SACRAMENTO - Despite state laws that require government officials to seek competitive bids on large purchases, internal documents reveal that state officials held a series of private meetings with General Motors during which they agreed to buy "flex-fuel" vehicles from the automaker - a month before a bid for such vehicles was ever issued. --snip-- Soon after, the state solicited bids to buy an entire fleet of flex-fuel vehicles designed to run on high-grade ethanol. General Motors dealerships won all of the contracts for ... 1,300 cars and trucks and $17 million in sales, because they were the only automaker...