Multi-Million-Dollar Contract Awarded Against City Staff Recommendation Goes Terribly Awry

EV charging stations sit silently at three large parking lots at the Great Park, rarely used.

A recent budget review by the City included a reminder of one of the most ill-considered decisions made by the City Council in the past four years.

That reminder wasn’t something included in the budget. It was something that was not in the budget: Any mention of revenue from the scores of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations that were installed in the Great Park last year.

The City was promised $2 million in annual revenue from those charging stations. But, the charging stations were not included in the budget because the actual revenue has been “near zero,” according to Irvine City Manager Oliver Chi. Usage has also been negligible, Chi said.

It’s the gift that keeps on not giving.
 
In December 2021, three members of the Irvine City Council — Tammy Kim, Mike Carroll and Anthony Kuo — made an unusual push to award Casco Construction a multi-million-dollar contract to install, maintain and operate 288 EV charging stations in five large parking lots at the Great Park, despite the fact that two other firms had been recommended to the Council by City staff following a formal bid process.
 
While insisting that the contract be issued to Casco instead of the staff’s recommended company, Councilmembers Kim and Carroll noted that Casco was a woman-owned company based in Irvine and was promising the City more revenue from the charging stations than any other bidder.
 
Councilmember Kim went a step further, saying that Casco’s proposed equipment supplier, Noodoe, was also based in Irvine and the chargers would be made locally, bringing manufacturing jobs to Irvine. In fact, Kim amended the original motion to require that Noodoe be listed as the supplier.

Mayor Farrah Khan and Vice Mayor Larry Agran both voted NO, voicing their concerns regarding the irregularity of issuing a multi-million-dollar contract to a company that was not recommended by City staff and ignoring Irvine’s official bidding process.

Just weeks after the Council vote, concerns raised by Khan and Agran were validated when Noodoe announced its U.S. headquarters was moving from Irvine to Houston. (Former employees said they were laid off and the Irvine office had closed the same month Kim promised that Noodoe would bring manufacturing jobs to Irvine.)
 
It then turned out that all of Noodoe’s manufacturing operations are based in Taiwan and the EV chargers were never going to be built here in Irvine.
 
Six months later, City Manager Chi — who joined the City after the Casco contract was awarded — reported to the Council that Casco’s original $2 million-per-year estimate of City revenue was being revised downward to just 5-10% of the original estimate.
 
More than a year after the contract was awarded, there still were no chargers installed. Chi reported to the Council that the City was on the hook for the first 166 chargers, which had already been purchased, but could cancel the remaining 122 chargers, which is what the Council decided to do.
 
Last year, the 166 chargers were finally installed. However, they are among the slowest charging stations available. Those chargers now sit silently at the Great Park, rarely used, serving as a reminder of a bad 3-to-2 Council decision, based on blatantly false information, made in haste, and gone terribly awry. Where is the accountability?