FPC paid no-bid PR firm $61,500
Contract terminated after Barrett inquired
Griselda Aldrete says her office became overwhelmed shortly after she was appointed executive director of the Fire and Police Commission.
So just months after she took the position, Aldrete retained an outside public relations firm with a no-bid contract to lend her a helping hand.
Regalis Management, a one-man shop headed by Chez Ordoñez, was paid $7,500 a month to deal with the media, oversee social media and burnish the agency’s image.
The total cost to taxpayers, according to the city comptroller: $61,500.
“Well, it didn’t work,” said Ald. Robert Bauman, when told details of the PR contract last week.
Bauman was referring to the fact that Aldrete is soon headed out the door, the city is now looking for a permanent police chief and the former head of the Fire and Police Commission has been embroiled in an ethics controversy for much of the past year.
Under Aldrete’s leadership, the agency has struggled to complete routine tasks and to deal with transparency issues.
In fact, the PR contract with Ordoñez’s firm ended several months ago — at the prodding of Mayor Tom Barrett’s office. But the commission is just now releasing details of the contract in response to an open records request from nearly six months ago.
Aldrete said Friday that her office has been inundated with requests for records over the past year.
“There was a slowness in our response with records, and there still is,” Aldrete said. “I just got the budget to approve a temporary hire for a second paralegal so I can expedite some of these things.”
The city is currently looking for a replacement for Aldrete, who decided not to seek reappointment.
Records supplied by her office show that Ordoñez reached out to the commission’s new boss in an Oct. 1, 2019, pitch.
“Your experience and expertise are truly impressive — not to mention your achievements as an organizational leader and woman of color in Milwaukee — where we see some of the greatest equity disparities nationwide,” Ordoñez wrote.
He promised not only to help with communications and public policy but also with Aldrete’s “brand” and “visibility.”
“I will make sure you’re always prepared — putting your best face forward,” Ordoñez wrote. He ended the note, “Let’s make history.”
Aldrete signed on the dotted line two days later. Last week, Ordoñez dismissed any suggestion that the two were friends. He said he was offering to help her with the media and to help her with such issues as parliamentary procedure.
A member of the city Equal Rights Commission, Ordoñez got an advisory opinion from the city Ethics Board saying it would not be a conflict of interest for him to hold the contract. He said he also informed the mayor’s office that he was doing this work with Aldrete.
Even though the contract has ended, Ordoñez said he continues to give her advice.
“I know she has a small staff, and to devote somebody to do media stuff would mean that you don’t get something else done,” Ordoñez said.
Earlier this year, the city’s inspector general raised questions about the contract in an audit.
According to the audit, Aldrete signed off on the personal services contract without the knowledge or input of the city Purchasing Division. The audit said as of October 2015, all such contracts — no matter the dollar amount — have to be completed through the purchasing staff.
In her interview, Aldrete defended her actions, noting that there were 40 similar contracts that the commission signed before her time that no one questioned.
“There are a lot of loopholes, and I think there was a lot of information that was given to me that I could now say it was not accurate and who knows why,” Aldrete said. “But I never believed that I was doing anything not legal and or not in good faith to try to really better the office.”
Overall, Aldrete said, she believes the contract was good value for the city.
She said no one could have expected the agency to face the year that it did, from the scandal involving former Chairman Steven DeVougas to the restrictions put in place because of COVID-19 to the extensive police protests to the search for a new chief.
Aldrete said Ordoñez was there to help the agency throughout. She said he helped the agency deal with staff shortages, abide by parliamentary procedure at commission meetings and “smooth over people who were unhappy with us.”
She said Ordoñez even gave her a helping hand in crafting her letter in January calling a couple of aldermen “misogynistic” in their questioning of her and another female city department head at a Common Council committee meeting. It was clear she was targeting Bauman and Ald. Russell Stamper II.
“Absolutely, I think it worked,” Aldrete said of the PR contract. “I stand behind my decision and his work, and I stand behind my integrity and his integrity as well.”