Exclusive | Questions mount over Gavin Newsoms $12M diaper deal as ethics watchdog demands state audit
A government ethics watchdog is asking California’s state auditor to investigate a multimillion-dollar diaper deal championed by Gov.Gavin Newsom — alleging political favoritism and potential waste of taxpayer dollars.
Washington D.C.-based Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) asked State Auditor Grant Parks to probe California’s $6.2M no-bid contract with Baby2Baby, a nonprofit with ties to Newsom’s wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, alleging the state may have skirted a typical competitive bidding process and concealed records about the free diaper deal.“Immediately after the contract was announced, there were public concerns over whether the contract was awarded in a fair and impartial manner and whether the state was overpaying for the diapers and the program was operated at an unreasonable cost,” Kendra Arnold, executive director of FACT, wrote in a letter to Parks.“The facts relating to both of these issues should have been publicly available, but the Newsom administration has been misleading about whether the contract was awarded in a competitive process and and has mired the entire situation with a complete lack of transparency,” Arnold added.
Newsom’s free diaper program, which was announced in a San Francisco press conference just ahead of Mother’s Day, provides 400 free diapers to families discharged from participating California hospitals, regardless of family income.The California Department of Health Care Access and Information awarded a $6.2 million contract to Los-Angeles-based Baby2Baby to administer the program, and a $12 million contract extension was tucked into Newsom’s budget proposal for the coming year.Baby2Baby’s co-CEO Norah Weinstein sits on the board of Siebel Newsom’s nonprofit, the California Partners Project — sparking allegations of cronyism.
Baby2Baby’s other co-CEO, Kelly Sawyer Patricof, is a “prolific political donor,” FACT noted in its letter.Republicans and Dems alike have raise...