Larry Hogan publicly questions Martin O’Malley over mansion furniture

former Gov. Martin O’Malley appears to have engaged in questionable activities during his tenure,  

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan took to his large Facebook following today and Sunday to question why former Gov. Martin O’Malley purchased most of the governor’s mansion furniture after it had been declared “junk” by the Democrat’s outgoing administration — a transaction that the state ethics commission is examining.

A Baltimore Sun investigation revealed last week that the Democratic candidate for president had paid $9,638 for 54 mansion furnishings that originally cost taxpayers $62,000. The Department of General Services sold armoires, beds, chairs, desks, lamps, mirrors, ottomans, tables and other items to O’Malleyand his wife, Baltimore District Judge Catherine CurranO’Malley, at steep discounts after declaring every item to be “junk.”

The department sold the items to the O’Malleys, who together earned $270,000 in state salaries last year, without seeking bids or notifying the public that the items were available for sale.

An agency rule prohibits preferential sales of state-owned property to government officials.

“If they call that expensive, beautiful, barely used furniture ‘junk’, I’d hate to hear what they call the 20 year old stuff I brought with me from my house to replace it all,” the Republican governor wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. “And if it was so bad and ready to be ‘thrown out,’ why would you try so hard to take all with you to your new house.

Hogan was even more direct on Facebook Monday: “Just to set the record straight, none of the 54 pieces of furniture included in the investigation was ‘junk.'”

“None of it would have been ‘thrown out,’ or surplussed, or sold in any manner,” Hogan added. “Had it not all been removed a few days before we moved in, our intention would have been to leave all of it in place, just as it was, in the people’s house.”

The furniture was used in the residential sections of the mansion, not the public areas, which are dotted with antiques. When Hogan moved into the mansion in January from his Anne Arundel County home, the Republican found a starkly less furnished house than the one he had toured with O’Malleytwo weeks earlier. He ended up moving in nearly all of hisfurniturefrom his Edgewater house.

“The governor was certainly surprised to find Government House largely unfurnished,” said Hogan spokesman Douglass Mayer.

The office of Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, who campaigned for O’Malley last week, referred questions about the matter to the department’s legal counsel, Assistant Attorney General Turhan E. Robinson. David Nitkin, a spokesman for Frosh, said the issue is a matter of “departmental policy” and that Robinson “should be able to answer.”

On Friday, Robinson asked the state ethics commission to determine whether the sale violated the prohibition and whether a provision in state regulations that allows the department to sell surplus property to charities and other government agencies without bids can apply to a private sale with a governmetn official.

Robinson wrote that the matter “requires ethics determination.”
“DGS is requesting a determination on the propriety of sales of excess/used furniture to an outgoing public elected official,” Robinson wrote on Friday to Michael Lord, executive director of the Maryland State Ethics Commission.

Lord declined to comment, saying his office is restricted from discussing any requests.

O’Malley declined to comment, but his representatives said that he followed proper procedures and that state officials had authorized thefurnitureto be thrown away.

The Department of General Services’ inventory control manual states that “the preferential sale or gratuitous disposition of property to a state official or employee is prohibited in accordance with Board of Public Works policy.” The prohibition against preferential sales—transactions made without publicly soliciting other bids—applies to all surplus state property, even items declared junk, a department spokeswoman said.

In addition to the department’s prohibition against private sales to government officials, the inventory control manual says that state ethics rules also govern all transactions. State ethics rules and the standards of conduct for executive branch employees forbid state officials from making transactions that involve information unavailable to the public.

O’Malley is not the first governor to get such treatment.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. also purchasedfurniturewhen he left office—but much less. The Republican paid the state $992 for 21 furnishings that had cost the state $9,904. Unlike O’Malley, Ehrlich purchased mostly low-cost linens, mattresses, pillows, lamps and bunk beds used by his two sons. Those items were also purchased at prices set by a depreciation formula. The ethics commission was asked to also examine that sale as well.

via Baltimore sun

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Maryland State ethics board examining Martin O’Malley’s purchase of mansion furniture

former Gov. Martin O’Malley appears to have engaged in questionable activities.

