Allegations 'simply not true'

Kevin McCarthy, the executive director at RethinkWaste who is facing an internal investigation for employee retaliation over questions about the agency's contracts, wrote in a letter to the Daily Journal that the allegations against him are "simply not true."

The South Bayside Waste Management Authority, or RethinkWaste, board voted Thursday to investigate allegations raised by the agency's recycling coordinator, Cathy Hidalgo, that her job was going to be eliminated because she repeatedly complained about and questioned contracts that were awarded to Betsey Meyer, a close friend of McCarthy.

Hidalgo alleges that charges to the agency's Master Plan construction fund for the education center by Meyer should have only been $100,000 but that the figure was changed to $200,000 in violation of the agency's purchasing policy.

Her allegations attracted the attention of Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, last week who urged the board to conduct an investigation into Hildago's claims.

In the letter to the Daily Journal, McCarthy said he fully supports the board's decision to conduct an investigation.

The facts are that a total of $42,500 was approved for Betsey Meyer to assist in the design, and development of the Shoreway Environmental Education Center. Under the SBWMA purchasing policy, the executive director is authorized to approve contracts under $50,000 without SBWMA board approval. Thus, the contract was approved in compliance with the SBWMA purchasing policy, McCarthy wrote in the letter.

McCarthy has worked in the solid waste and recycling industry since 1990 and met Meyer that same year, he wrote in the letter.

'The reason why Betsey Meyer was hired is because she has extensive recycling industry experience and is imminently qualified to perform the work she completed on the education center,' he wrote.

Hidalgo, through her San Francisco-based attorney Ellen Mendelson, sent a letter to the board June 25 requesting it to reconsider eliminating the position based on her questioning the contracts.

In the letter, Hidalgo alleges she openly questioned the consultant contracts from February 2011 to November 2011.

"Hidalgo's attorney, Mendelson, told the Daily Journal yesterday she was shocked to hear McCarthy sent the newspaper a letter explaining the contracts.

'I'm not really free to comment on this right now but if he sent you anything, he's an idiot," she said about McCarthy's letter.

Mendelson's goal, she said, is to help Hidalgo keep her job.

Hidalgo's recycling coordinator job was due to be eliminated out of next year's $47 million RethinkWaste budget in favor of a newly-created position.

In McCarthy's letter to the Daily Journal, he also discusses other contracts related to the education center in San Carlos.

"There were six other contracts approved by me for other vendors, besides Betsey Meyer," he wrote. The actual total approved billings for these six contracts were $157,415.64. The largest contract was for $70,360.52 to Gizmo Art Production who was selected from a pool of three vendors that submitted bids to our exhibit designer, S2 Associates. The next largest contract was to S2 Associates for $30,000. Of these six vendors, I had previously only met with one of them and this vendor billed a total of $5,756.40 to the project.

RethinkWaste's contracting policies were called into question previously in a 2009 San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report that was critical of the awards of two garbage-related contracts and chided the joint-powers agency for not following its stated goal to conduct the requests for proposal process with integrity and transparency.

SBWMA board chair Jim Porter said the agency will take the appropriate next steps after the investigation is completed.

The SBWMA is a joint powers authority of 12 public agencies including Atherton, Belmont, Burlingame, East Palo Alto, Foster City, Hillsborough, Menlo Park, Redwood City, San Carlos, San Mateo, San Mateo County and the West Bay Sanitary District.

Bill Silverfarb can be reached by email: silverfarb@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.