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In this article it sounds like Redflex Traffic Systems Inc attempted to
bribe Chicago government bureaucrats to get a photo radar contract there.
Let's face it photo radar is about raising money for government bureaucrats and has absolutely nothing to do with public safety. Red light camera firm admits it likely bribed Chicago official By David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune reporter 11:03 p.m. CST, March 2, 2013 Chicago's embattled red light camera firm went to City Hall on Friday in its latest effort to come clean, acknowledging for the first time that its entire program here was likely built on a $2 million bribery scheme. By its sheer size, the alleged plot would rank among the largest in the annals of Chicago corruption. An internal probe of Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. and a parallel investigation by the city's inspector general — prompted by reports in the Chicago Tribune — have cost the company its largest North American contract and all of its top executives. On Friday the company announced the resignations of its president, its chief financial officer and its top lawyer. The head of Redflex's Australian parent company conducted town hall meetings at the headquarters of its Phoenix-based subsidiary to tell employees there was wrongdoing in the Chicago contract and that sweeping reforms were being instituted to win back the company's reputation. In separate, private briefings with the city inspector general and with Mayor Rahm Emanuel's top lawyer, Redflex attorneys acknowledged it's likely true that company officials intended to bribe a Chicago city official and that they also plied him with expenses-paid vacations. The company's outside investigator, former city Inspector General David Hoffman, found that Redflex paid $2.03 million to a Chicago consultant in a highly suspicious arrangement likely intended to funnel some of the money to the former city transportation official who oversaw the company contract, according to sources familiar with the investigation and the Friday briefings to city officials. The arrangement among the city official, the consultant and Redflex — first disclosed by a company whistle-blower — will likely be considered bribery by law enforcement authorities, Hoffman found. Without subpoena power, it was not possible to check personal financial records of the city official or the consultant, who refused to cooperate, according to the sources familiar with Hoffman's findings. But Hoffman, a former federal prosecutor, said that under applicable law, authorities could consider the arrangement to be bribery even if the payments were not made, the sources said. The bulk of the consultant's fees — $1.57 million — were paid during a four-year period beginning in 2007, the years the program really expanded in Chicago, Hoffman found. In addition, the city transportation official was treated to 17 trips, including airfare, hotels, rental cars, golf outings and meals, the sources said. Most of those expenses were paid by the company's former executive vice president, Hoffman found. That official was fired late last month and blamed by the company for much of the Chicago problem. But Hoffman found that Redflex's president also had knowledge of the arrangement that would have made any reasonable person highly suspicious that it was a bribery scheme, the sources said. Hoffman also found that Redflex did not disclose its knowledge about the improper arrangement to City Hall until confronted by the Tribune in October. Even then, Hoffman found, company officials lied to Emanuel's administration about the extent of the wrongdoing. Redflex's Australian parent company was expected to post a summation of Hoffman's findings in a Monday filing with the Australian Securities Exchange that will include the resignations announced to employees Friday. "Today's announcement of executive changes follows the conclusion of our investigation in Chicago and marks the dividing line between the past and where this company is headed," Robert DeVincenzi, president and CEO of Redflex Holdings Ltd., said in a statement to the newspaper. "This day, and each day going forward, we intend to be a constructive force in our industry, promoting high ethical standards and serving the public interest." The company will also announce reforms including installing new requirements to put all company employees through anti-bribery and anti-corruption training, hiring a new director of compliance to ensure employees adhere to company policies, and establishing a 24-hour whistle-blower hotline. The actions mark the latest changes in the company's evolving accounts of the scandal. Officials at the firm had repeatedly dismissed allegations of bribery in the Chicago contract since they were made in a 2010 internal complaint obtained last year by the Tribune. In October the Tribune disclosed the whistle-blower letter by a company executive and first brought to light the questionable relationship between former city official John Bills and the Redflex consultant, Marty O'Malley, who are longtime friends from the South Side. Bills and O'Malley have acknowledged their friendship but denied anything improper about their handling of the Redflex contract. "Totally false, but I appreciate you calling me," Bills told the Tribune on Friday when informed of the Hoffman findings. O'Malley did not return calls. In the four-month investigation, Hoffman and his team conducted 58 interviews and reviewed more than 37,000 company documents including email traffic