A Florida public service campaign to heighten hurricane awareness has been scrapped by Gov. Charlie Crist just three weeks before the 2007 tropical storm season after two firms that lost out on the lucrative contract cried foul.
Public relations veteran Ron Sachs, who has built a multimillion dollar business after leaving the administration of Gov. Lawton Chiles a decade ago, was initially awarded the $450,000 contract. Similar projects have been handled by the Florida Association of Broadcasters since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
FAB President Pat Roberts and Tallahassee media executive Mike Vasilinda’s production company protested, creating doubt in Crist’s mind about the deal itself.
Chris Des Marais, senior producer for Vasilinda’s production company, said it had the low bid by nearly $170,000.
“I’d like it to be fair and the committee wasn’t fair,” said Roberts, who believed one member favored Sachs’ firm because of a previous professional relationship.
Sachs said the FAB and Vasilinda were simply poor losers, and that there was nothing wrong with the contract.
“They protested and created a controversy where there didn’t have to be one,” he said.
Meanwhile, Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink said they are both committed to scrutinizing the state’s contracts and ones with problems could soon be gone.
“It just didn’t sound right to me,” Crist said about the hurricane contract.
“It’s supposed to be a public service after all.
“Sometimes people just do things because that’s the way it’s always been done before and that’s not a good enough reason for me, or the taxpayer more importantly,” Crist said.
The governor and CFO said they are opposed to no-bid or sole-source deals.
“They need to know there’s a new sheriff in town, a new culture,” Sink said Friday. “We have thousands of state contracts. We have to look at them starting with the biggest ones first.”
The bidders on the hurricane campaign awareness ad are longtime Tallahassee-based competitors, but any friendship disappeared over the bid tussle.
Vasilinda, whose wife Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda is seeking a state House seat, produces news stories for several Florida TV stations besides his contract work for the state. He has been questioned for years about potential conflicts.
“To be a newsman and also pursue state-funded work and when you lose, blow up the contract that others win, it’s seems unconscionable to pretend you’re an objective newsman,” Sachs said about Vasilinda.
Vasilinda said Sachs “threatened to make hellfire rain down on me if I didn’t get my team to back off and apparently he’s making good on that threat.”
“I routinely recuse myself from stories when anyone thinks there may be some sort of conflict even when there isn’t,” Vasilinda said.
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