As we noted in our previous article:
In an attempt to circumvent public disclosure requirements under the Public Records Act, Oxnard city management is claiming that the results of a taxpayer-funded public opinion poll are a “trade secret,” and are refusing to disclose the full information to the public.
Though the city denied most of our requests to see this information, they did begrudgingly provide us with a few selected documents.
Here's some of what we learned.
Six months ago, City Manager Alex Nguyen authorized spending $177,600 in taxpayer funds for two vendor contracts related to this political opinion poll:
FM3 (Fairbanks, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates).
When we requested copies of the bids for this work, the Oxnard City Clerk confirmed in writing that there were no bids solicited for these contracts.
We note with interest that FM3 conducted campaign polling services back in 2018 for Mayor Flynn and three members of the city council.
Oxnard Mayor Tim Flynn likes to boast on the campaign trail that he has ended no-bid contracts in Oxnard.
Yet, here we have Oxnard City Manager Alex Nguyen signing off on a high-dollar contract with a vendor that performed political campaign work for Mayor Flynn ... without competitive bids.
Of course, there is nothing questionable about that … right?