among company officials, sources said. Hoffman concluded that company officials used poor judgment and a serious lack of diligence in investigating the allegations contained in the whistle-blower memo. Now the company is struggling to get in front of a scandal that threatens to consume it. The company has lost nearly half its value since the scandal broke in October and its stock was at $1.13 a share on the Australian Securities Exchange when the company suspended trading last week for the second time in a month. The chairman of the board of Redflex Holdings and another Australian board member resigned in February. On Friday, Redflex announced the resignations of three top executives in Phoenix: Karen Finley, the company's longtime president and chief executive officer; Andrejs Bunkse, the general counsel; and Sean Nolen, the chief financial officer. Finley did not return a telephone message; Bunkse and Nolen could not be reached. Emanuel has already fired Redflex from its city contract, which ends in June, and barred it from competing for an even more lucrative speed camera contract. The Chicago red light program has been the company's largest in North America and is worth about 13 percent of worldwide revenue for Redflex Holdings. Since 2003 it has generated about $100 million for Redflex and more than $300 million in ticket revenue for the city. The company's fate was foretold more than two years ago in the whistle-blower letter sent to the Australian board of directors. The executive who wrote it said many in the company were aware of hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from O'Malley that were intended for Bills, the city official, along with lavish, company-paid vacations for Bills. "The level of this insider fraud would take down the contract and most likely the company," the former Redflex Traffic Systems vice president said in the five-page letter on company stationery dated Aug. 24, 2010. The letter was written by Robert Feiler, then executive in charge of the Chicago contract at the U.S. company's Phoenix headquarters. At the time, Feiler faced internal allegations of expense report abuse that led him to quit just weeks later. He didn't mention his own troubles in the wide-ranging critique of his U.S. superiors, but cited whistle-blower laws and declared in his opening paragraphs that Redflex executives knew "our most successful program" came "via illegal transfer of 'commission' and RTSI expensed favors to Chicago municipal leadership." At the center of those allegations are two old friends, Bills and O'Malley. Bills, 51, retired from the city in 2011 after a 32-year career in which he rose through the ranks of City Hall to become the managing deputy commissioner in the city's Department of Transportation. There, he played a key role in the Redflex contract since its inception. O'Malley, 72, told the Tribune last year his familiarity with Chicago and its politics enabled him to negotiate a consulting contract with Redflex worth $50,000 a year, plus a $1,500 commission for each Redflex camera installed in Chicago. The success of Redflex in Chicago — more than 380 cameras since 2003 — translated to more than $570,000 in commissions for O'Malley, the company told the Tribune last year. But the letter alleged that money was really intended for Bills. "Our historical ledgers will show a commission for every new build in Chicago going to a Mr. Marty O'Malley," Feiler wrote. "This employee of Redflex serves no useful function. Does not report to our Office in Chicago and has been the joke of that program from inception. "Marty came to us 'with the program,' our leadership would say. He is tied to Mr. John Bills who runs the program for the city of Chicago." Feiler named other executives he thought were aware of the special treatment. "Mr. John Bills enjoys non reported lavish vacations in Arizona and California directly on the expense report of (executive vice president) Aaron Rosenberg," Feiler continued. "This alone would nullify our contract arrangement with Chicago. All the discussion around these arrangements and Marty's 'commissions' are not directly discussed with the Executive Team. They are neatly swept under the rug … and any point of discussion is met with fearful dismissal." Feiler, contacted by telephone, acknowledged he was interviewed by inspector general investigators about the allegations in the letter but declined to elaborate. Confronted with the allegations by the Tribune in October, Redflex sent Bunkse to answer the newspaper's questions. Bunkse said that despite Feiler's own problems, his allegations shook the company. It immediately hired the Chicago law firm Quarles & Brady to conduct what he described as a "deep dive" investigation. Bunkse said the probe found only one instance of impropriety, a single $910.71 reimbursement submitted by the company's head of sales, Rosenberg, for a two-day stay at the Arizona Biltmore hotel by Bills. Bunkse said Rosenberg was sent to "anti-bribery training" and that his company's failure to report to City Hall that one of its top transportation officials had accepted an improper gift was "a regrettable lapse and an oversight." Bunkse acknowledged that the probe was completed without conducting interviews with Feiler, Bills or O'Malley. Rosenberg did not return a phone message Friday. Following the Tribune report in October, Emanuel quickly moved to disqualify Redflex from bidding on his new speed camera initiative, citing the hotel stay and the company's failure to report it. The matter — along with Feiler's letter — was referred to