From Caltrans employee to Caltrans contractor

Escondido’s James M. McManus ­ was employed as deputy district director of construction in the San Diego–based District 11 office of Caltrans before leaving the payroll this summer. ­­Is he permanently banned from lobbying for juicy engineering contracts from his old agency?

No, but then again sometimes yes, says an October 9 opinion letter from the California Fair Political Practices Commission. “You are a former state employee whose official separation date was August 31, 2015,” says the missive to McManus from Hyla P. Wagner, the commission’s general counsel. “Your last physical day working for the state was June 30, 2014, however your leave balance did not run out until August 31, 2015.”

Continues the letter, “You have been approached by an engineering consulting firm for employment. This firm plans to compete for several of the future Caltrans [architecture and engineering] contracts and would like to hire you to represent the firm in administering these contracts with Caltrans. The firm would use your resume in the submittal documents to Caltrans in an effort to secure the contracts and you would potentially be interacting directly with Caltrans employees sometime as early as the next couple months.”

In addition, the unidentified company wants McManus to handle its dealings with San Diego Association of Governments. “You have stated that none of the contracts that you may work on in the future are contracts that you worked on while employed with Caltrans and that the contracts had not yet been contemplated while employed with Caltrans,” writes Wagner. “To the extent that you have not participated in the future contract in any way, the permanent ban would not apply. However, we must caution that if a future contract involves a particular project any previous involvement [by you] in the project as a Caltrans’ official may be considered participation in the contract and may implicate the permanent ban.”