On Aug. 8, Sacramento-based Greenbaum Public Relations won a $1.5 million contract to handle P.R. duties for the California Department of Conservation’s beverage container recycling program.

For Stuart Greenbaum’s six-person firm, it was a great and crucial victory. To local P.R. executives, it was a dirty fix.

In the small and incestuous world of public affairs marketing, where the players commonly jump from the public to the private sectors to use their influence in the halls of government, there is one nearly universal complaint: It doesn’t matter how good you are, it just matters who you know.

A concerted effort goes into ensuring that government contracts are awarded in a fair and impartial way. Public relations contracts have time limits, and when they expire, the government agency involved must put out a request for proposals (RFP) advertising the job to all eligible parties even if the agency was perfectly happy with the incumbent.

This is supposed to ensure that the best possible contractor always gets the job, and that undue influence is not being wielded by a small group of well-connected private firms. Few insiders believe it really works that way.

Perhaps because of the size of the bureaucracy, state contracts are seen as the most likely to be “wired” that is, awarded more on the basis of relationships between state officials and private-sector executives than on the quality of the work.

In recent years, state legislators have become more concerned about public accountability, and as a result the RFP process has become more onerous. In other words, a prospective contractor faces an ever increasing array of documents to apply for a job.

“It’s almost a rule of thumb now that the thicker the RFP, the more the administrative gobbledygook, the more likely it is that a decision will be made based on relationships,” said John Stodder, director of California public affairs at Edelman Public Relations Worldwide.

Complying with state RFP requirements is an agonizing and time-consuming process. P.R. executives spend weeks putting together thick binders full of examples of past work, graphic elements, and details of how the agency would approach the given contract.

“Why put everybody through this based on the illusion that there’s an opportunity out there, when in fact there isn’t?” Stodder asks.

He isn’t alone. Joseph Cerrell, chairman of public affairs P.R. firm Cerrell Associates Inc., says he all but stopped pursuing state contracts years ago because he didn’t think the selection process was objective.

“I think they go through the motions when they’ve already determined who they want,” Cerrell said.

Robert Alaniz, managing director for public affairs in the Los Angeles office of Hill & Knowlton Inc., agreed that objectivity is sometimes a problem, especially when an incumbent is involved.

State officials often feel comfortable with the company they’ve been working with in the past and want to keep the relationship going.

Which brings us back to Greenbaum. Some very large L.A. agencies competed or considered competing against Greenbaum, the incumbent, for the beverage recycling contract.

Some say they decided not to even respond to the RFP after they made a few calls and determined that state officials were already happy with the incumbent. Others cried foul after Greenbaum won the job, saying the requirements under the RFP like that the winner must be available 24 hours a day and must be located in Sacramento were tailored so narrowly that only Greenbaum had a chance.

Greenbaum says the complaints are little more than sour grapes.

“They’re saying that (the process was unfair) because they lost,” Greenbaum said. “That department (Conservation) has a new director and a new director of public affairs. I had zero relationships.”

Greenbaum says he and his staffers spent three months preparing a presentation for the contract, and it was the most competitive process he has ever undergone.

However the recycling contract was determined, P.R. executives agree that if you want to avoid going through the costly process of entering an unwinnable state contract review, you need to make a few phone calls beforehand. State contracting is a very small world, and a few calls to the right people including the state officials administering the contract will usually tell you whether or not you’ve got a shot.

“We call to find out (if it’s ‘wired’ or not),” Cerrell said. “A supervisor will gently tell you, ‘We don’t think this is up your alley,’ or, ‘We don’t think you’ll make enough money on this one.'”

The Times it is a-changin’

One of the goals of the Western States Advertising Agencies Association has been to increase the visibility of L.A. ad agencies in the media. Last week came evidence that the trade group’s current administration may have succeeded.

Several executives with top local agencies recently met with editors at the Los Angeles Times in an effort to convince them to add a regular column on the advertising industry.

It’s not the first time the Times has been pitched with such a proposal, but this time the editors apparently bit. The paper announced last week that it will add two pages focusing on marketing and advertising to its Business section on Thursdays starting Sept. 4.

“I think the Times will benefit from it,” said WSAAA vice president (and Team One Advertising co-chairman) Scott Gilbert. “I mean, I don’t read the L.A. Times myself, but now I will. At least on Thursdays.”

News editor Dan Turner writes a weekly marketing column for the Los Angeles Business Journal.