Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Montgomery County,$800,000 mobile police command bus.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 01:43:44 -0500

Anti-Terrorism Funds Buy Wide Array of Pet Projects
Some of Region's Unused Millions Could Be Lost
By Jo Becker, Sarah Cohen and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 23, 2003; Page A01

Two years after Congress approved a massive infusion of cash to help gird the
Washington area against terrorism, much of the $324 million remains unspent or
is funding projects with questionable connections to homeland security.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington,
lawmakers doled out the money quickly, with few restrictions and vague
guidelines. Left to interpret needs on their own -- and with little regional
coordination -- cash-strapped local and state officials plugged budget holes,
spent millions on pet projects and steered contracts to political allies.

The District funded a politically popular jobs program, outfitted police with
leather jackets and assessed environmental problems on property prime for
redevelopment. In Maryland, the money is buying Prince George's County
prosecutors an office security system. In Virginia, a small volunteer fire
department spent $350,000 on a custom-made fire boat. The Metropolitan
Washington Council of Governments used some of the money for janitorial
services.

The Washington Post traced the path of the region's first wave of homeland
security aid from its distribution through its final use, a trail that has been
largely unexamined by federal regulators. The analysis included a review of
contracts, grant proposals and purchasing databases obtained through open
records laws as well as more than 100 interviews.

The findings represent the first detailed evidence of how jurisdictions are
spending a major new stream of federal dollars. Since that first allotment,
Congress has approved at least $180 million in additional grants to the region,
and more is on the way.
In many ways, the funds have helped the Washington area become better prepared
than it was when terrorists struck. The region has earmarked at least $63
million -- about one-fifth of the total -- for compatible radio systems, long
considered critical so rescuers from different jurisdictions can communicate
with each other in an emergency.

Police, firefighters and public health workers have undergone disaster training
and are better equipped to handle conventional attacks and weapons of mass
destruction. They have more gear to protect them, more ambulances and firetrucks
and more heavy equipment to defuse bombs or locate victims buried beneath
rubble. Local governments have at their disposal new blueprints on how to
respond to a terrorist attack.

But critical needs remain unaddressed, according to federal assessments and
interviews. Many of the region's hospitals are already strained and, without
adding beds and personnel, would be overwhelmed if thousands needed medical
attention in an emergency. In the District, hospital officials estimate that
just 400 beds could be freed in a disaster.
Some police officers are still waiting for basic protective gear. Public health
labs swamped by the anthrax attacks of 2001 have no additional capacity today.
Most local governments have no efficient way to give instructions to residents
shut off from radio and television, such as a "reverse 911" system that
automatically telephones people at home. There is no comprehensive plan to unite
families separated in a disaster.

James S. Gilmore III, a former governor of Virginia who heads a congressionally
mandated terrorism panel, said better priorities must be set for local
jurisdictions.

"If you simply fund every local desire, the demand for money is going to be so
great," Gilmore said, "that you are going to break the back of the economy,
which is exactly what the terrorists would like."

Congress approved the funds within 100 days of the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, when lawmakers were shaken by the region's chaotic
response and the country and its capital seemed at their most vulnerable. The
aid went out with the philosophy that because local governments knew their own
needs best, they would be given wide latitude in how to spend their windfall.

But despite the urgency and the historic nature of the new anti-terrorism
mission, the undertaking was beset by many of the same problems and
inefficiencies as other large government programs. Slowed by inertia, purchasing
rules and, in some cases, mismanagement, local and state governments have had
difficulty spending the funds.

Overall, nearly 40 percent of the money remains unspent. The District, which
received the bulk of the money, has spent the vast majority of it. However, it
stands to lose more than $1.1 million of the $168.6 million it received because
it failed to spend or sign contracts for the full amount by a Sept. 30 deadline,
although city officials say that figure could decrease when a final tally is
complete. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments lost $149,000. The
suburbs are further behind: In Maryland and Virginia, nearly half of the $101.5
million has not been spent or promised in a contract. Unlike the District,
however, Maryland and Virginia jurisdictions will not lose unspent funds because
their deadlines are malleable.

District, state and county officials said they did the best they could, with
little guidance, to make the region a safer place as quickly as possible. Dennis
R. Schrader, who was hired this year to oversee Maryland's homeland security
spending, said the money was spent "with good intentions."

"This is a marathon, not a sprint," he said. "It's a learning process -- we're
going to make mistakes, and that's okay, but we're also going to be doing good
things."