city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson for further investigation. That's when Redflex hired another Chicago law firm — Sidley Austin — to re-examine the allegations. The Sidley partner assigned was Hoffman, a former city inspector general. Last month, Hoffman presented company board members with an interim report that provided a starkly different version of events than presented by the company just months earlier, including that Bills was treated to expensive trips. Hoffman's briefing last month preceded the resignation of the board members and the first trading halt. On Feb. 8 the Emanuel administration announced that Redflex would not get to keep its current contract in Chicago, citing Tribune reports and the company's initial attempts to inaccurately "minimize" its relationship to Bills. Bills, who also was a longtime top precinct captain for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, resigned from his job in 2011 and took a consulting job with a Redflex-funded traffic safety group run by Resolute Consulting LLC, a firm owned by longtime Emanuel political ally Greg Goldner. Bills said he left that job last year. In an October interview, Bills said he was unaware O'Malley was working for Redflex until he showed up one day at City Hall when Bills was still managing the contract. "I can tell you he worked his butt off for them, so this notion that he didn't do anything just isn't true," Bills said. "Please be fair to me, don't ruin a 33-year career," Bills said. "I am telling you I didn't do this. This is not me." O'Malley told the Tribune last year that he had never heard of the allegations until a phone call from the paper, but that he is not surprised Redflex never investigated or asked him. "They knew better," he said in an October interview. "If anybody should know they should know." Asked if any of his commissions went to Bills, or whether he has any financial arrangement with Bills at all, O'Malley said, "No way, that is absurd. John (Bills) would never allow it." Bunkse said in October that O'Malley was hired because the company needed someone familiar with Chicago to serve as an operations liaison with City Hall but said he was unaware of any connection with Bills. Bunkse credited O'Malley with being a key component of the company's success in Chicago. Bunkse described O'Malley's role as "primary interface" with City Hall on all operations issues, whenever conduit had to be replaced or camera evidence delivered, "making sure the program is run in a manner that is not embarrassing for the city and would cause issue for us as a vendor," Bunkse said. "Our relationship with Marty O'Malley from our perspective is entirely appropriate," the lawyer said in October. "The contract we have with him is entirely appropriate and our CFO will confirm that the payment we have made to him is entirely appropriate." dkidwell@tribune.com
Redflex outlines bribe probe in Chicago contract By David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune reporter 10:18 p.m. CST, March 3, 2013 In a release Sunday to Australian authorities and shareholders, the parent company for Chicago's red-light camera vendor outlined a series of its own failures and misdeeds involving an alleged bribery scheme the company said was "apparently proposed" by the former city official who oversaw its contract. The internal probe was commissioned after disclosures by the Chicago Tribune in October. The findings, many of which first were disclosed in Sunday's newspaper, concluded that Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. paid $2.03 million to the consultant on its Chicago contract with some of the money intended for the city official. The then-president and then-executive vice president of the Phoenix-based subsidiary "had knowledge that would have made any reasonable person highly suspicious that this was a bribery scheme, and they acted improperly in allowing this arrangement to occur," the Australian parent company, Redflex Holdings Ltd., said in the summary filed with the Australian Securities Exchange. The probe also found that the subsidiary falsely told the Tribune and city officials last year that it had thoroughly investigated allegations of wrongdoing after the Tribune obtained a two-year-old whistle-blower letter by a company employee. The subsidiary said it hired Chicago-based law firm Sidley Austin LLP to do this latest probe after "the Chicago Tribune published an article casting doubt on the prior investigation's conclusion." The disclosures were contained in a five-page summary of an internal investigation dated March 4 and filed publicly with the Australian Securities Exchange to coincide with the opening of trading Monday in that country. Redflex stock had been on a trading halt since last week pending the announcement. The filing follows Friday's announcement that the president, chief financial officer and the top lawyer for the U.S. subsidiary had resigned amid the escalating scandal. Also on Friday, company lawyers privately briefed City Hall on the company's findings. "We recently announced new leadership and a comprehensive series of system and process improvements in our business to support the highest ethical standards," Redflex Holdings President and CEO Robert DeVincenzi said in a statement to the newspaper. "Those steps marked the dividing line between the past and where our company is headed. "Our investigation into our Chicago contract revealed unacceptable conduct and we are working, every day, to recapture the trust of our clients, the public and our own employees," said DeVincenzi, who