Response To Councilman Culver's Allegations: Plus Publishers Comment

Wicomico County Councilman Bob Culver recently made public statements about the bid process for the new State’s Attorney’s Office. We, the Wicomico County Executive’s Office, the Wicomico County State’s Attorney Matthew Maciarello and the majority of the Wicomico County Council, feel portions of Mr. Culver’s statements do not reflect the truth and need to be corrected.

Any suggestion that the site for the new State’s Attorney’s building was selected prior to the Request for Proposal process reaching completion is absolutely false. The County, through its Purchasing
Agent, executed to completion a Request for Proposal process that followed all County rules and regulations. All bids were evaluated and the Executive branch recommended to the County Council
that the most responsive and lowest cost bid be awarded the project. That the bid process was followed properly was confirmed by the County Council on April 2, 2013, by a vote of 5 to 2, when they determined that there was no flaw in the process. Following a public hearing on the Executive’s recommendation, the Council unanimously approved the award of the project to G Plus Properties, LLC.

Subsequent to being informed by the County Attorney of the issue, on March 8, 2013, Executive and Council staff met to discuss the fact that there had been an obvious release of confidential information from the closed Council session of March 5,2013. At this meeting, no decision as to what action would be taken in response to Mr. Culver’s breach of confidentiality was reached, as this is only a decision for the Wicomico County Council as a body. The County Council then decided to have a closed session on March 18, 2013 to discuss Mr. Culver’s actions, whether those actions constituted a breach of confidentiality and the possible penalty. In that meeting and in that meeting alone it was determined by the Council body that there was a breach of the confidentiality of the closed session and the decision to reprimand Mr. Culver privately was made.

The County Executive, the State’s Attorney and the majority of the County Council feel strongly that public confidence in a clear and transparent bidding process is absolutely essential. We reject outright and repudiate Councilman Culver’s allegations that there was anything illegal or unethical about the bid process which led to the decision to award the bid for the new offices of the State’s Attorney.

Publishers Notes: It turns out, most of the representatives supporting the above press release were more upset that Mr. Culver delivered his side of the story to Salisbury News and they want to make an example out of him. This is NOT the first time this has happened.

First of all you should know, Mr. Culver also sent the exact same letter to multiple news outlets, including the Daily Times. They refused to publish it. Now I'd like to know, how is this "public confidence" statement from the County Executive actually true?

Mr. Culver was ELECTED just as ALL of the others mentioned here. I see, unless you PLAY BALL with a certain group, (especially the majority, as mentioned) they will black ball you for voicing your opinion as how you see it.

The witch hunt started back when Mr. Culver shared ADVICE to interested parties given by the County Attorney. There was nothing wrong with the information Mr. Culver provided and there was never any intent to harm anyone. Mr. Culver was simply respecting those taxpayers who had a product they felt offered a better solution, more towards what the original rfp asked for. 

To watch the Council majority, County Executive and the States Attorney produce a press release such as the one above simply tells me personally that they are paranoid. IF they had done nothing wrong they simply would have ignored Mr. Culver's message. 

Our elected officials need to STOP using people like Bob Culver as an example for having the stones to get their opinions out to the public. Clearly the Daily Times is in the pockets of our majority of public officials. I'm one man, are you people really that scared of me?

Funny how MOST of the majority of public officials refuse to send out public information to Salisbury News but I WAS the recipient of THEIR/THIS message. I'm good for them when they NEED me but I'm NOT good for them when an elected official wants to get their version out to the masses.