The new federal Department of Homeland Security is attempting to bring more
accountability and regional cooperation to the process. But those arguing for
much stronger direction from Washington say more money will be frittered away
without a clear national plan spelling out what first responders need to be able
to do in an emergency and more stringent guidelines on how the money should be
spent.

"We're talking billions and billions, and this money ought to be spent according
to national, minimum standards," said former senator Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.),
chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations' homeland security task force.
"Unless we get these standards in place, we're going to have money wasted."
Politics and Protection

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, lawmakers settled on money for New York,
Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania not just because of their proximity to the
crash sites, but also because their representatives in Congress sat on the
appropriations committees. Members made their own deals and in some cases
inserted projects that did not fit into a larger, regional plan.
The politically active Bethesda-Chevy Chase Fire Squad lobbied Sen. Barbara A.
Mikulski (D-Md.) for protective clothing and equipment above that given to other
Montgomery County stations -- and got it.
"Frankly, the county was surprised at some of the political maneuvering we were
able to do," Chief Ned Sherburne proudly said of the squad's lobbying effort.

Since the original allotment, Congress has handed out emergency aid in keeping
with another time-honored political tradition: Every member's district gets
something.

While experts including Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge say more money
ought to go where the threat is greatest, Congress this year forced Ridge's
agency to dole out the majority of the funds based on a population formula that
gives such states as Kentucky and North Dakota more money than the nation's
capital.

States and local governments are taking a similar approach. The District of
Columbia Hospital Association chose a formula that guaranteed every city
hospital a share of an $8 million grant. That meant that the Psychiatric
Institute of Washington, a small, private hospital, received money to buy
security cameras for its wards, a new van and a garage gate that officials say
will help keep out illegal parkers from nearby American University.

This approach won't work in the war on terrorism, said Rep. Christopher Cox, a
California Republican who is pushing legislation that would direct money based
only on threat and risk assessments. "If we were talking about equipment and
training for our armed forces, we wouldn't make the argument that it had to be
done on a pork-barrel basis," he said. "The danger is that you solve a political
problem but fail to achieve the homeland security mission because you are
sending money to the wrong places for the wrong things."

Political considerations also played a role when it came time to award homeland
security contracts. In the District, for instance, contracts worth hundreds of
thousands of dollars went to a former mayor and to a close confidant of Mayor
Anthony A. Williams (D).

Max Brown, who from 1995 to 2000 served as Williams's legal counsel and then
deputy chief of staff, was paid $130,000 as a subcontractor to a team hired to
run emergency preparedness seminars. District officials said they knew of
Brown's involvement with Kroll Government Services, a consulting firm, when the
company won the bid. In its proposal, the company touted Brown's involvement,
saying its team included members who "speak with a local accent."
"Was Brown's participation a dealmaker? No," said one senior aide who evaluated
the competing bids and spoke on condition of anonymity. "Did it help? Yeah,
probably."

Brown's firm, Group 360, also received a noncompetitive $15,000 contract to help
the city lobby for changes in federal communications policy. Documents show that
Brown initially was paid out of emergency funds, but the city repaid the money
after The Post inquired about the contract.

Another Williams supporter, former District mayor Sharon Pratt, was awarded a
no-bid bioterrorism consulting contract worth $236,000. Pratt successfully
lobbied the city to give another no-bid contract worth $15,880 to a company on
whose board she sat. According to e-mail records, the larger contract was made
at the explicit urging of Williams's chief of staff, Kelvin J. Robinson.

"Please tell me we've done this contract with Sharon's folks," Robinson wrote
Deputy Mayor Carolyn N. Graham in November 2002. In March, Graham told the
city's health agency, "We must move it."

Pratt said it was her experience as mayor, not politics, that was critical in
winning her the contract. "It requires someone who appreciates how to pull all
the players together," she said.

Tony Bullock, a spokesman for Williams, said that there was nothing improper in
awarding the contracts and that the work was of high quality.

Outside the District, governments had less to spend, but limited funds still
ended up with friends. In Prince William County, for instance, the
Occoquan-Woodbridge-Lorton Volunteer Fire Department bought a boat with
emergency funds, then loaded it with nearly $44,000 in supplies purchased from a
company owned by two of its members.

Not Just Security

Shortly after Sept. 11, Prince George's officials concluded that the county was
"unequivocally . . . vulnerable to terrorism" because of Andrews Air Force Base
and other high-risk installations. A county assessment found that first
responders were unprepared to handle weapons of mass destruction and needed
special gas masks and protective clothing.