took over as president of the U.S. subsidiary as the company tries to get back on track. The company's internal investigation, headed by former city inspector general and federal prosecutor David Hoffman, also took the departing company executives to task for their "clearly inadequate" oversight and "inaccurate and misleading" statements to City Hall and the Tribune as the story broke in October. Hoffman and his team at Sidley Austin were hired by Redflex last year in the wake of Tribune reports on a 2010 internal company memo written by a former vice president who alleged the company hired a Chicago consultant as a way to transfer bribe money to John Bills, a top city transportation manager who oversaw the red-light program since it began in 2003. Bills, who retired in 2011, has denied any wrongdoing. The whistle-blower also alleged that the company plied Bills with lavish vacations to Arizona and California. Company officials in October told the Tribune that the whistle-blower's allegations were investigated and discounted as fiction from a disgruntled employee. The company acknowledged paying for only one inadvertent $910 hotel tab for Bills, a miscue for which the company was reimbursed and an employee punished with "anti-bribery" training, the former general counsel told the Tribune in October. The summary of Hoffman's findings provides a starkly contrasting version of events, outlining $2.03 million in "highly suspicious" payments to the Chicago consultant, whom the company has previously acknowledged was Marty O'Malley, a longtime Bills friend from the South Side. "The arrangement was likely intended to be one in which some of the payments to the consultant would be paid to the city program manager, an arrangement apparently proposed by the city program manager," the report says. "In summary, the investigation concluded that the whistle-blower allegations did, in fact, have merit," the filing states. "The arrangement between the city program manager, the consultant, and Redflex will likely be considered bribery by the authorities." "Redflex did provide vacation-related expenses and other items of value to the city program manager in violation" of Chicago's ethics ordinance, the document continues. Hoffman's findings also criticized Redflex's now ex-president and the company's former executive vice president, who was fired last month, for their roles in the scandal. Neither former President Karen Finley nor former Executive Vice President Aaron Rosenberg returned telephone messages Sunday. Hoffman's findings outline 17 company-paid trips for Bills between 2003 and 2010, including airfare, hotels, golf outings, rental cars and meals. The report also says the executive vice president or the consultant — previously identified as Rosenberg and O'Malley, respectively — "purchased a computer, Chicago-area golf games and meals for the city program manager and was reimbursed by Redflex. These improper expenses totaled approximately $20,000." O'Malley couldn't be reached for comment. Also criticized in the filing was the company's handling of the 2010 whistle-blower allegations. Redflex ex-General Counsel Andrejs Bunkse told the Tribune and City Hall in October that Redflex took the allegations seriously and hired the Chicago law firm Quarles & Brady to conduct an "exhaustive" three-week investigation. Bunkse, one of the Redflex executives whose resignation was announced Friday, told the Tribune that the whistle-blower allegations were unfounded except for the one reimbursed hotel stay, which he described as a billing error. Hoffman's summary said: "The investigation was concluded in a manner that was clearly inadequate to determine whether the allegations were true, and there was inadequate oversight. It was improper for them to describe the 2010 investigation and the associated expense review as 'thorough,' 'complete,' or 'exhaustive.'" Bunkse couldn't be reached. The scandal has cost Redflex its Chicago contract, which provided about 13 percent of the Australian company's annual revenue and has been worth nearly $100 million over its lifetime. In addition, Mayor Rahm Emanuel banned Redflex from competing for the city's upcoming speed camera program. Redflex had been considered a top contender, and the scandal delayed the progress of the program, which Emanuel is counting on for revenue in this year's budget. The escalating scandal, which now threatens to consume the multinational company, had already prompted the resignations of the parent company's chairman of the board and another board member this year. Before last week's halt in trading, company stock was trading at $1.13 per share, just more than half its value from last year before the scandal broke. dkidwell@tribune.com
Redflex expanding investigation into its conduct
By David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune reporter
6:50 a.m. CST, March 6, 2013
The internal probe into whether Chicago's red light camera company bribed a City Hall official has raised concerns that caused the firm to examine its conduct in two other locations, the chairman of Redflex Holdings Ltd. told shareholders.
Michael McConnell, interim board chairman of the Australian company, made the remark late Monday while answering pointed questions from stockholders about the company's future and what he described as "extremely troubling and disappointing" revelations that have cost the company its Chicago business.
One stockholder on the international conference call asked when the company-funded investigation — prompted by Chicago Tribune reports last year — might finally end.