An assistant attorney general asked Friday for a state ethics commission ruling on whether former Gov. Martin O’Malley’s purchase of furniture from the governor’s mansion violated rules regarding state-owned property.

When O’Malley and his family moved out of the mansion in January, they left with most of its taxpayer-purchased furnishings — 54 items that he bought at steep discounts because every piece had been declared “junk” by his administration.

O’Malley and his wife, Baltimore District Judge Catherine Curran O’Malley, paid $9,638 for armoires, beds, chairs, desks, lamps, mirrors, ottomans, tables and other items that originally cost taxpayers $62,000, according to documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

The Department of General Services sold the furniture to the O’Malleys, who together earned $270,000 in state salaries last year, without seeking bids or notifying the public that the items were available for sale.

An agency rule prohibits preferential sales of state-owned property to government officials. On Friday, the assistant attorney general at the department asked the state ethics commission to determine whether the sale violated the prohibition.

O’Malley, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, declined to comment, but his representatives said that he followed proper procedures and that state officials had authorized the furniture to be thrown away.

The furniture was used in the residential sections of the mansion, not the public areas, which are dotted with antiques. When Gov. Larry Hogan moved into the mansion in January from his Anne Arundel County home, the Republican found a starkly less furnished house than the one he had toured with O’Malley two weeks earlier. He ended up moving in nearly all of his furniture from his Edgewater house.

“The governor was certainly surprised to find Government House largely unfurnished,” said Hogan spokesman Douglass Mayer.

The Department of General Services’ inventory control manual states that “the preferential sale or gratuitous disposition of property to a state official or employee is prohibited in accordance with Board of Public Works policy.” The prohibition against preferential sales — transactions made without publicly soliciting other bids — applies to all surplus state property, even items declared junk, a department spokeswoman said.

State ethics rules and the standards of conduct for executive branch employees forbid state officials from making transactions that involve information unavailable to the public.

Therese Yewell, spokeswoman for the Department of General Services, said the agency prohibition appears to apply to the transaction because O’Malley was still governor when he bought the furniture. But she deferred to the department’s counsel, Assistant Attorney General Turhan E. Robinson, for a formal answer, and Robinson then sent the request to the ethics commission.

“DGS is requesting a determination on the propriety of sales of excess/used furniture to an outgoing public elected official,” Robinson wrote Friday. The request also asks for an examination of a similar, though smaller, sale to former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. eight years ago.

Sheila C. McDonald, executive secretary for the Maryland Board of Public Works, said the prohibition on preferential sales corresponds with the procurement policies of the three-person spending board, which O’Malley chaired for eight years.

“It’s just common sense,” said McDonald, an attorney who has managed the board since 1999. “You have to make sure the public knows so that no state employee gets something that a member of the public doesn’t get.”

The policy governing the sale of excess state-owned property gives the general services department four options: transfer items to other state agencies, donate them to charities, sell them at auction or throw them out. When selling, the agency “shall seek to gain maximum value” for all property, according to state regulations.

“Excess property sales will be executed by competitive sealed bids or public auction,” state regulations say.

Property can be sold or given to other government entities or charities without seeking competitive bids. Robinson asked the ethics commission whether that exemption could also apply to preferential sales to government officials.

O’Malley’s former chief of staff, John Griffin, who spoke on behalf of the former governor, said he believes proper procedure was followed.

Griffin said O’Malley expressed an interest in buying the furniture only after general services officials declared the furniture to be junk.

The state’s inventory standards division “found that the furniture was beyond or close to the end of its useful life and authorized it to be thrown out — junked,” Griffin wrote in an email response to questions. “Enter [Martin O’Malley] who asked that the furniture not be junked but to have DGS put a value on it and the family would buy it.”

But Yewell said it was O’Malley’s wife who got the process moving when the first lady asked to have the furniture declared surplus, a necessary step that must come before the items are declared junk and can be sold as excess property.

An assistant attorney general asked Friday for a state ethics commission ruling on whether former Gov. Martin O’Malley’s purchase of furniture from the governor’s mansion violated rules regarding state-owned property.

