PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD --- Normally, politicians, and even former politicians, welcome a dose of publicity.  It’s good for a political campaign, or a business proposition, and always for burnishing one’s public relations.

                David N. Valderrama, former Maryland legislator who now runs his own consultancy service, got not only a dose but also a lengthy portion of a Washington Post article, followed up by a prominent place in no less than the prestigious paper’s editorial.

                But the 73-year old former four-term Delegate of Prince George’s County’s 26^th Legislative District who also has the distinction of being the first Filipino American appointed to a judgeship [in Maryland’s Upper Marlboro orphan’s court], was not at all pleased or amused about it.

                The Post publicity cited him as among the favored friends of Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson to whom was awarded contracts in the six-digit range despite his alleged lack of knowledge for the job.

                The Post August 8 editorial -- titled “Get Rich Quick! In Prince George’s County, you need only to be Friend of Jack’s” – criticized Johnson   for his “profligate spending habits and unchecked power,” and cited Valderrama as one of two “Friends Of Jack’s” who benefited from Johnson’s decisions.

                The editorial stated:

“Another FOJ, David M. Valderrama, rendered a seven-page treatise on school construction, a subject about which he was wholly uninformed when he was selected to receive two contracts worth $106,000.”

The editorial dismissively characterized “these reports -- slender, overpriced and generally unread -- are a joke, their contents unavailable to county taxpayers, who paid for them.”

                “I resent the idea that I am not qualified to do the job that I was contracted for,” Valderrama emphatically told this writer in a telephone interview Aug. 10, 2006 about the allegation.

                The editorial was based on an article written by two Post staff writers, Cheryl W. Thompson and Ovetta Wiggins, on Aug. 6 titled “Prince George’s County Executive Aids Friends.” 

Their article claimed that since Johnson took office four years ago, he has awarded “15 of his friends and political supporters 51 county contracts totaling nearly $3.3 million.” The authors also stated that the story was based on records and interviews, and had generous descriptive accounts in the story to show for them. Valderrama was one of four contract recipients alluded to in the article.

They also quoted Johnson’s explanation, saying “What I do is . . . hire first-class people…that means they have to be smart, . . . intelligent, and they have to be people of integrity."

"I know that the people that I've hired are mission-oriented and they can get the job done," Johnson said, according to the Post.

                Johnson, 57, a Democrat who was formerly the county’s state attorney, is running for reelection facing former Maryland legislator Rushern L. Baker III in the Democratic primary on Sept. 12.

A highly popular politician, he vaunts as accomplishments improving the county’s financial stability and winning a deal to build the $2 billion waterfront development known as National Harbor, which is expected to rev up the county’s economic, residential, business and tourism sectors.  He is also credited for beefing up the county’s police staff and homeland security, although he has yet to win points in lowering the county’s alarming crime rate and raising its educational standards and performance.

                He is also known, and is appreciated, for hiring friends who have helped him personally and politically, including some from the Filipino American community, which counts about 4 percent of the county’s 846,123 predominantly black population, and among its almost 33,322 Asian Americans [Census 2005 estimate]. 

                The authors also recounted that Valderrama had met Johnson more than a decade ago when he was an orphan’s court judge in the county and Johnson was deputy state’s attorney, and how the two had become “very good friends” over the years.

                The article’s authors wrote further: “For two years, beginning in May 2003, the county contracted with Valderrama's company, Valderrama's America, to act as liaison with the Board of Education on school construction projects. The contracts totaled $106,000.” They also described Valderrama’s “local cable news magazine and talk show run from a downstairs bedroom in Valderrama's two-story brick house overlooking the Potomac River in Fort Washington.”

                Valderrama, according to the Post, “has been awarded four contracts [altogether] to advise the county on school construction and economic issues, totaling $247,666 over four years, based on records.”

“When the school contracts ended last year, Valderrama was awarded two more contracts to ‘evaluate trends in regional, national and global economics,’ Those contracts, one of which runs through January 2007, total $141,666, records show,” according to the Post.

About Valderrama’s performance, Johnson was quoted by the Post to have said that he "had done a great job" and "gave me a tremendous report."

Jim Keary, communications director for Prince George’s County, reiterated Johnson’s compliments in a telephone call from this writer.  Referring to Valderrama as an “experienced legislator who had dealt with government financing issues,” as well as “a former judge,” he explained that Valderrama was hired to do a report on school financial sourcing with recommendations on what better ways the county may pursue to improve its system.