"That's a fair question. This was going on in Chicago. Might it have been going on somewhere else?" responded McConnell, who took over as interim chair this year. "We found two other geographies that raised concern, and those investigations are considerably smaller than the one that just ended."
Company executives contacted Tuesday refused to elaborate.
The stockholder briefing followed company filings Monday at the Australian Securities Exchange acknowledging that the Chicago contract with its subsidiary, Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., was likely built on a $2 million bribery scheme involving the former Chicago official who oversaw the red light program for a decade.
That was the conclusion of a company-funded internal investigation by the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin LLP, which was hired by Redflex to investigate allegations reported by the Tribune in October about the close ties between the company, its Chicago consultant, and the now-retired city official.
The parent company's chairman and another director resigned last month amid the investigation led by former city inspector general and federal prosecutor David Hoffman. The president, chief financial officer and top lawyer at Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems resigned last week and the company fired its former top salesman.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration is dropping Redflex's contract when it expires in June. The program, with 384 cameras, has raised about $100 million for the company and $300 million for the city. Emanuel also barred the company from competing for a new speed camera program.
"I have to tell you I think that we are being rightly punished, given the findings that we uncovered here," McConnell told shareholders.
He said the objective of the Sidley Austin investigation was "to understand what happened in the past and then, based on that full understanding, to consider and take the necessary actions that give this company the best possibility to move forward. What we learned was extremely troubling and disappointing.
"I anticipate the next six months to be challenging as the organization confronts its past and begins to rebuild its future," McConnell continued. "Your board and management will lead us through these challenging circumstances with a clear focus on the restoration of our ethical compass and the firm's integrity. … Our objective is to first stabilize the business."
McConnell told stockholders he expects a final report from Sidley Austin on all the outstanding issues under investigation by the end of March.
Redflex will pay Sidley as much as $2.5 million in legal fees, McConnell said.
Company stock was trading Wednesday in Australia at 98 cents per share, down from $2.10 in October, before the scandal broke. Some on the call raised concerns about whether banks holding the company's $24 million in loans might move to recall the cash.
"If we are charged with anything, under the legal authorities etc., then that might trigger some sort of review, but at this stage we haven't been charged with anything," said Ron Johnson, the company's chief financial officer.
A company spokesman would not identify the "two geographies" McConnell referenced, but the Tribune earlier reported that federal corruption investigators in Louisiana had subpoenaed Redflex in 2010 for thousands of records involving its procurement of a contract in the suburbs of New Orleans.
The same Chicago consultant allegedly involved in the Chicago bribery scheme also introduced Redflex to a Louisiana lobbyist involved in the probe there.
Hoffman's findings marked a stark contrast from the company's assertions last year to the Tribune and City Hall in response to a Tribune inquiry about a 2010 whistle-blower memo that outlined the alleged bribery scheme and "lavish vacations" for the city's former managing deputy commissioner of transportation, John Bills.
Bills has denied wrongdoing.
In October, company lawyers described the whistle-blower allegations as the fiction of a disgruntled employee. They said the allegations were thoroughly investigated by another law firm and found to be without merit, except for one inappropriate hotel bill.
dkidwell@tribune.com
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Chicago and red light vendor: Breaking up is hard to do
By David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune reporter
7:01 a.m. CDT, May 8, 2013
Chicago's divorce with Redflex Traffic Systems is getting messy.
In his hurry to sever ties with the red-light camera operator amid a burgeoning bribery scandal, Mayor Rahm Emanuel in February set a six-month deadline for Redflex to leave town after a decadelong relationship that produced more than $300 million for City Hall and $100 million for the company.
But now Emanuel's office is backing away from the eviction date, extending the deadline indefinitely as officials work to untangle a complex series of thorny questions from eager suitors about how best to take over a 384-camera network that grew to become Redflex's largest North American program.
So while federal and local investigators examine allegations Redflex won its Chicago contract in a $2 million bribery scheme, the Emanuel administration is working with the company to try to ensure a transition to a new vendor won't interrupt the flow of ticket revenue — a stream of cash on which City Hall has come to rely. Redflex, now facing scrutiny across the country following disclosures prompted by a Tribune investigation, is under pressure to cooperate in its own exit from Chicago.
More than 100 questions from Redflex's potential successors have raised myriad concerns about how to satisfy the city's insistence on a seamless handoff — from where to obtain spare camera parts to how to unlock encrypted and proprietary software. Some even asked if they can hire Redflex as a subcontractor.
