Ok,
Yeh, U Betcha Norm
Karl Spees Shared these juicy
little tidbits: Food for thought!
· K&L
Gates was Dicks’ 4th largest political contributor.
· K&L
Gates had a position on the Board of Directors that hired David Dicks.
· David
Dicks then, according to the audit report, issued a contract that
falsified the urgency,
thus trying to avoid having the work done by the
AG’s office as required; skirted the dollar threshold then
immediately increased it after the contract award (violation of federal
law subject to incarceration).
This
appears to
be
payback below. (Audit
Report)
·
David
Dicks sent $10,000 to the
Cascade Conservancy where his brother Ryan
was working, which the Audit Report said provided no value to the
taxpayers. (Audit Report)
·
David
fired a whistleblower then secretly
used public money to pay her off.
(KOUW report)
· David
misused government property ( his car ).
· David
failed to report lobbying
effort as required by the
state. (EFF report)
· $3
Million of ‘Green Jobs’ funding went to Pierce
County,
whereupon Ryan Dicks (2nd son of Norm) was hired at about
$87,000/year for 2
years to spend it to:
insulate some homes, install
some heat pumps, replace
a scoreboard and change
some lights. More
payback? (Tribune)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/earmark-investigation-rep-norm-dicks-and-puget-sound/2012/01/19/gIQAj3VZxQ_story.html
Olympia,
Wash. — In
January 2007, Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) became
chairman of a congressional subcommittee that gave him the power to
secure millions in federal funds to environmental projects in his
district. Six months later, the
congressman requested millions of dollars to clean up Puget Sound
— a vital but polluted system of waterways in his home state of
Washington, according to White House records. His interests on
behalf of the
sound aligned with those of his son, David Dicks, who at the time was
interviewing to be executive director for a newly
created state agency,
the Puget Sound Partnership. In August 2007, he got the job, which
required him to develop a plan for coordinating state and federal
efforts to clean up the nation’s second-largest
estuary, which is
only overshadowed by the Chesapeake Bay. Over
the next four years, father
and son worked in tandem to restore Puget Sound, with
the congressman
directing millions more to the work, including a $1.82 million earmark
and more than $14 million in grants and other funds that went to his
son’s agency. There were no
competitors for the funds. The earmark and grants are
unreported elements in the story of the father and son and Puget Sound,
which has long been controversial in the Pacific Northwest, spawning
charges of nepotism, waste and
no-bid contracts, according to
state
audits and political opponents. Norm Dicks lost his
chairmanship
in the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, and his son stepped
down from his $129,000-a-year job around the
same time.The case illustrates the
complications that can arise when a lawmaker’s congressional
actions benefit not only his district but also a family member. Both
father and son insist they were only trying to save the environment
and
serve the people of Washington. “This
is a very important
issue for the people in my state. This isn’t
about me or my
son,” the 71-year-old congressman said during an
interview in his
Capitol office. “David got the job through a competitive process . . . he had the
passion for the job.” “This is a
very important
issue for the people in my state. This isn’t about me or my
son,” the 71-year-old congressman said during an interview in his
Capitol office. “David got the job through a competitive process . . . he had the
passion for the job.” David Dicks, 40, said the
group’s success in pursuing federal funds was because his father
had become chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on the
interior, environment and related agencies. “He
didn’t have the
power to do this before,” David Dicks said. “He
didn’t do it for me; he did it because he cares about Puget
Sound
and he finally had the ability to do something about it.”
But
Schoesler, who has been a vocal
critic of
the partne their critics say good
intentions were undercut by favoritism. “Everyone
was scratching
everyone’s back with this Puget Sound Partnership,” said
Republican state Sen. Markrship.
“They were banking on daddy Dicks to bring money
home, and then his son squandered it.”
Beginning
in 2006, Congressman
Dicks and David Dicks were both active in efforts to create a state
agency to clean up the sound. The congressman served on the
governor’s blue ribbon panel that recommended forming
the
partnership, which would serve as coordinator for local, state and
federal efforts. David Dicks, an environmental lawyer,
wrote passages
in the panel’s final report on funding and political strategies
for such a partnership. “Your kids are going to do
things that you have been involved with,” Norm Dicks
said.
“I don’t think there was a conflict. We are all trying our
best to restore Puget Sound.” David Dicks was appointed by
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire. The governor’s
spokesman said
Dicks’s environmental credentials “made him highly
competitive.” As executive director of the new
agency, David Dicks’s job included raising funds for and
coordinating with local, state and federal agencies that would be the
“boots on the ground.” In public hearings, he spoke of his
ability to secure federal funds and was repeatedly praised for doing so.
“When we started this, we
were getting $1 million for the sound program through EPA,”
David Dicks said during a Nov. 6, 2010, hearing in Olympia.
