Carolee Conklin has questions about hiring TransPro.

It seems that at least one of Rochester's city councilmen has been reading my blog.
Carolee Conklin, who heads up the Finance Committee, has questions about why Mayor Warren needs to hire TransPro, an outside and out-of-state consulting firm.
Why the mayor's staff can't track their own programs.
And why the mayor needs to pay them nearly $80,000.
And why the mayor didn't choose the lowest bidder.
Two weeks ago, Chief of Staff Jeremy Cooney made vague, insufficient and inadequate statements about hiring TransPro.
In a mad state of hubris, neither the mayor nor he expected anyone to ask for further clarification.
They expected City Council to approve it without question.
That has been the usual procedure for City Council, so it was a reasonable expectation.
Only Conklin is asking for an explanation.
Before anyone elevates Conklin to heroine status over this issue, I must remind them that, on rare occasions, City Council does ask for clarification before granting the mayor's request.
This is to fool the public, to make them think that City Council is being diligent.
The request will be approved.
It's all part of the game of politics.
Carolee Conklin is an old hand at it.

The Warren Administration is unable to track its own programs.

Mayor Warren's chief of staff, Jeremy Cooney, announced that she will be asking City Council for nearly $80,000.
The purpose is to hire Florida based TransPro Consulting to come up with a strategic plan to realize her goals.
TransPro is headed by none other than Mark Aesch.
Mark Aesch was formerly Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority CEO.
He left that in 2011.
And Rochester's bus system still sucks.
Not a good recommendation.
According to the D&C, Cooney said the effort would be led by a team from the Rochester area — not by Aesch himself.
Which makes me wonder why we need to hire him or his company at all.
Doesn't the mayor have enough qualified experts in her administration that could put her plans into action and track their success?
Apparently not.
Or the ones she has are not as good as their six figure incomes justify.
The D&C also quoted Cooney making some very vague statements about tracking, accountability and transparency.
You might want to read them yourself.
Perhaps he was quoted out of context, but the general feeling is that he was trying to make important sounding statements that didn't mean anything.
Or explain anything.
One thing is certain: Mayor Warren is concerned with creating jobs in Rochester.
In her own administration.
She needs a personal bodyguard to drive her everywhere. So she created the position and hired someone, amid all kinds of controversy.
She is currently in the process of creating an Office of Innovation, and hiring a Commissioner for that new department. That will also mean hiring a staff for him or her.
She resurrected two long discontinued offices, Special Projects and Chief of Staff, each of which require their own staff.
They had been discontinued because previous administrations had no need of them.
We still don't.
And the mayor says that she needs yet another organization to do what her staff should be doing already.
They don't know what or how they are doing.
Something is very wrong here.