Discussions over the future of Simon Sanchez High School took an unexpected turn this week after newly-discovered procurement negotiation recordings sparked questions inside the legislature and ultimately halted action on Bill 314.

Policymakers and government officials entered the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday to deliberate Bill 314 by Lieutenant Governor Josh Tenorio – legislation aimed at fast-tracking the construction of a new Sanchez High campus. The bill would allow CoreTech International to begin development on the project – bypassing the traditional procurement process.

CoreTech was ranked first during last spring's request for proposals, but the project remains tied up in a procurement appeal filed by second-ranked bidder, General Pacific Services.

Just before lawmakers entered the committee, a local media outlet revealed audio recordings from Summer 2025 negotiation meetings between the Department of Public Works and CoreTech discussing the Simon Sanchez procurement process. Senator Chris Barnett requested transcripts and meeting minutes from those recordings be provided to lawmakers before deliberations continued that afternoon.

But after the committee reconvened, Department of Public Works director Vince Arriola said the agency could not produce certified transcripts in time, noting, "This morning when we recessed the committee of the whole, I was instructed to review the audio recordings of the negotiations between DPW, the evaluation team, and the negotiation team – review the recordings and transcribe the recordings."

He added, "And we are not in any position to transcribe any of those recordings, especially if my signature is going to be on it. I've been advised by my counsel that if any transcripts are to come to this legislature via DPW, that they be provided by a certified transcriber."

Arriola said five out of six of the audio files and the procurement documents have already been made public online. He also explained that the online meeting platform they use, Microsoft Teams, automatically generated A.I. transcripts of the meetings, which staff then reviewed for accuracy.

But one recording – meeting number three – was never saved to the cloud and was lost, leaving only an A.I.-generated transcript without audio to verify it against.

DPW and legal counsel from the Office of the Attorney General argued those A.I. transcripts could contain errors or misrepresent statements and figures. AG Doug Moylan later warned that discussing the recordings while the procurement appeal remains active could complicate the process.

Moylan added, "What is that going to do to the process? It's going to further complicate things quite frankly. Our office has already talked about how some of these records maybe shouldn't have been put out in the open so quickly because we're right in the middle of an RFP."

By Wednesday morning, the special session came to an abrupt end. Senator Christopher Duenas announced the governor's office had decided not to move forward with the bill after all.

"I wish to report back to the body that having had no deliberations with the panel – simply a discussion on the movement on Bill No. 1 (8-S), further discussions with representatives from the governor's office, and everything that transpired yesterday with all the conversations that were going back and forth – there was a decision that was made by the governor's office representatives that we not proceed on the bill," he said.

Duenas said legal counsel also advised agencies they could not answer questions about the negotiations while procurement remains pending. And so, without a panel to answer their questions, the bill was moved to the inactive file, ending the eighth special session without action on the project.