When O’Malley and his family moved out of the mansion in January, they left with most of its taxpayer-purchased furnishings — 54 items that he bought at steep discounts because every piece had been declared “junk” by his administration.

O’Malley and his wife, Baltimore District Judge Catherine Curran O’Malley, paid $9,638 for armoires, beds, chairs, desks, lamps, mirrors, ottomans, tables and other items that originally cost taxpayers $62,000, according to documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

The Department of General Services sold the furniture to the O’Malleys, who together earned $270,000 in state salaries last year, without seeking bids or notifying the public that the items were available for sale.

An agency rule prohibits preferential sales of state-owned property to government officials. On Friday, the assistant attorney general at the department asked the state ethics commission to determine whether the sale violated the prohibition.

O’Malley, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, declined to comment, but his representatives said that he followed proper procedures and that state officials had authorized the furniture to be thrown away.

The furniture was used in the residential sections of the mansion, not the public areas, which are dotted with antiques. When Gov. Larry Hogan moved into the mansion in January from his Anne Arundel County home, the Republican found a starkly less furnished house than the one he had toured with O’Malley two weeks earlier. He ended up moving in nearly all of his furniture from his Edgewater house.

“The governor was certainly surprised to find Government House largely unfurnished,” said Hogan spokesman Douglass Mayer.

The Department of General Services’ inventory control manual states that “the preferential sale or gratuitous disposition of property to a state official or employee is prohibited in accordance with Board of Public Works policy.” The prohibition against preferential sales — transactions made without publicly soliciting other bids — applies to all surplus state property, even items declared junk, a department spokeswoman said.

State ethics rules and the standards of conduct for executive branch employees forbid state officials from making transactions that involve information unavailable to the public.

Therese Yewell, spokeswoman for the Department of General Services, said the agency prohibition appears to apply to the transaction because O’Malley was still governor when he bought the furniture. But she deferred to the department’s counsel, Assistant Attorney General Turhan E. Robinson, for a formal answer, and Robinson then sent the request to the ethics commission.

“DGS is requesting a determination on the propriety of sales of excess/used furniture to an outgoing public elected official,” Robinson wrote Friday. The request also asks for an examination of a similar, though smaller, sale to former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. eight years ago.

Sheila C. McDonald, executive secretary for the Maryland Board of Public Works, said the prohibition on preferential sales corresponds with the procurement policies of the three-person spending board, which O’Malley chaired for eight years.

“It’s just common sense,” said McDonald, an attorney who has managed the board since 1999. “You have to make sure the public knows so that no state employee gets something that a member of the public doesn’t get.”

The policy governing the sale of excess state-owned property gives the general services department four options: transfer items to other state agencies, donate them to charities, sell them at auction or throw them out. When selling, the agency “shall seek to gain maximum value” for all property, according to state regulations.

“Excess property sales will be executed by competitive sealed bids or public auction,” state regulations say.

Property can be sold or given to other government entities or charities without seeking competitive bids. Robinson asked the ethics commission whether that exemption could also apply to preferential sales to government officials.

O’Malley’s former chief of staff, John Griffin, who spoke on behalf of the former governor, said he believes proper procedure was followed.

Griffin said O’Malley expressed an interest in buying the furniture only after general services officials declared the furniture to be junk.

The state’s inventory standards division “found that the furniture was beyond or close to the end of its useful life and authorized it to be thrown out — junked,” Griffin wrote in an email response to questions. “Enter [Martin O’Malley] who asked that the furniture not be junked but to have DGS put a value on it and the family would buy it.”

But Yewell said it was O’Malley’s wife who got the process moving when the first lady asked to have the furniture declared surplus, a necessary step that must come before the items are declared junk and can be sold as excess property.

Samuel L. Cook, the former director of the Annapolis Capital Complex, devised the depreciation formula that was used to determine the prices the O’Malleys paid for the furniture. Cook, who worked for state government for four decades, said the process of declaring property as excess and ordering its disposal typically takes several days or weeks.

