Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Bay Business Journal article on county lobbyist reform:
Murman initiates lobbying rules for Hillsborough officials
Sep 23, 2015, 2:13pm EDT
Deputy Editor- Tampa Bay Business Journal
Hillsborough County Commission Chair Sandy Murman is initiating a plan to tighten regulations on lobbying elected officials in the county in the wake of a cronyism scandal highlighted by a WTSP report.
“Recent events call for higher standards, greater accountability and new rules to protect the public,” Murman wrote in a statement.
Murman is proposing an Office of Professional Lobbyist Registration be established in the county attorney’s office. All paid lobbyists will pay an annual fee and disclose their clients as part of the new proposal. Nonprofit lobbyists would not have to pay a fee, but would still have to register.
The move happens only a week after a WTSP Channel 10 report on cronyism cast into suspicion the hiring process of engineering consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff. for a $1.3 million engineering contract on the Go Hillsborough transportation plan.
The news report from WTSP reporter Noah Pransky was accompanied by a 6,000-word story online detailing relationships between public affairs consultant Beth Leytham and high-ranking politicians in Tampa and Hillsborough County.
Parsons Brinckerhoff hired Leytham to do communications work on the Go Hillsborough project after she helped secure their contract without a bidding process, according to WTSP’s report.
In an email response to Tampa Bay Business Journal, Leytham wrote: “We handle controversial and potentially controversial issues, and will always do the right thing for our community and our clients even in the face of innuendo and inaccuracy.”
After the report originally aired, county commissioners voted to initiate an audit of the Parsons Brinckerhoff contract bidding process. Tampa City Council followed up by formally calling into question whether the city needs the study it agreed to help fund with $75,000.
“If you are being paid by someone else, and advocate a position or process that benefits them, that should be reported,” Murman wrote. “It is my hope that these efforts will make our county process more transparent and allow the public to see how special interests, profit or nonprofit, affect their local government.”
Murman plans to ask the county attorney’s office to draft an ordinance based on these new guidelines and bring it back to the board for consideration, according to the statement.
