Commissioner Davis does not agree

Like Thursday, we are quickly going through witnesses. We are now on witness number four. Now on the stand is Gwendolyn Sims Davis.

Some of you already are familiar with Gwen Davis, but if you're not, she is the Commissioner of the State of Tennessee.

Davis remembers E-Cycle Bill 28 (the unamended version) and the discussions she had with Mr. Ford. The first discussion happened in Ford's office and she tells the court Ford inquired about the process of the disposal of computers.

If you've just tuned into the blog and don't know the history behind E-Cycle, the reason Ford was doing this was because E-Cycle was concerned that the schools got first dibs on the surplussed electronics and they didn't like that idea. E-Cycle asked Ford to check into it and see what could be done.

Ford went right to the source - Commissioner Davis. And she's one tough cookie when it comes to her department.

"I informed Senator Ford that schools got computers that were Pentium 4 and higher," says Davis.

Ford wasn't happy with this answer and told her that these computers weren't useful. He also implied some other things about Commissioner Davis that weren't exactly nice -- such as she didn't know "what the hell she was doing" and said that he would have to "come over there and run General Services for you."

"What did Ford want to do with the computers?" asked the prosecutor.

"At that time he said he didn't want them to go to the schools," says Davis.

Davis explained to him that there was a law which mandated that these computers do have to go to the schools. But her department did agree to do a bill analysis.

Mike Perry, the previous witness, did the bill analysis as per Commission Davis. This is common practice and Davis says that usually after the analysis, she approves the bills by signing it either 'yay' or 'nay'.

However, much to Ford's dismay, she was not in agreement with the E-Cycle bill.

"I considered it to be a bad bill because it would have taken revenue away from my department," says Davis.

Davis says it was unusual for her to get a call from someone who was adamant about changing a bill. She also says that shortly after their first visit, Ford called her back to his office to talk to E-Cycle. They wanted to know what needed to be done to get them signed up as a vendor.

Davis can't remember who she met with E-Cycle, but says she did tell them what steps they needed to go through to get signed up.

That's it from the prosecutors. Short and to the point.