Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson acted similarly to former mayor Sam Sullivan when Robertson spent $28,875 of taxpayers' money to revamp his personal website without putting the contract out to public tender.
Critics such as Maureen Bader, the Canadian Taxpayer Federation’s B.C. director, told media this week that Robertson should have put the contract out to tender so the public would have confidence that the mayor is getting the best bang for his buck.
But communications strategist and Citycaucus.com blogger Mike Klassen told Business in Vancouver that he performed about $28,000 worth of work over a two and a half year period for Sullivan.
“Frankly, I think this particular item, given what I know about how cities and departments work, is sort of a non-story,” Klassen said. “Once [financial decision makers] get a reliable third party to do work for them, they tend to go back to them.”
Media reports earlier this week attacked Robertson for issuing the $28,750 contract to revamp his website to FD Element – an advertising company known to be a Vision Vancouver insider.
Robertson had been under fire in June for issuing an untendered $52,000 contract to FD Element to produce a series of videos about the Olympic Games and Robertson’s networking during that time.
BIV requested an interview with FD Element CEO Don Millar on September 7. He had still not responded by late September 8.