites but both of which remain in good standing in Maryland—there is a logo on the building for a company called Ezra Technologies.
The Maryland tax assessor’s office lists Derrick Bailey as Ezra Technologies’ Resident Agent, and the firm’s website lists him as a “Team Member.” The site lists Emmanuel Bailey as the only other “Team Member” and as Chief Operating Officer since 2015. (The two Baileys do not appear to be related.) According to the site, the firm specializes in technology services and construction for a variety of federal government agencies.
“Emmanuel was also integral to managing the firm’s $500M annual Supplier Diversity Spend,” the site declares.
The assessor’s website shows the company as “NOT IN GOOD STANDING,” though it requested an extension in its June 2019 annual report from a different address in Upper Marlboro.
A different entity, however, Ezra Group LLC, was formed last November at the same office suite as a limited liability company and a “JV LLC,” according to the Articles of Organization signed by Derrick Bailey. The company’s purpose, the articles state, is “providing services to government and commercial organizations.” (Derrick Bailey is handwritten in as a 49 percent owner, according to a tax assessor’s filing, with a man named Kitson Walker holding 51 percent of the company. Walker also owns a company called EBS-4U, in Alpharetta, Georgia. He did not return The Dig’s call.)
Ezra Group LLC also is listed as “NOT IN GOOD STANDING,” but Ezra Group, the trade name of an active “IT services firm,” is located there as well, according to the Maryland tax assessor. Derrick Bailey is listed as its president. (He also has a separate sole proprietorship under his own name listed at that address.)
Responding to the buzzer of a locked exterior door, a woman came out from a ground floor office suite on a steamy summer day. When asked if Derrick Bailey was available, she said, “Let me see if he’s free,” and went into the office. When she came out, she said, “He’s in a meeting,” then “He’s not here,” then “He can’t see you now.” Another woman came out and escorted The Dig to the door.
Derrick Bailey did not return a follow up call.
Curious about whether Emmanuel Bailey’s lottery ventures with Intralot had anything in common with the tech services-construction firm on Nicole Drive, The Dig took a peek at reports filed with the Maryland State Ethics Commission. While neither Gaming Innovations, nor VSC nor Vital Services Contractors have had a lobbyist in Maryland, DC09 and Ezra Technologies have: Gerard Evans, one of the top lobbyists in the state.
In fact, Gerry Evans served as DC09’s lobbyist from November 2, 2015 through October 31, 2016, state records show, with DC09 listed at Emmanuel Bailey’s Burtonsville address, which he also uses as his Maryland Resident Agent address for VSC, the reports show.
Evans also served as a lobbyist for Ezra Technologies, the records show, from November 1, 2016 to October 31, 2017, with the company also listed at Emmanuel Bailey’s Burtonsville address. Evans did not disclose fees from either entity, which he is not required to do if they do not exceed $50,000.
At that address in Burtonsville, a single family home in an unincorporated area of Montgomery County, The Dig was greeted by a woman who declined to confirm whether Emmanuel Bailey or Derrick Bailey do business there.
Finally, The Dig paid a visit to the 55 M Street SE offices of DC09, where the logo on the glass wall in the lobby reads, “DC09—A VSC and Intralot, Inc. Company.”
Security would not allow The Dig to go up to DC09’s third floor offices without an appointment, and no one from the company would come down. A receptionist answered a phone call from the lobby and said she “could not disclose” whether Emmanuel Bailey was there or not. A short time later, security asked The Dig to exit the building.
Out on the street on a 90-plus degree day, The Dig received a call from Alexandria, Virginia-based lawyer Edsel Guydon, who, on behalf of Bailey, threatened to seek a Cease and Desist Order. After a brief and unpleasant exchange, Guydon abruptly hung up the phone. (More recently, Chris Canning, Executive President of DKC Public Relations and Public Affairs, called to inquire about this story. Canning, who according to his LinkedIn page has worked for former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, the Democratic National Committee, and the U.S Office of Personnel Management, had more questions than answers, and did not return a follow-up call.)