“We
were then able to leverage that up to $20 million for two years and
then up to $50 million. That obviously is a big, serious
increase in
the federal support.” In
addition to the earmark and
grants, federal records show Congressman Dicks was able to raise the
annual budget for all Puget Sound-related work
during his tenure as
chairman, reaching a height of $50 million in 2010. During
the hearing,
David Dicks said all the money went to support the partnership’s
cleanup and restoration agenda. With his House
subcommittee
chairmanship, Dicks was considered an appropriations
“cardinal,” holding the purse strings of the federal
budget. As such, the congressman said he knew that both he
and his son
would be criticized if he delivered money directly to the Puget Sound
Partnership. On June 26, 2007, Congressman
Dicks introduced his first appropriations bill with money for Puget
Sound. He later asked that the funds he secured be sent directly to
the
Environmental Protection Agency. “We knew there would be
sensitivity,” the congressman said. “We sent it to the
regional EPA office, not to the partnership, and had them
create a
competitive process.” The
funds had to be used on an
“action agenda,” Norm Dicks said — work that
the
partnership was charged to perform. EPA officials said in phone
calls and e-mails that
recipients of the funds had to go through a
“competitive” process. However, EPA records show that
$6.1 million of the funds were given in 2008 and 2009 through a
noncompetitive
agreement, largely
to fund the action agenda. Confronted with the records, and
after several weeks of exchanges with The Post, the EPA
backed away from characterizing
the process for the funds as competitive. “While responding to The
Washington Post’s detailed requests for information related to
EPA’s work with the Puget Sound Partnership, we found that two
pieces of information we provided were incorrect,” said Tom
Eaton, Washington state operations office director for the
EPA.
“In both cases, as soon as we realized our error, we provided the
correct information.” An additional $5.99 million was
given in 2010 for the action agenda through a grant process for which
there was only
one applicant — the
Puget Sound
Partnership. The agency
was also the only
applicant
in 2009 for a $2 million grant
for
community outreach and education for Puget Sound restoration
efforts. The congressman’s
spokesman, George Behan, said that Norm Dicks believed that
none of the
funds can be considered earmarks because the money went through a
national program at the EPA, not directly to the Puget Sound Partnership.“You
can call it whatever
you want, but at the end of the day, it’s
an earmark,” said Steve Ellis, vice
president for Taxpayers for Common Sense.
“There was a lot of verbiage and hyperbole about how it
was going
to be competitively bid, but the facts clearly
show that this is a
case
of a lawmaker directing funds to a specific entity that also happened
to employ his son.” In
early 2009, the Washington
State Auditor’s Office started looking at state funds given to
the partnership, a state agency that has 40 employees and receives $3
million in state funds and $7.57 million in federal funds
for its
annual budget. In May 2010, auditors found the partnership
“circumvented state contracting laws, exceeded its purchasing
authority and made unallowable purchases with public
funds,”
incurring “costs without clear public benefit.” Auditors pointed out that the
Seattle office of the K&L
Gates law firm had been given a no-bid contract, receiving up to $478
an hour and a total of $51,498. The firm has been a campaign donor to
the congressman. “Under state contracting
laws, you have to go out to bid
on anything that is $20,000 or more.
This contract
was originally $19,999.
Now come on — that shows
intent,” State Auditor Brian Sonntag said in an interview in his
Olympia office. “That tells me they were looking for a way to
direct that contract without opening it to competition.” “I think of all the things
that happened, the way we executed that contract was the weakest
thing
we did,” David Dicks said. “We shouldn’t have done it
that way.” The state’s Joint
Legislative Audit and Review Committee issued its own
audit in
December, finding that the action
agenda failed to include “required benchmarks” to
determine if “progress is being made.” The audit triggered a review by
the EPA,
which called on the partnership to return more than
$120,000 in funds
after finding several contracts and agreements that lacked
certifications to show the agency received the goods and services it
had paid for.A
week after Republicans took
control of the House in November 2010, David Dicks resigned from the
Puget Sound Partnership. “It was a difficult
time,” he said. “I left a lucrative law practice to help
save Puget Sound. No one was expecting the response that me and my
father got.”
In 2008, Dicks secured a $1.82
million earmark for a Washington state agency that worked to clean
up
Puget Sound, above, and where his son worked as executive director,
according to White House records Over
the next three years, the
congressman also sent nearly $14 million to the Environmental
Protection Agency, which gave the funds to his son’s agency, the
Puget Sound Partnership. “I don’t think there was a
conflict. We are all trying our best to restore Puget
Sound,”
Dicks said.
Gov. Chris Gregoire - who appointed David Dicks, said the
hiring was competitive and that his credentials as an environmental
lawyer made him an "highly competitive candidate.
Do we even have a competent
Governor, to make competent
decisions?
David Dicks’s credentials is spelled
D-N-A
I
don’t
think there was a conflict.
We are all trying our best to restore Puget Sound.
