I previously wrote about the Maryland Lottery and complaints and intimidation from IGT, a spurned bidder for state contracts. After that, I decided to pay more attention to news revolving around the lottery and bidding processes.
Part of the complaints from GTECH were designed to intimidate Gordon Medenica, who had been appointed but not yet confirmed, as director of the Maryland Lottery. Last week, the Executive Nominations Committee held confirmation hearings for several officials, including Mr. Medenica.
After questioning, Senator Joan Carter Conway asked that Medenica’s nomination be held for further investigation. Bryan Sears wrote about the hearing in The Daily Record.
The senator asked Medenica questions about lottery income sources before moving on to questions about the recent contract recommendation made in favor of SGI and the appeals by IGT and Gaming Innovation. As you may recall, IGT filed a protest that they eventually backed down from. Gaming Innovations moved forward with a protest that they eventually dropped.
Specifically, Conway drills down into questions about minority business enterprise (MBE) goals from all three bidders. Medenica points out that the goals are pass/fail and that all three bids met the goal of 20% participation. He also tells Conwa y that a bid with a local joint venture partner does not get any more consideration.
This question related to Gaming Innovation’s bid and their use of a “local” partner, businessman Emmanuel Bailey. In Gaming Innovation’s protest letter, they complained that their team included two members who were “running” the D.C. Lottery.
One of these partners is Emmanuel Bailey. He’s deemed a local partner for the Maryland bid and he also was for a successful bid, along with Intralot, to run the DC Lottery.
Mr. Bailey has been ensnared in investigations of the procurement process related to the DC Lottery. He was apparently running his operations, as a local partner for Intralot, from the basement of his mother’s home in the District. He apparently lived in Maryland at the time. That is not allowed under D.C. law. You must live in D.C. to be certified as a local partner. Maryland does not have that requirement for local partners.
This puts Bailey in a bit of a quandary as it relates to the Gaming Innovation bid for the Maryland Lottery business. As far as DC is concerned, he is “local.” If so, that means he is lying if he claims to be in Maryland as part of the Gaming Innovation bid.
To sum things up, IGT originally made an implied threat against the confirmation of Gordon Medenica as director of the Maryland Lottery before withdrawing their protest. Gaming Innovation continued their protest based on specious logic and found a sympathetic ear in Joan Carter Conway who is now holding up the confirmation.
I will continue to follow this story as it develops further.
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