San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
People need food; this is not the way to provide it
The mystery of how San Antonio event planner Gregorio Palomino, with no experience in food distribution, scored a $39 million contract from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture to feed needy families during a pandemic is one that must be solved.
But the greater priority is feeding those families. The delaying of that by Palomino’s struggles to deliver food justifies taking the contract away from him and awarding it to a company that can get the job done.
In individual letters sent last week by U.S. Reps. Lloyd Doggett and Joaquin Castro to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, both San Antonio representatives asked Perdue to investigate how Palomino’s company, CRE8AD8, was awarded the contract.
“Why did USDA decide to contract with entities without a proven history or track record of fulfilling the basic tasks of the program over applicants with years of experience in the industry?” Castro wrote.
Doggett demanded the contract be canceled, writing, “This contract was issued without a credible background check with a company not licensed to perform and with no work history indicating a capacity to perform at a time of urgent public need for competent delivery.”
Palomino can’t be trusted to provide a truthful representation of himself or his company, nor can he be trusted to provide the vital service for which he’s been contracted. In last Sunday’s ExpressNews, reporter Tom Orsborn detailed the scope and brazenness of Palomino’s lies, a word we use sparingly but is inescapable in this instance. Lies that were easily debunked.
On CRE8AD8’s website, Palomino claimed iconic local companies USAA, Valero Energy and Fiesta
San Antonio as among his clients. When officials from these companies denied ever working with Palomino or his company, he removed the claims from the website.
His LinkedIn profile cited service on the board of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, but the chamber says that isn’t true.
Also false appear to be his claims of operations in 27 cities around the world and the credential of “CMP” — Certified Meeting Professional, a designation by the Events Industry Council representing extensive knowledge of meeting management. It’s a designation the council says Palomino hasn’t earned.
Palomino’s attempt to explain the confusion to Orsborn was pathetic, beginning with the words, “My CMP is a different acronym … ”
This is akin to a physician saying, “My M.D. is a different acronym … ”
But all of Palomino’s misrepresentations would be irrelevant — but still disturbing because honesty matters, right? — if he were providing crucial food to the people in such desperate need. On Thursday, he delivered 235 food boxes, a paltry start.
His $39 million contract is for the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, which directs surplus food toward families suffering financial hardship because of the pandemic. It obligates CRE8AD8 to buy 18 million pounds of food, pack it into 750,000 individual boxes, and transport the boxes to food banks and other nonprofits in seven states by June 30.
As Eric Cooper, who heads the San Antonio Food Bank, has said, failure on this is not an option. But failure is all we see at this point.
More than a potential failure to fulfill a contract, this is a failure of moral responsibility to feed people who are at their most vulnerable. Palomino and CRE8AD8 should have never been awarded this contract, and we join Doggett and Castro in asking to know why this happened.
As we await answers about this and the broader USDA program, cancel the contract and award it to a company with a proven track record to fulfill its contractual and moral responsibility to feed the hungry.