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D.C. Councilmembers might be forgiven for not knowing much about the business entities and dealings of Emmanuel Bailey. But they seemed caught off guard when asked about Maryland’s scathing rejection of VSC.
At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman, who voted against the procurement law waiver, confirmed that she had not seen the Maryland Lottery Evaluation Committee report or bid protest decision. She declined to comment.
Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh said she had not seen the Maryland reports, either. She too voted against the waiver of procurement law.
(Editor’s Note: Media outlets, including The Dig, have erroneously referred to the D.C. Lottery contract award as a “sole source.” The OCFO’s office confirms that this is not the case. Cheh, a law professor, notes that, “A sole source essentially requires that there be only one source for the goods or services. I think everyone refers to it as ‘sole source’ to capture the idea that there was no RFP and no bidding.”)
Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, who will oversee the OCFO (and the D.C. Lottery) under a newly aligned Council committee structure, had been vocal earlier this year in opposing the procurement waiver, but then he changed his mind and voted for it. After the final vote, McDuffie was spotted at a gathering at Del Frisco’s in City Center, where Bailey and his associates were celebrating the contract award. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
At-Large Councilmember Robert White, who chairs the newly created Committee on Facilities and Procurement, and who also went from opposing the award to voting for it, did not return a call or text. His office exchanged multiple emails with The Dig but did not answer any questions.
Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, who opposed the award from the beginning, replied in a text, “I have voted against the contract and every aspect of it. I don’t have any more to say about it.”
And here’s how a spokesman for At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds explained her unwavering support for the procurement waiver: “Along with knowing that the contract would bring revenues to support District residents’ immediate needs, we know that the immediacy of the District contract is the reason it was sole-sourced. D.C. wanted to get ahead of VA and MD because they have casinos and we do not.”
Neither Jack Evans nor Vince Gray, both of whom supported the contract award, responded to requests for comment.
Yet there was one member who was willing to speak to the matters at hand: Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, the man who guided the procurement waiver to passage. In an email from his communications director, “Mendo” expounded on his rationale by distinguishing a joint venture from an arrangement where VSC is a subcontractor to Intralot.
“D.C. does not directly evaluate subcontractors because we are not doing business with the subcontractors,” he said. “Were the District to have a role in vetting subcontractors, that would actually put the District at risk of actual or perceived contract awards based on who a subcontractor may know, like, or donate to, in the government.”
Based on the nature of relationships in the District, that statement could cut both ways, given Bailey’s political patronage and the fact that DC09’s lobbyist, N. William Jarvis, is a friend, patron and business associate of Jack Evans who has lobbied Evans on gaming competition from Maryland and on bringing sports betting to D.C.
Mendelson hedged his bets, however, by signaling he and his colleagues do not intend to stand by VSC in the event something goes wrong:
“If a subcontractor has poor performance, or folds due to insolvency or any other issues, it’s on the prime contractor to remedy it by either curing the issue, replacing the subcontractor with another subcontractor certified to DSLBD, or whatever other means necessary to shield the District from any issues arising from subcontractors.”
Nevertheless, expert legal observers are astounded.
“How many legislatures approve contracts [without competitive bidding] in an industry where there are several qualified vendors?” says Scott Livingston, a Maryland attorney who represents government contractors in bid protests and who represented Scientific Games. “It’s loony.”
Attorney of record in more than 50 published decisions of the Maryland State Board of Contract Appeals, Livingston spoke with The Dig solely to weigh in on D.C.’s methods, and offered no thoughts on any of the parties involved in either D.C. or Maryland.
“It’s astounding they can’t conduct a procurement to find a qualified vendor based on technical proposals evaluated by technicians who are protected from the political process,” he says. “It’s a really stupid equation for the diminution of the value of procurement integrity.”
