CHP protecting Oracle records; tech officialsuspendedSacramento Bee Capitol BureauPublished 3:16 p.m. PDT Thursday, May 2, 2002California Highway Patrol officers secured the state offices ofthe state Department of Information Technology Thursday toprevent removal or shredding of documents related to theunfolding Oracle computer investigation.Also, Gov. Gray Davis said he suspended the department’s directorElias Cortez until further notice and accepted the resignation ofDirector of eGovernment Arun Baheti.CHP Commissioner Spike Helmick said at 12:30 p.m. thatrepresentatives of the state attorney general’s office were ontheir way to the offices.“We’ve been asked simply to hold the office and assure that allthe material is there until it’s turned over to someone else,” hesaid. “We’re just assuring that no paperwork leaves the officesand or is destroyed.”Barry Goode, legal affairs secretary to the governor said hisoffice received an “unsubstantiated report of possible documentshredding” at the department.“I immediately called DOIT, directed it to determine if anyshredding was occurring, and, if so to cease immediately,” Goodesaid in a statement. “I then called the attorney general’soffice, reported what we had heard and done and asked them tocommence an investigation. In cooperation with the AttorneyGeneral, the California Highway Patrol was dispatched to secureall shredders and trash at DOIT.”According to sources, CHP officers began going through trashoutside the building mid-morning Thursday, and summoned moreofficers and a warrant after about an hour. One source said thetrash search seemed to show that evidence was being discarded.State Attorney General Bill Lockyer is investigating whetherstate law was violated in the course of negotiating the state’scontract for database software with Oracle Corp.A recent state audit found that the state stands to pay $41million more for database software than it would have without the2$95 million, six-year licensing agreement. It said thatinexperienced state negotiators signed the contract despitelimited demand for the product.Baheti’s resignation letter read in part:“While I was briefed on the Oracle contract and supported theconcept of an enterprise licensing agreement, it is apparent inretrospect that I should have more vociferously raised questionsabout the details. Had I asked more questions of DOIT and DGS,they might have seen the potential problems. For that, I musttake responsibility.”Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon, meanwhile, calledon top aides to Gov. Gray Davis to provide more information abouttheir role in the matter.He said Susan Kennedy, Davis’ deputy chief of staff, should becompelled to testify under oath and turn over her calendar todetermine what contacts she had with those involved in the Oraclecontract. All written memos and phone logs involving Oracleshould be made public, he said.Kennedy was one of several top officials to sign off on the deal,approving a four-page summary of the proposal on May 31, 2001,the day the contract was signed.“People have a right to know whether the Oracle contract debacleis corruption, or just plain gross incompetence,” Simon said.“And now they have a right to know whether it has graduated intoa cover up.”Simon said all executive privilege to withhold information waswaived when the governor’s office allowed Logicon, a statecomputer consultant which brokered the software deal and standsto make $28 million from it, to participate in the draftinginternal paperwork on the matter.“All documents should now be subject to the Public Records Act,”he said.Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio said the administration has made“absolutely no attempt to slow down or stonewall theinvestigation,” and have not invoked executive privilege inresponse to any investigative requests.“We have provided them with absolutely all the information theyhave asked for,” Maviglio
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