The answer from City Hall: an emphatic "No."
After what it describes as a "limited transition period," there will be no spare parts from Redflex, no software help, no maintenance contracts, the mayor's office said. "The one thing we are not open to is a continued relationship with Redflex," said Bill McCaffrey, an Emanuel spokesman.
Further complicating the transition is the fact that the administration of former Mayor Richard M. Daley opted to purchase outright the Redflex camera systems installed at 190 intersections around Chicago at a price tag of about $19 million. Redflex has earned the bulk of its money in Chicago operating and maintaining a camera network owned by taxpayers.
According to interviews and the city's responses to bidder questions, it is looking more likely the city will have to scrap that network and replace it with equipment from the new vendor. Potential bidders, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing selection process, said starting from scratch with new equipment is the best option.
"It's clear to us that is the direction the city is going," said one red-light executive. "So that is what we intend to propose."
An executive of another potential bidder said the Redflex cameras are likely to be a multimillion dollar heap of shiny metal.
"Look, it's not like it can't be done. Of course we can figure out how to use their equipment," said the company executive. "But all things being equal, it would be much simpler — and preferable — just to use our own cameras. There are a lot of questions about how this might work."
Just how much a completely new system will cost the city depends on the bid proposals. The city moved the bid deadline from April 30 to Friday "in light of the number and complexity of questions."
The bribery scandal has also complicated Emanuel's plans to install automated speed cameras in school and park zones — an effort with the potential to dwarf the red-light program in size and revenue. The city had hoped to raise as much as $30 million in speeding-ticket revenue this year alone and Redflex officials had hoped to snag that contract as well.
One of the mayor's closest political allies, former campaign manager Greg Goldner, was working as a consultant to Redflex at the time Emanuel won legislative and City Council approval for speed cameras. The Tribune disclosed that as part of his efforts to promote Redflex around the country, Goldner hired the former city official who oversaw the red-light program since it began.
In a series of reports, the newspaper has raised questions about a much deeper relationship between Redflex and that manager, John Bills.
In addition to providing Bills with 17 vacation trips, the company has acknowledged paying $2 million to a consultant who is a longtime Bills friend — a relationship disclosed by the Tribune in October. Authorities will "likely" consider the consultant's payments part of a bribery scheme, according to an internal company investigation in February. Bills and his friend have denied any wrongdoing.
The disclosures have been devastating for the company.
The entire top management structure of Redflex was replaced. Emanuel initially banned the company from competing for his speed-camera initiative on grounds Redflex officials had kept the Bills allegations secret until the Tribune inquiries. In February, as the corruption allegations widened, the mayor declared the company would no longer be welcome in Chicago when its red-light contract expires in July.
The city had hoped to have speed cameras running earlier this year, but no deal has been signed. The city is still in negotiations with its top choice, one of Redflex's fiercest rivals, American Traffic Solutions Inc. ATS is also considering bidding to take over Redflex's red-light business.
Although the city has told potential bidders it hopes to make a selection by the end of July, the transition period is open ended. McCaffrey said the city is open to three options: buying all new red-light cameras from the new vendor, leasing the new vendor's equipment or figuring out a way for a new vendor to use Redflex's equipment without ongoing help or parts from Redflex.
The mayor's office rejected Tribune requests for an interview with city transportation officials to discuss the complications.
But an examination of the questions submitted by potential bidders, which include suburban-based RedSpeed Illinois, Maryland-based Xerox State & Local Solutions Inc. and Arizona-based ATS, illustrate some of the problems. Nearly half the questions centered on the potential pitfalls in taking over a competitor's program. They asked technical questions about decryption keys and transfer protocols. They also asked simpler questions about the availability of technical manuals and whether or not they would be allowed to purchase replacement parts from Redflex.
"The current vendor cannot perform services as a subcontractor for this project,'' the city responded. "After the transition period, there cannot be any relationship with the current vendor or any successor assignee to the current vendor without city authorization."
The city also said Redflex has agreed to provide training and a "translation program" for any new vendor seeking to marry its software with the Redflex network.
But the most likely scenario remains a total system replacement.
In that case, one potential vendor said the city might be able to offload its Redflex relics to an aftermarket buyer in Latin America.
dkidwell@tribune.com
Twitter @DavidKidwell1
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