Now that City Attorney Tom Carpenter’s office is somewhat more in charge of handling Freedom of Information Act requests, with less of a restraining thumb on the scale from Mayor Frank Scott’s administration, FOI requests have begun being filled.
One example includes the bid proposal and contract awarded in darkness for a development project in the War Memorial Park area that the mayor hoped to fund with a sales tax that voters defeated. This is the information City Director Capi Peck began trying to get last Wednesday from Planning Director Jamie Collins, who told her the mayor prevented him from releasing it. City Manager Bruce Moore told Peck he’d received a similar response from Collins and a Collins employee. Collins, interviewed by the Democrat-Gazette, denies blaming the mayor for his refusal to provide the information. The fact is, nobody got the documents until late yesterday after Blue Hog Report filed an FOI request for it. The mayor told me people just asked for the wrong stuff and, what’s more, he says he didn’t know anything about this or any other FOI matter until Blue Hog popped up. Expect more on this at tonight’s City Board meeting.
Anyway, Blue Hog’s successful lawsuit over the city’s failure to comply with FOI law has begun dislodging other information, including some I’d been denied by the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau — specifically the rental fee for using the Robinson Music Hall for a headline LITFest concert. It was scrubbed along with the rest of LITFest after questionable contract work by the mayor’s chief of staff, Kendra Pruitt, with Think Rubix, the consultant hired without Board approval to run the festival. It happens to employ the mayor’s former chief of staff, Charles Blake.
LRCVB said it would be a competitive disadvantage for a public facility to disclose its rental fee. My legal consultant said that’s legal hogwash. Curious, too, since it posts standard rental fees online. I didn’t appeal the decision. But Blue Hog’s FOI case produced a different response from the city attorney. He got the unredacted contract.
It shows Think Rubix got a 50 percent discount to rent Robinson for two days (one day of educational events and one day for the concert) for $2,000 with additional charges for staff billed at an hourly rate.
Blue Hog also unearthed the contract with Dru Hill Entertainment for the Oct. 8 concert, though he’s still waiting for the contract with Ashanti. It would have been paid $35,000, plus be provided 11 hotel rooms at the Marriott and other perks, including first-class air tickets, local transportation in an Escalade or Suburban and stage catering including four dozen long-stem roses (dethorned). Catering requirements were extensive. (Dru Hill wasn’t advertised as being part of the concert. The contract includes a reference to a variety of local performers, so questions remain. The contract was signed by the mayor’s chief of staff.)
The city has said no costs were incurred by the scrapped concert, though at least one contract mentioned potential cancellation costs. There’s not yet been a full accounting of the money raised and spent by Think Rubix, despite that being a requirement of the contract the Scott administration struck with the consulting firm.