But when the county received $7.9 million in homeland security funds, instead of
buying protective gear for police officers, it chose to purchase a
half-million-dollar digital camera system used for mug shots. Officials said
that the equipment was a priority because it could photograph terrorist crime
scenes and that they relied on a subsequent grant to order biochemical gear.
Because of the delay, police are still waiting for the specialized gas masks,
according to union officials.

"If you don't have the proper masks, you aren't going to be able to go in and
photograph anything anyway," said Cpl. Anthony M. Walker, president of the
Fraternal Order of Police lodge that represents county officers, who was
interviewed shortly before his death this month. "If there was an attack, police
officers and civilians would die because of our lack of preparedness."

Across the region, state and local governments fulfilled long-standing wish
lists and used the homeland security funds for projects that were only
tangentially related to terrorism.

Officials say they are putting these purchases to "dual use": helping with daily
needs and at the same time protecting the region.
As Leslie Hotaling, director of the District's Department of Public Works, said:
"If we can tie it to 9/11 and build capacity in our core functions, let's do
it!"

Her agency spent more than $55,000 on basic employee training courses such as
"map reading" and "handling problem employees."

In October, D.C. Council members questioned the use of homeland security dollars
to pay for sanitation supervisors to attend a "Dale Carnegie" management course
with no disaster preparedness instruction. City officials later relabeled the
course on their documents by removing the management guru's name. The routine
training helps employees better handle an emergency, Hotaling said.

Her agency used an additional $300,000 to help pay for a computerized car towing
system that the mayor had promised for three years to help combat fraud by
private towing companies.

The rationale: The city could use the new system to more efficiently clear
streets during a terrorist attack and aid with "recovery efforts" by locating
towed cars in the aftermath.

Another District agency directed $100,000 to the mayor's politically popular
summer jobs program, documents show. Forty low-income young adults were trained
in first aid and other emergency skills, then paid to rap and dance about
emergency preparedness as part of outreach efforts. The program was nationally
recognized and a "brilliant" use of money, said Deputy Mayor Margret Nedelkoff
Kellems, who oversaw spending.

The D.C. Department of Mental Health commissioned a $20,000 study to look at
whether the 9/11 attacks increased the city's jail population. The study's use:
"At this point, we've made the results known, and discussions are continuing,"
said agency Director Martha B. Knisley.

Her agency also paid a company at least $111,000 to assess environmental
problems at the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus. Williams hopes redevelopment
will transform the campus, which has commanding views of the Anacostia and
Potomac rivers, and planners say cleaning up the property is a critical first
step.

Knisley and Kellems denied that the work was related to redevelopment and said
it was necessary mostly because the campus is one of several properties that
could be used as a mass casualty center. But Barbara Childs-Pair, acting
director of the D.C. Emergency Management Agency, said that the city's plan
lists no role for St. Elizabeths and that in emergency exercises, the site has
been used only as a transfer point for equipment.

Officials in the mayor's office said that most of the money went for major
initiatives that made the city safer. They noted that they had put in place an
elaborate system to track the funds and that the city was the first jurisdiction
in the country to have its emergency response plan nationally accredited.

Kellems said the criteria she used to evaluate projects were strict: "If it
wasn't related to emergency preparedness, it was not an option," she said.
"Nothing's come to my attention where I've said, 'That was just a really bad
idea.' "

The mayor's spokesman also defended the government's choices in using the money.
"The District has done a remarkably good job," Bullock said. "We used these
federal funds to achieve remarkable progress in preparing the District
government's capacity to respond to potential terrorism incidents or similar
emergencies."

Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who is pushing legislation
aimed at ensuring that homeland security dollars are spent more strategically,
said expenditures like some of those in the District "make me want to scream."
"It's an outrage and a misuse of this money," he said. "The money should be used
for things directly related to the terrorist threat."

Plugging Budget Holes

Jack Deboy vividly remembers the chaos during the 2001 anthrax attacks. As
acting director of Maryland's public health labs, Deboy had to scramble everyone
in his department and train people from other divisions to test the suspicious
white powder samples that came into his office.