For the O’Malleys it took one day. Records show that the process to declare the furniture as surplus, judge its condition and issue a separate disposal order took place on Jan. 15 — the day the O’Malleys moved out of the mansion.

All 54 items were formally declared “unserviceable,” according to the “excess property declaration” forms filed that day by the Department of General Services. Other options included “good, fair and poor.” The declaration resulted in excess-property disposal orders on the same day, stating that all the items could be disposed of “as junk.”

Each item featured some defect that rendered it unserviceable, according to the state records. Five mirrors were described as having “distorted, cracked edges,” four chairs had “material stained, wicker torn and frayed,” and two other chairs had “material stained & worn, scratches.”

Cook then put together an inventory labeled “Personal items and inventory the first family wants to purchase” that detailed the original cost of each item and the depreciated value O’Malley would pay.
The state’s inventory control manual does not provide a process for valuing property declared junk. Cook said that is why he consulted furniture experts and the Internet to devise his formula.

“Sam consulted with furniture experts and determined that 10 years was the outside useful life,” Griffin wrote in an email. The majority of the furniture — 65 percent — was eight years old.

According to Cook’s inventory, the O’Malleys paid $449 for a leather couch that the state bought in 2007 for $2,247; $739 for a Maitland Smith armoire that the state paid $3,695 for in 2007; and $764 for a second armoire that the state paid $3,822 for in 2007.

The first lady signed the $9,638 check from the O’Malleys’ joint bank account on Jan. 17, when her husband was still governor. He left office Jan. 20 2015.

It’s unlikely that every item O’Malley wanted to buy was “truly junk,” said Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, a government watchdog group. “I find it deeply disturbing.”

Cook defended the deal, saying it benefited Maryland taxpayers.

“It’s not historical furniture. he said. “It’s furniture used by the family over eight years. It gets pretty roughed up. … The state was fortunate to get some money for this junk that we were able to utilize to buy new furniture. In my mind, as a taxpayer, it’s a win-win for the state.”

Brian R. Greenstein, an accounting professor at the University of Delaware’s business school, said Maryland would have gotten the most money for the furniture if it had hired an appraiser.

“That’s standard business practice,” Greenstein said. “Appraisals are always the true measure.”

Auctioning the property would have also revealed the fair-market value, according to Greenstein and three furniture experts.

O’Malley is not the first governor to get such treatment.

Ehrlich also purchased furniture when he left office — but much less. The Republican paid the state $992 for 21 furnishings that had cost the state $9,904. Unlike O’Malley, Ehrlich purchased mostly low-cost linens, mattresses, pillows, lamps and bunk beds used by his two sons.

Those items were also purchased at prices set by a depreciation formula.

Ehrlich and his wife, Kendel, said when they moved into the mansion after Parris N. Glendening, the residence was nearly fully furnished. The couple brought some of their own furniture and acquired other items from state inventories, Kendel Ehrlich said.

“We brought our own bed,” she said. “I do remember the private residence was furnished.”

When Glendening moved out in 2002 his Government House Foundation donated hundreds of furnishings to the house, according to state records obtained by The Sun.

“I know I didn’t buy anything” when leaving office, Glendening said. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”

ddonovan@baltsun.com

Via Baltimore sun

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Hogan has decided state will cooperate with feds on undocumented detainees

Immigration advocates in Maryland are criticizing a decision by Gov. Larry Hogan to notify federal immigration officials when an illegal immigrant targeted for deportation is released from the state-run Baltimore City Detention Center.

Advocates consider Hogan’s stance to be a departure from the policy of his predecessor, Democrat Martin O’Malley, who last year joined other elected officials in refusing requests from the Obama administration to coordinate with federal law enforcement whenever a detainee was being released.

Hogan’s decision, which was made with no fanfare shortly after he took office in January, is especially troubling, advocates say, because it is his first significant action regarding immigration policy.

CASA de Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group, has scheduled a protest in front of the governor’s mansion Thursday afternoon.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) speaks at Baltimore City Detention Center on July 30 to announce his plan to immediately shut down the jail. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
The issue of local governments cooperating with federal authorities in dealing with illegal immigrants has come to the forefront since the slaying last month of Kathryn Steinle, 31, in San Francisco. The suspect in that case, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, had been released from custody in April by San Francisco authorities despite a request from Homeland Security for the seven-time felon to be detained so that he could be deported back to Mexico.

