The Collin County Observer

Thursday, the Collin County Commissioners Court voted against a motion to, "Request consideration and action for commissioners court approval to allow Homeland Security to submit a proposal with the University of Texas at Dallas to the United States Air Force for a information sharing program, funds to be disbursed from UT Dallas from grant funds provided by the United States Air Force in the amount of $400,000.00 beneficial to the Collin County Fusion Center operations and further authorize Kelley Stone to sign and submit a letter of commitment to UT Dallas on behalf of Collin county."

The grant request stated that, "Kelley Stone will manage the project" and that "The level-of-effort research and development is to be done by Dr. Johnson of ADB Consulting, as requested by UTD."

This grant request was on the court's consent agenda but was pulled for discussion by Commissioner Joe Jaynes because the request mentioned that the R&D in the grant program would be performed by Dr. James Johnson of ADB Consulting.

Jaynes said he would not vote any more funds that would go to ADB Consulting until he was briefed on the issues he's heard about. He asked Frank Ybarbo, the County Purchasing Agent to look into allegations outlined in a vendor's letter to the county that raised accusations of nepotism by ADB.

Last week, The Collin County Observer published a letter from Sypherlink that accused ADB and Dr. Bob Johnson of awarding an $80 thousand contract to Johnson's brother-in-law based solely on favoritism. Dr. Johnson is married to Anita Miller, the manager of the Fusion Center and is the son of US Congressman Sam Johnson.

Over the past 6 years, Collin County has paid ADB over $1.1 million in 'sole source', no bid contracts for the management of the North Central Texas Fusion System (NCTFS)

On a motion to approve the grant request, the court split on a 2-2 vote, thereby defeating the motion. Judge Self and Commissioner Hoagland voted "yes" Jaynes and Ward voted "No". Commissioner Matt Shaheen did not attend the court meeting.

The consent agenda also included getting court support for filing a grant request with 4th Congressional District Congressman Ralph Hall for a grant to fund, "operations, maintenance, and project support for the North Central Texas Fusion System." No dollar figure was attached to the grant request item.

This request for grant passed without discussion.

Bill