Brampton biased on bids for $500 million development deal, former commissioner testifies
John Corbett, former chief administrative officer, said senior staffers pushed for ‘preferred’ bidder and disparaged boss of company now suing.

thestar.com
By San Grewal and Peter Criscione
Sept. 28, 2016

Brampton’s former commissioner of planning and development has testified that the city’s former top bureaucrat was biased in favour of former mayor Susan Fennell’s “preferred” bidder in a half-billion-dollar deal, now the subject of a $28.5-million lawsuit against the city.

John Corbett, who later became the city’s chief administrative officer, also testified that the selection committee in the $500-million development deal was biased against local builder Inzola Group, which was eventually disqualified from the bidding process.

The lawyer representing the plaintiff, Inzola Group, asked Corbett if staff responsible for selecting the winning bidder, a consortium that included Dominus Construction, knew who Fennell wanted: “It was certainly understood that the mayor’s agenda included the approval of Dominus as the preferred respondent, correct?”

Corbett replied, “I would agree with that statement.”

“And that agenda was known right through the process of preparing the staff report that was given to city council?” Corbett was asked.

“Correct,” he replied.

That report, presented to council in March 2011, outlined the decision to select the winning bidder by six senior staffers, including Corbett, who were the only people allowed to see the bids, evaluate them and then present one bidder that council could either choose to go forward with or reject, which would have scrapped the entire bidding process.

Fennell responded through her lawyer to Corbett’s allegations against her. “Ms. Fennell categorically rejects this unsubstantiated opinion expressed by Mr. Corbett. Mayor Fennell welcomed the involvement of all bidders, including Inzola, in the (bidding) process,” lawyer David Shiller wrote in an email to the Star and Guardian. He said Corbett’s testimony does not “provide any factual basis whatever for his opinion.”

Inzola lawyer David Chernos asked Corbett during the deposition if city manager Deborah Dubenofsky had an objective of “furthering the mayor’s political agenda.”

“Yes,” Corbett replied.

He was asked if he witnessed Dubenofsky “giving direction” to the six staff tasked with making the decision “that Dominus should be the preferred respondent.”

“Yes,” Corbett answered.

Dubenofsky, according to the bid rules, was not to have any involvement in the decision on which bidder staff selected for the $500-million deal.

Dubenofsky said she would not respond to Corbett’s allegations because the “matter is before the court.”

During the bidding process for the half-billion-dollar downtown redevelopment project between 2009 and 2011, Corbett served as the city’s commissioner of planning and development, but in 2012, he was appointed the city’s top bureaucrat. He replaced Dubenofsky in that role; her contract was not renewed. Corbett’s contract was “terminated” in 2015, months after the city had announced his retirement.

During the bidding process, which used a procurement method that had never been used in Canada, Brampton’s administration was led by Dubenofsky, who had championed the bidding method, called “competitive dialogue.” Under its rules, neither she nor council was allowed to see the bids, evaluate them or influence the six-member selection committee’s decision on which developer to select.

Inzola Group filed the $28.5-million lawsuit against the City of Brampton, alleging it was unfairly disqualified from the bidding process, that senior staff and Fennell were biased against Inzola and in favour of the winning bidder. The city denies the lawsuit’s claims. There are no allegations against the winning bidder, which has said it followed all rules in the bidding process.

A pretrial motion by the city is seeking to dismiss the suit. The plaintiff has deposed witnesses and filed their testimony, along with supporting exhibits, to argue against the city’s dismissal motion.

Corbett testified that in private meetings that included Dubenofsky as well as the six members of the selection committee, “There was a lot of pejorative statements made about (Inzola principal) Mr. (John) Cutruzzola . . . that should not play a role in a decision-making process of that import . . . but certainly Mr. Cutruzzola was subject to a lot of pejorative commentary during those discussions.”

Corbett testified that Dubenofsky, former treasurer Mo Lewis, who chaired the selection committee, and former commissioner of buildings and property Julian Patteson, the committee vice-chair, routinely made negative remarks in private about Cutruzzola’s character, would “mimic” him, make disparaging comments about his short stature and said that “impersonations were regular kinds of anecdotes, unfortunately.”

“There was a distinct and clear voice that it would be a hope that somewhere along the process that there at least would be a trip-up that he would be - would not succeed, either on technical grounds or procedural grounds, and that he would not be the winning proposal.”

Corbett testified that “the majority of the views were expressed by Ms. Dubenofsky, and secondly by Mr. Lewis.” He described Patteson as “more of a follower than a leader.”

Patteson said he has provided an affidavit in response to Corbett’s testimony, but it has not yet been submitted. He declined to provide his response to the Star and Guardian. The City of Brampton dismissed Patteson earlier this month, in a restructuring, but said his departure had nothing to do with the lawsuit.

Asked to respond to the new evidence in the lawsuit recently filed with the court, City of Brampton spokesperson Natalie Stogdill said: “There is a motion before the court to dismiss Inzola’s $28.5-million claim against the city in its entirety. The city will not comment further on the allegations you raise given that all of the relevant evidence will be considered by the court.”

According to Corbett’s testimony transcript, Inzola’s lawyer showed Corbett minutes of a March 31, 2011, meeting of the selection committee three days after council voted to accept the committee’s decision to recommend the consortium that included Dominus. Inzola’s lawyer asked Corbett who made the statement, “that council sent a message to the community that ‘Inzola is not the big guy in this town anymore.’ ”

Corbett responded that Lewis made the comment. Lewis, according to the city, retired in 2013. He is currently the interim chief administrative officer for the Region of Niagara.

Corbett was shown an email from Lewis sent a couple months after that meeting, to the assistant of Peter Honeyborne, the deputy treasurer who also sat on the committee. In the email, Lewis tells the assistant, referring to the March meeting, “You need to delete the sentences re the debrief of the March 28th meeting, that says ‘Council sent as (sic) message to the community that Inzola is not the big guy in this town anymore.’ ”

Lewis said he has “no comment” on the matter as it is before the court.