During O’Malley’s eight years as governor, activists applauded his efforts to secure in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants and allow them to obtain driver’s licenses, with some restrictions. They also were buoyed by his position on detainees.

Although Hogan did not campaign on any immigration-related issues, advocates have been watching the Republican governor carefully to see whether he would take a different approach.

“This really is the first ball out of the park,” said Kim Propeak, the director of CASA in Action, the political arm of the immigrant-advocacy organization. “And it doesn’t bode well. It is very, very worrying.”

Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Hogan, said the governor is simply complying with a request made by the Obama administration — and has made no effort to reverse the driver’s license program or Maryland’s so-called “Dream Act,” the legislation that provides in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.

“We are not making immigration an issue here,” Mayer said. “This is not an immigration issue. It’s a public safety issue.”

Around the time that Hogan took office, the Department of Homeland Security changed the type of cooperation it was seeking from local officials on detainees.

During O’Malley’s tenure, the agency’s Secure Communities program asked localities to hold inmates for up to 48 hours beyond their scheduled release from custody to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to explore potential immigration violations and to take action if any were found.

The program was controversial. O’Malley directed the state-run Baltimore jail not to comply, joining several mayors in large cities across the country. More than 350 communities ended or scaled back their participation, citing legal and civil liberties concerns.

The administration did away with the Secure Communities program earlier this year, and said it would be replaced this summer by the Priority Enforcement Program.

That initiative asks local officials to notify their federal counterparts 48 hours before an immigrant who is being targeted for deportation is scheduled to be released so that agents can move to detain them. The agency says only immigrants who have been convicted of a serious crime, is involved in a gang or is considered a threat to national security would be targeted.

But pro-immigrant groups have blasted the new program, despite the changes, and officials in the city of Los Angeles have said their police department still will not cooperate.

Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Corrections, said the state will adhere to the program and is notifying the federal government when an undocumented immigrant who fits the DHS criteria is close to being released.

“This will permit ICE to assume custody of the individual immediately upon release from a department facility,” he said.

The state will also voluntarily hold detainees for up to 48 hours beyond their scheduled release date if DHS can produce a detainer, backed up by a judicial warrant, establishing probable cause for a serious charge, Vernarelli said.

Sirine Shebaya, the attorney who directs the ACLU of Maryland’s immigrants’ rights advocacy, called the decision by Hogan “counter-productive,” arguing that it undermines public safety by further breaking down the trust between police and immigrant communities.
>>> Washington Post 

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Larry Hogan aims to kill Martin O’Malley’s ‘rain tax’.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan delivers his State of the State address Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015 in Annapolis, Md. Hogan outlined plans for tax relief, charter schools and reforms to the state’s legislative redistricting process. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)

By S.A. Miller – The Washington Times – 

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan took the first step toward repealing the state’s “rain tax,” which is levied on property owners for land with impervious surfaces to pay for EPA-mandated programs to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

“Passing a state law that forces counties to raise taxes on their citizens against their will is not the best way to address the issue,” said Mr. Hogan, a Republican. “Marylanders have made perfectly clear that further taxing struggling and already overtaxed Marylanders for the rain that falls on the roof of their homes was a mistake that needs to be corrected.”

He made the announcement surrounded by county executives, legislators and business leaders.

“The rain tax is less about cleaning up the Bay than it is about imposing another tax on our citizens, as Carroll County found out last year when the attorney general threatened us with a $10,000 a day fine for not levying one,” said Delegate Haven Shoemaker, Carroll Republican.

The “rain tax” was one of the most unpopular taxes levied under former Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat who is considering a 2016 presidential run.

If the repeal is successful, the state will have to replace the revenue to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s unfunded mandate for the $14.8 billion clean-up plan, which seeks to decrease stormwater runoff into the Bay.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/10/larry-hogan-aims-kill-martin-omalleys-rain-tax/#ixzz3RomoCgB8

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