Inside DPZ Co-Design's Emails and Text Messages: Part V--Does DPZ STILL Think "Everyone" is Their Client?!?

DPZ Co Design team members apparently still believe "everyone" is their client, and not the BCC.  Hopefully their lawyer can explain to them that this is a flawed, inaccurate assessment.

How can a firm working for the county to implement county goals and objectives feel that "everyone" is their client?  If everyone is someone's client--why do we have a contract with DPZ?  Why does DPZ send invoices to the county? It's ridiculous, preposterous, and inaccurate for them to say this.

It's because "everyone" is NOT DPZ's Client, the County, the Board of County Commissioners is DPZ's sole client on the OLF-8 Master Planning project.  And one would assume these folks would know this, but apparently DPZ team members Mike Weich and Marina Khoury continue to cling to the flawed notion that everyone is their client--based upon new text messages provided late last week.  It really is astonishing.

Late last month, I asked our attorney for her opinion--- which she quickly provided.  

“Pursuant to your ask, it is my opinion that privity of contract exists solely between the BCC and DPZ.  The BCC is a legal entity and even though the BCC is a board elected by the public, the BCC is the actual client and not the public.  I certainly understand that sounds counterintuitive, but hopefully the board is supporting the wants of its constituency.”

It is odd that this even has to be discussed and defined for Khoury and Weich, but nevertheless it apparently must be reinforced again.  Over and over.

I can only assume this notion of "everyone" is the client is a defense mechanism they are utilizing to rationalize their actions when they were notified of movements to undermine and embarrass their sole client here, the BCC--and DPZ did NOT notify their client in real time as .  I mean, if everyone and every citizen is your "client" yeah, you don't need to notify anyone of anything I guess.

Real life doesn't work this way though, and that argument is feckless and ridiculous....

Inside the DPZ Co-Design Emails and Text Messages, Part III: Secret Weapon?

Yet another recent, disappointing example of the BCC's consultant, DPZ Co-Design, working behind the scenes against their client the County....

Late last year and early this year, my neighborhood HOA president began, through our HOA, emailing residents in my subdivision "information" about OLF-8.  And a lot of it was misinformation/disinformation from some small groups (Not DPZ) that don't want commerce on OLF-8.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but I did respond to it.  I even did a series of posts about it--because I felt it was really outlandish and the information was propaganda! (plus, this was before the embarrassing DPZ email issues were made public by Rick Outzen and the other media outlets, illustrating NFCU's involvement-so I still thought, naively, that DPZ was working with us, not against us.)

Fast forward a few months and now the pieces are coming together.

Now that I am receiving DPZ Co-Design's recent batch of emails-- I realize why me and my neighborhood  were being targeted.  According to the emails in the latest batch, an employee of DPZ's subcontractor Impact Campaigns indicated she had an "uncle" that lives in my neighborhood.  In emails only circulated within the DPZ team (County project managers excluded), this was described as Brooke's "secret weapon."  In August the DPZ team was conducting extensive outreach to many of the neighborhoods.  No harm in that, right?  

But in the winter, some groups with which DPZ had been communicating (NFCU/Beulah Coalition, No Commerce Park on OLF-8) began openly advocating, via email, against any commerce at all on the field--in direct contravention to what their client, the BCC, had identified as one of the client's top goals with this property.  Not only that, these emails were full of inaccuracies and outright lies!

My response to my neighbors, via email, apparently made its way back to DPZ through one of these "other" entities, at which point the DPZ team apparently relished, and shared, the strife they felt they had created between my neighbors and myself, as the sitting county commissioner that represents that neighborhood. (Again, county staffers apparently were left out of this operation and not copied on this string). But boy oh boy--Travis Peterson of Impact Campaigns sure seemed pleased to create and stir up this discontent, stating: 

"From Belle [sic] Ridge Forest neighborhood association.  Brooke's uncle lives there.  Bergosh is feeling the heat, and I think this is exactly how we want to be positioned right now-- as the honest

Why is the BCC's Consulting Team Working against the BCC: Part II--Why Was the Client Kept in the Dark?

Public Record emails seem to indicate that many meetings were set between the county's consultant DPZ CoDesign and groups of citizens that were working against the county's interests as it pertains to the OLF-8 project in District 1's Beulah Community.  Why was the county (the client) kept in the dark about the substance of these meetings?

 After a document dump of emails from late last week it became painfully obvious, to even the most casual observer, that the consulting firm we hired to implement the board's unanimously approved guidance document in conjunction with citizen input county-wide was being tainted.  And I don't say this lightly or without evidence.

As I discussed here and here--it appears to me that our consultants were giving an inordinately magnified voice to one large employer and their interests, NFCU, and a small group of nearby residents who were/are vocally opposed to any commerce being developed on the OLF-8 property.

I believe this was being done to magnify this opposition in an attempt to present this as a "mandate" or "ground-swelling" of grass-roots approval supporting residential construction on the field and in strong opposition to any commerce on the field.

As I've now carefully gone through the emails that were presented last week, I see DPZ's Communications Contractor Travis Peterson of Impact Campaigns working directly with both of these groups on what appears to be a second track---not in alignment with the county's (aka the client's) interests.  For instance, whenever a meeting is discussed where the "Beulah Coalition" ( a small group of  Navy Federal Credit Union employees and several nearby residents, primarily of the "Nature Trail" subdivision) is to be appraised of an update or given a briefing--County project managers are not on the distribution lists--not invited.  But DPZ staffers are copied on these invites.  Why not the county's project managers?  Why no invite for the client?"

Terri Berry, the County's Project Manager for the OLF-8 initiative said at Thursday's meeting she was told, specifically, that she was "not invited" to these meetings.  This is a red flag--no matter how many ways folks from DPZ want to rationalize that.  It was inappropriate.  Another county staff member with whom I spoken and with knowledge of this topic confirmed that the county's staff "did not" participate in meetings with this Navy Federal Credit Union/DPZ citizens group.

But looking past that part---why was the client, the county, not appraised of the content/outcome of