Attorney General Douglas Moylan was standing for almost five hours on Monday, while the lawyers of governor Lou Leon Guerrero distributed him to the details of the now frozen project for feeding and house of homeless and drug dwellers.
The Adelup lawyer Leslie Travis informed the court that two of the three procurements that the General Prosecutor's office issued for the Dignity project were illegal.
Molan and others from the AG's office kept the legality of the procurements and emphasized the damage that could come to drug residents while the project is in the queue.
Travis called the AG as the first witness in the injunction, shortly after 11 a.m. he stayed up after 5 p.m., but there were breaks and other procedural questions in between.
On Monday, for 14 days, since the judges have issued a temporary entry -level fund for the Dignity project, on the same day when it was supposed to start in the tropical Palm Hotel.
This freezing ends on May 19, but the governor argues through her lawyers that the court should issue a long -term injunction for the project.
Adelup sued Molan and his office on the grounds that the contract with Tropical Palm Hotel never received the governor's signature and was secured in violation of the Guam procurement law.
Illegal procurements
Travis for the governor told the judge of the Supreme Court on Monday, Elyze Iriarte that two of the three procurements that the AG's office had created to secure services for the Dignity project broke down the law.
Under oath, Moylan remembered the chain of events that led to the tropical palm contract. He emphasized several times that he was not personally responsible for procurement.
Since last August, the AG office has tried to procure services for the Dignity project three times in this order, he said:
- By an application for a proposal;
- An invitation to the offer; And
- A single source or non -competitive procurement.
The first two tests were canceled. It was the final procurement of the sole source that secured a contract with the tropical Palm Hotel and triggered the governor's complaint.
In particular, the financing of 1.1 million US dollars for the project by the Guam Opioid Recovery Council was approved.
Travis grilled Molan on the approval of the council and created documents of which she said that she only gave the AG after a review of the RFP by the Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness Center and other agencies after a review of the RFP by the GUAM behavioral company and other agencies.
She asked Molan whether he ever applied for the permission of the Council to make the other offers or to refrain from reviewing the Executive Branch agencies for procurement.
“No,” replied the AG and added: “We didn't have to.”
He said the council had instructed him to get the Dignity project in motion during the meeting on August 29th.
According to the AG, it was not stated that for this purpose it can only use an RFP, and the review by other agencies was to determine the scope of the project.
He said the first RFP had been canceled after the only bidder pulled out.
The project scope was decided for the second procurement, the IFB, and his office to make project management internally. When no hotel answered, Molan said that they had gone to the sole procurement of sources.
Sole source
Adelup lawyer Travis questioned the AG in detail on the legal requirements for the sole source of sources, which led to the tropical palm contract.
She asked for various requirements of the law, e.g.
“I'm not sure,” Molan said in response to several questions.
He said a large part of the procurements were treated by deputy attorney in General Fred Nishihira, the deputy supervisor Thomas Paulino and the deputy general attorney Joseph Guthrie, the deputy attorney in general.
Each of them can speak to the details of the contract, he said.
“I am not the one who went out and on the phone,” said Moylan once. “My office did it.”
“I trusted people in the office to follow the rules,” he said.
Signatures, slow roles
The deputy prosecutor Travis Orozco for Moylan rejected several objections to Travis, in which he questioned the authority of the AG's office in order to edit his own procurement.
The three lawyers went back and forth over a long period of time over various sections of the Guam right and whether this approved the AG's office to secure contracts without signature of the governor or the participation of the General Services Agency.
Moylan said during the cross-question of Orozco that the governor had not signed every order from the Opioid Council before the dignity project.
He quoted the recent purchase of nine new drug detector dogs or K-9 for the Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency, which was carried out at the end of last year.
Travis complained that no documentation was presented that proves this.
Orozco informed the court that he would bring in customs to testify on this matter.
At another point, Travis asked why, if the AG's office had its own funds, she had not sued to prevent the administrative ministry from controlling these funds.
“We are working on it,” Molan said to Travis.
Since submitting the lawsuit about the Mangilao Hospital project, the governor has initiated a “pattern” to prevent the AG's office from using its own funds.
Molan said that from paying lawyers to printing services, they “roll slowly”.
Travis still interviewed Moylan on Monday at 5 p.m.
It is expected that the parties will be back in front of Iriarte on Tuesday morning.