"If it had been much larger, we would not have been able to respond," he said.
Maryland received more than $22 million in homeland security funds, with nearly
$1.3 million going to personnel for Deboy's labs. But he said he is no better
equipped to handle an anthrax-type scare than he was two years ago because the
state cut his budget by 5 percent and some of the emergency money went to repay
the state for overtime during the anthrax attacks.
The intent of the federal emergency funds was to beef up security, not to help
states and local jurisdictions tread water. Suburban recipients even signed a
pledge: "I hereby certify that Federal funds will not be used to replace or
supplant state or local funds . . . that would, in the absence of federal aid,
be made available for public safety purposes."

Nevertheless, officials across the region used the federal money to meet routine
government responsibilities. Millions were spent buying everyday uniforms for
police and firefighters, riot gear and ammunition. School principals got cameras
for their hallways. In Manassas Park, the city hired a long-needed deputy police
chief by adding emergency preparedness to his regular duties.
Congress gave the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments $5 million to
"enhance regional emergency preparedness, coordination and response." The group
took a 35 percent management fee and applied it to salaries, fringe benefits and
"indirect" costs, including $519,000 for expenses such as rent, insurance and
janitorial services at its headquarters.
To some extent, experts say it was a predictable outcome. The huge influx of
federal dollars came as the region's governments were grappling with deepening
budget gaps and cutting services.

Maryland, for instance, slashed its aid to local health departments, which are
getting less this year despite the influx of federal funds, according to a
legislative budget analysis. This happened despite repeated warnings from
experts that the public health system is unprepared to meet new security
challenges.

While such budgetary juggling may be commonplace, it has profound implications,
according to Paul C. Light, a government scholar at New York University. "The
problem is we're not getting a nickel's worth of extra security," he said.

Differing Visions

Without guidance from federal or regional planners, departments from state to
state and county to county have seen their missions -- and their needs -- very
differently.

Col. Gerald Massengill, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, spent more
than $1.4 million to arm every trooper with an M4 fully automatic rifle after he
saw his troopers guarding a nuclear power plant armed only with handguns.

"I was afraid they were outgunned," said Massengill, who has since retired. The
Maryland State Police superintendent, Col. Edward T. Norris, put his money into
intelligence gathering, such as cell-phone tracking and surveillance equipment.
He was influenced by his years as a police officer in New York City, where he
saw terrorists get away because of lack of intelligence.
Rifles, he said, may be helpful to rural troopers, but they aren't directly
related to the war on terrorism: "Our role is to gather intelligence."

Two agencies, two different philosophies. While Congress debates how much money
is enough, local spending patterns illustrate the difficulty of pinpointing
need.

For Montgomery County, it was an $800,000 mobile police command bus that one
official said "will be the talk of the East Coast, with most every conceivable
feature." Prince George's County officials figured they could get the same
roving command capacity with four Chevy Tahoes that cost $140,000.

"I think there's a perception on the part of the public that government
officials and first responders came together and said: 'Damn, here's our
strategy. Here are the needs,' " said Michael Knapp (D-Upcounty), who chairs the
Montgomery County Council's homeland security committee. "The reality is that we
are only just beginning to come to grips with what the priorities are."

Without that strategy in place, the windfall created a culture of one-upmanship
and giddy shopping.
As emergency operations centers throughout the region were upgraded, they were
filled with new computers and furniture. Montgomery County officials spent
$566,380 on audiovisual equipment -- more than twice what Fairfax County spent
on similar equipment. Montgomery bought eight large-screen plasma television
monitors at $20,000 each, while Prince William County firefighters opted for
36-inch sets at $695 each.

When asked why the city spent $35,000 outfitting health workers with lettered
parkas, caps and polo and denim shirts, Deputy Mayor Kellems said there may have
been cheaper ways to identify workers -- slip-on plastic vests, for example --
but they wouldn't have been as comfortable or durable for long emergency shifts
in varying weather conditions.

The rush to buy the best often led to duplicative efforts. The Virginia State
Police, for instance, is spending more than $1 million for seven armored
personnel carriers that could be deployed throughout the state. Alexandria,
population 128,000, wanted one of its own and is spending $144,000 to acquire
it.

No one is "making the tough decisions" about regional coordination, said Jim
Schwartz, director of Arlington County's emergency services and a member of a
federal board that will put out equipment guidelines for localities.
"Every jurisdiction doesn't need a bomb team, but every jurisdiction needs to
know where they are going to get a bomb team," he said. "The real scare for me
is down the road, when we have another incident, will we have done the best job
by our citizens with these moneys?"

Staff writer Yolanda Woodlee contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6311-2003Nov22.html

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