--
Rep. Norm Dicks
Mismanagement of
funds.
David
Dicks’s tenure with the Puget Sound Partnership was marked by
mismanagement, according to Washington’s State Auditor Brian
Sonntag.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/capitol-assets/norm-dicks-puget-sound-family-connection/
"I
was trained in government
contracting to DAWIA
Level III (Executive). Under a level playing field
I can’t imagine someone not going to jail for such blantant
contract violations. But this is more than a political scandal, this
represents a FAILURE of our press to hold politicians
accountable. "
Is the press part of the
solution...or part of the problem???
Randy
Dutton
CDR, USNR-Retired
Common
Sense Government…of the people, by the people, for the people.
NORMS SON
GETS Hundreds Of Thousands AND WE GET WOLVES
What is on the horizon for humans on the Peninsula?
Click Here
One Of America's Most Powerful Congressmen Suddenly
Retires?
|
Published on 09 March 2012 Comments (Be the first)
by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
(OfficialWire)
ANTHEM, ARIZONA (USA)
OfficialWire News Bureau
|
|
|
Norm
Dicks has been in the House of Representatives for 35 years. During
those years, he became famous for his insider deal making and
bringing home the bacon to not only his district but also his family.
But despite years of whispers of corruption and profiteering, he always
seemed to skate past accountability.
So, when his announcement came that he was stepping down, we both were
anxious to learn the back story. But first, we need to tell you more
about Dicks.
Dicks has been close to scandal since he kited checks at the US House
Representatives Bank in 1989. But the scandals became more
brazen and more profitable as he gained in power.
In 2005, Dicks broke House
Rules when he allowed a lobbying firm to pay for a vacation trip
he took to a conference in Florida. The Spectrum Group was the defense
lobbying firm that paid his luxury hotel bill and for his meals during
the Fort Lauderdale two-night getaway in February. As a senior member
of the House Appropriations Committee, which controls defense spending,
this is illegal.
In 2007, Dicks took over as chair of the House Interior Subcommittee.
Also, about that time, Dick's son David was appointed to run the Puget
Sound Partnership. This public/private state agency was designed to
help clean up Puget Sound pollution.
Early on, the project suffered from money woes, but then Dicks went to
work. First came $500,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency. As
federal dollars poured in to help the Puget Sound Partnership, the
proud Dad, Rep. Dicks, even boasted in 2010: "Since then, we've put in $93 million
for Puget Sound cleanup in the federal legislation." The millions
helped rescue his son's project.
Like father like son, the Partnership was plagued with mismanagement.
In May 2010, the State Auditor Brian Sonntag released a report saying
the younger Dicks' operation intentionally ignored state financial
policies. Sonntag emphasized that its errant spending practices "went
beyond sloppy bookkeeping."
But it really got serious for Norm Dicks when Federal law enforcement
officials raided the office of lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti and his
lobby firm the PMA Group. Evidence
shows that Dicks received over $500,000 in campaign
contributions from PMA Group, its employees, and PMA clients.
Eventually, Magliocchetti was sentenced to 27 months in prison for
making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign
contributions. At the sentencing U.S. District Court Judge T. S. Ellis
III called the scandal "one of the most extensive and long-running
campaign finance schemes ever," telling Magliocchetti, "You made this
choice for one reason: greed."
This scandal took down Rep. John Murtha, but, miraculously, Norm Dicks skated again.
And it would have likely stopped then and there if not for the tenacity
of a Tacoma lawyer and opponent of Dicks by the name of Doug Cloud.
Cloud filed a Freedom of Information Act request that the Obama
administration denied during the 2010 congressional race to get more of
the records.
But Cloud tenaciously responded to the denial with a lawsuit to compel
release of records and files pertaining to the FBI investigation of
Congressman Norm Dicks.
The back story of Dick's resignation is that he doesn't want this
information to come out, and Dicks chose to retire rather than prolong
the story.
Doug Cloud is the hero of this cleanup of Congress.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/03/congressman-norm-dicks-ranking-member.html
|
DICKS HAS STOLEN FROM THE
PUBLIC TO REWARD POLITICAL INSIDERS ????
AND PADDED HIS FAMILY AND BUDDIES BANK ACCOUNTS
????
WITH OUR MONEY ????
GUESS WHO'S EATING STEAK TONIGHT ??????
OUR GROCERIES ARE ON THEIR BANQUET TABLES !!!!!
Doug Cloud Has Announced His Canidancy For Congress
and Will Be Running Against Jesse Young.
Bob Sauerwein has dropped out of the race.
"Looks like Dicks has coward out"
We shouldn't let him go down easy. "Patsy" Murray backs his
criminal behavior
by claiming what a good friend and mentor he's been.
An "Honor" as the she-crook put it.
I bet he has been good to you Patty. New York? or T-Bone tonight?