With exasperation in his voice, Valderrama told this writer in the telephone interview that the Post just doesn’t get it, despite his explanations.

“My job was not working with nuts and bolts of school construction,” Valderrama said, referring to the Post editorial. “I was hired to write a report on financing of school construction, and for that, I went to Seattle’s King County to study their system and see if their system would be recommendable as an effective alternative way of raising funds for Prince George’s County.”

He explained further that King County’s system was “to get a group of people together to come up with recommended amount in what they call the “Initiative” which later goes to the county for a vote called the ‘Referendum.’”

 “If the people vote favorably for it, then the county is forced to come up with the funds,” he added. “ This way, you avoid the politics of begging for funds as what presently takes place in Prince George’s County. And that was what I recommended in my report.”

He also explained that he was not in a position to release the report himself “because that was in my contract,” and that it would be up to the county executive’s office to do so.

Keary added that it would take time and funds to reproduce the report, inferring that that’s why the Post’s request for it has not been met.

Beth Wong, a Filipino American community volunteer who had worked hard for Johnson’s election and was consequently hired for an assistant’s job at the county office’s community division, shrugged the contracting issue off, saying “It’s an old issue, nothing new to it except that it’s election time.”

She however admitted proudly that Johnson, as county executive, “has done a lot for the county, and has helped the Filipino community in more ways than one.”

 As for the other contracts that he was awarded with, Valderrama explained that they are meant to beef up the county’s economy by exploring partnership opportunities with foreign business and trade entities.

“As an economic development consultant, I am a proponent and disciple of Kevin Kelley, an economist who sees that the trend is toward the ‘information economy’ beyond the computer age,” he said.

“It is that vision that I brought to the county, resulting in the holding of an ‘International Economic Summit’ – that was my brainchild.”

Keary described the summit, which was held at the University of Maryland July 24-26, as a “first” for the county, “attended by about a hundred, including diplomats, business CEOs and other interested parties.”

At that summit, Memoranda of Understanding were forged between Prince George’s County and countries in the Asia-Pacific Rim valued at $11 million, to conduct import and export operations.

Loida Nicolas Lewis, Filipino American President and CEO of TLC Beatrice, an international corporation dealing with food products, was among the keynote speakers.

“It was quite a successful event, seeing the attendance and degree of interest in business partnership possibilities,” she told this writer.

The event was capped by a reception jointly hosted by the Philippine Embassy and Prince George’s County. A check for $500,000 was also presented as a grant from the county to establish a Philippine Cultural Center in Prince George’s County.

Valderrama said he envisions establishing in Prince George’s County branches of Jollibee, a popular Philippine version of MacDonald.  With its Filipino version of fast food, including avocado and mango laced hamburgers and rice and adobo sandwiches, Jollibee has become the Philippines’ leading fast food restaurant attracting Filipinos and tourists as well as new patrons in its West Coast-based branches.

Referring to his current interest in promoting economic development projects, Valderrama recalled his early propensity toward business while still in the Philippines.

“I was only 16 years old when I started a cigarette wholesale business, then run a ‘jitney’ [a minibus built out of discarded American military jeepney] transportation operation that later propelled me to banking, and I became the youngest vice president and general manager of a local bank in the Philippines,” he recalled, adding that he had to go to work at an early age when his father was executed by the occupying Japanese military.

He was 27 when he came to the U.S., worked in television broadcasting, completed his law studies while working in the U.S. Congress archives, and later helped organize the first attempt at establishing an Asian American and Pacific Islander Chamber of Commerce.

Asked if the publicity involving him in the controversy over Prince George’s County’s contracting system might affect the campaign of Kris Valderrama, his daughter, who is running for Delegate for Maryland’s 26th Legislative District in the Sept. 12 primary, Valderrama answered, “As the saying goes, the sins of the father should not be visited on the children.”

“Besides,” he quickly stressed, “there were no sins committed in the first place.”

The publicity over the Prince George’s County’s contract-awarding system must have stirred action for a policy charter change.

On August 11, days after revelations that contracts have been solely decided on by the county executive, the Prince George's County Council voted to give itself oversight of certain contracts valued at more than $100,000 and other contracts worth more than $500,000.

The proposed charter change will be put before county voters in a referendum on Nov. 7.