Brentwood committee investigates any connection between city and mayor’s company

Brentwood resident John Nurenberger reported in a comment here that a report of the Brentwood Ways and Means Committee was posted online about an inquiry into the city’s relationship with a company owned by Brentwood Mayor Chris Thornton.

The city was awarded for innovation, in a partnership with Geocompile, LLC, the Missouri Municipal League reported.

See also: Brentwood wins statewide award; city partnered with company apparently owned by mayor, Brentwood has ‘no relationship’ with company state group says it partnered with, city says

He also said an agenda item has been added to the May 7 board of aldermen meeting to take up the issue of whether the city retains an interest in the methodology developed working with Geocompile.

From the ways and means meeting:

Recently, the Missouri Municipal League (MML) awarded its 2018 “Innovation Award” to the City of Brentwood for its “Technology to Improve Public Safety”. Essentially, it’s a “data collection and analysis system to analyze the data from the GPS units.” (See Brentwood’s Application, “Project Summary”). Upon reading the Application, some of the alderman had questions concerning whether, and to what extent, the City paid any monies related to this system. As Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, on Monday I instructed Staff to place on the agenda for the 5.2.18 meeting a discussion concerning this and a company known as Geocompile, LLC. Staff provided to the Committee a complete list of vendors, a spreadsheet detailing all payments to Chris Thornton and a spreadsheet detailing all payments to companies involved in the GPS data collection, among other documents. The following questions were asked by the Chair. Staff answers are capitalized.

• Has any money been paid to Geocompile, or any entity on behalf of Geocompile, for the software that was the subject of the MML award?  NO
• Has any money been paid to Geocompile, or any entity on behalf of Geocompile, for any work it may have performed in writing or creating the software that was the subject of the MML  award?  NO
• Has any money been paid to Geocompile for anything?  NO
• Does the City have a contract with Geocompile, be it oral or written?  NO
• Has the City ever had a contract with Geocompile, be it oral or written? NO
• Has the City budgeted any sums to be paid to Geocompile this year? NO
• Has any money been paid to Chris Thornton, directly or indirectly, for the software that was the  subject of the MML award? NO
• Has any money been paid to Chris Thornton, directly or indirectly, for any work he may have  performed in writing or creating the software that was the subject of the MML award? NO
• US Fleet began providing a service to the City of tracking the police vehicles equipped with GPS  devices in March, 2016, correct?  YES
• Presently, the City only pays US Fleet for GPS tracking information monthly for all of the City’s  vehicles equipped with GPS devices, correct? YES
• Prior to February 20, 2018, the City paid US Fleet for GPS tracking information monthly for the  police GPS devices and Verizon Fleet for all other City owned vehicles equipped with GPS  devices, correct? YES
• Since the summer of 2016, the only sums paid by the City of Brentwood for any GPS related  activities were to US Fleet and/or Verizon Fleet, correct? YES
• The only contract in place concerning GPS, and the data from the GPS devices, is the contract  between the City and US Fleet, correct?  YES

The documents provided independently support Staff’s answers.

This is not the end of the Board’s inquiry. An agenda item has been added to the May 7 Board of Aldermen meeting to take up the issue of whether the City retains an interest in the methodology developed which was the subject of the MML 2018 Innovation Award.