mr. francis -- sorry, mr. francis. >> no offense taken. >> this is the best statement that's been brought up here, you know, simply because you engender discussion and for that i thank you for your service. i thank you for your service. now, i'm turning this over to commissioner shays because in the spirit of limping out of here into the sunlight, i'm getting an operation on my toe. and my toe right now is pretty important to me. so i thank you all for your service and commissioner shays, i'm confident he's -- he's right here. thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> i intended to say something funny but i won't. we'll go with mr. ervin. >> thank you, mr. shays. >> dr. gansler, you made a comment at the conclusion of the last round that you and i had together that i wanted to focus on, and you said this in passing. you said that kind of the scuttlebutt in the industry circles now is that it's bad to be an incumbent because the likelihood is that an incumbent will lose when a contract is recompeted. you said it as if th

mr. francis. i am drawing on your relatively current report, pretty recent, in true months needed in management of contractors supporting contract and others in a iraq and afghanistan. i think we have a problem similar to what was midget in previous questions, managing contractors. contractors closely supporting the management of contacting. 2300 contracts worth $900 million, is that right, for the performance of the administrative functions for other contractors in iraq and afghanistan? >> maybe it was $990 million. yes, sir. >> these are contractors out there, not digging ditches or riding shotgun, they are just helping manage other contractors. >> that is correct. >> i see that you looked at what is a favorite example to this commission, the aegis company was manning the armed contractor oversight division, which supervises in afghanistan all the personal security contracts. there were also going to compete for some of those personal security contracts. i remember when commissioners thibault ca

mr. francis stanton. he was a blind gentleman. >> bergman: he was there for, what, 40-something years? >> you know, i don't really know, but he'd been there for a long time. yes, sir. >> bergman: so you got elected, and you just sort of, if you will, dove into the subject? >> yes, sir. that's correct. off the deep end. i've been elected seven times. >> bergman: coroner brown would find himself in the national spotlight after he got a phone call that a body had been found near the state line. and the body was found over there? >> yes, sir, somewhere right in that area, right there. you see where that old log is across? >> bergman: uh-huh. >> and we didn't find any identification. we didn't find a wallet. we didn't find a watch, a ring, a necklace. >> bergman: nothing. >> nothing. no, sir. >> bergman: if the body had been found just a few feet away, the investigation would have been handled by a fully-equipped state medical examiners' office in north carolina. but the body turned up in south carolina, so coroner brown was in charge. like most coroners, brown does not do autopsies. he had

mr. francis, you talk about accountability, and that has the concept of rewarding for doing while -- well and is closing -- and excluding those who are not doing while -- well. i am hard pressed over 10 years of seeing how we have held contractors accountable and those who oversee contractors accountable when services are not done well. are you pretty comfortable that we have held people accountable when they have not done their jobs? >> i did not feel like my distribution was 90%. it was more than 2% -- 50%. when that is there, up we will have a lot less mistakes being made. as far as the concept of suspension from the company, for something that one employee happens to do that the company may or may not even have anything -- any disability into, that may be an extreme. >> we would graham. -- agree. >> that is not the report says. >> that is a misinterpretation. i cannot name on my hands in 10 years, i cannot think of five companies that have been debarred for a full-service. i can tell you companies where we have renewed the contract or we did not have any one else to take their place.

mr.? >> if i could add to that, there seems to be an idea in san francisco where the word "promoter" and "antichrist" are synonymous. this year francis drake hotel has promoters, at least three or four nights a week, and those are restaurants, but, for some reason, if you have invitations sent out by d. j. donovan or sebastian or something, it will draw a nice crowd, and there are some decent promoters, so i in we need to not be so paranoid of the word "promoters." commissioner meko: you are not suggesting that any of the commissioner sitting up here are paranoid, are you? >> we have para no. right now. commissioner meko: -- we are all paranoid right now. commissioner meko: in the event that this restaurant does not succeed, you will still have a place of entertainment permit, and that permit is in no way tied to your being an eating establishment. that is between you and the abc, so we, i do not think, are going to venture into that territory. we do not enforce the percentage of food that you are serving or anything like that. we simply give you the permit to allow you to have a live music, deejays, whatever. in the event that the c

mr. naso. he is accused of four counts of murder, all four victims that we know of are northern california, two from the bay area. 18-year-old woman found dead along sir francisd in 1977. another found in contra costa county in 1978 and check the first and last names, beginning with the same letters, double i pamela par source, tracy trefora in yuba county. now marin county district attorney says the case begin to crack on open of la april of last year where authorities found naso's home linking him to the murders. >> an examination of the items seized along with the results of a forensic analysis from the contra costa county criminalistic laboratory led investigators to connect naso with the death of rogash. >> what had new york investigators there have been a string of initial murders back there, but those victims were children, out here they are adults. right now naso did live in rochester and traveled there in the '70s during the time of two alleged murders. dna sample from one of the new york victims did not match naso's. he is going to make a first court appearance today at 1:00. >> eric: staff members at napa state hospital are afraid of their safety a

francis hill. she wrote one of the leading treaties in this area and i look forward to her testament. thank you, mr. chairman, and i yield back my time. >> thank you, mr. louis. i would now like to turn to the subcommittee's first panel. today we're joined by barry rand, chief executive officer of aarp, who is accompanied by lee hammond, president aarp board of directors. mr. rand, thank you for agreeing to testify today. he will have five minutes to present your testimony. your entire written statement will be made part of the record. you are now recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning. i am barry rand, ceo of aarp. and joining me this morning is lee hammond, president of aarp and a member of the aarp board of directors. lee, like all 22 members of our board, is an unpaid volunteer. aarp is proud of our record. proud of our more than 50 years of service we worked tirelessly to promote nonpartisan policy solutions, to improve marketplace, to enhance the public good, especially for those 50 and older and we will continue to do so in the future. we are strictly nonpartis