On Nov. 1, 2010, the John Doe prosecutors asked for a subpoena of Milwaukee County records apparently related to the contract for courthouse cleaning in 2009, newly released documents show.
Scott Walker privatized those services—and was able to shut out the county board—because “an ordinance change done before the privatization issue came up established definitions of professional services and procurements…” The whole thing was approved as part of the 2010 budget.
The controversial $1.2 million contract was given to Mid-American Building Services. That firm is owned by major Walker backer Ed Aprahamian. Around the time that the county was planning to privatize cleaning services in 2009, Aprahamian donated $1,000 to Walker.
It appears that prosecutors felt that something fishy was going on.
Investigator David Budde testified: “We—in our examination of the e-mails thus far, we have seen e-mails that involve non County employees with the cleaning contract that is—exists between the county and Mid America Cleaning. In particular, we’ve seen e-mails that reference the bidding—the bidding process for this contract. We’ve seen e-mails that reference the—certain information that was provided to the County that these non County employees wished to keep confidential. And we think that there—it is relevant as far as whether or not violations of County ordinances or the County ethics policy has occurred in regard to sharing information outside of the County’s normal chain of doing business.”
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Who were these “non-county employees” who had confidential information? What, exactly, was going on?
The court docs call it “Mid America Cleaning” and the Journal Sentinel at first called it “Mid-American Cleaning Contractors” and, later, “MidAmerican Building Services,” but it’s got to be the same entity, don’t you think?
The RFP results are still on the county’s website, and it’s listed as MidAmerican Building Services.
Ed Aprahamian is the owner. His “previous” position was with Gateway Ventures, according to his LinkedIn page.
Gateway Ventures is also connected to Walker fundraiser Dan Morse.
Aprahamian is mentioned in Kelly Rindfleisch’s emails, to wit:
Think the prosecutors found anything?
