Today, I received the Right to Know that had a response from the municipal engineer. His response was only to the commission, not to the school board. That is why Gateway's email was not revealed in a previous right to know request. As I have said before, you have to ask the right questions. Boy, does this set the record straight. gillen RTK documents 100412
On page seven of the RTK, Dan Deiseroth began by clearly stating that it appeared that the school board had not been informed about the full extent of the change order. While he did acknowledge that Mr. Marciniak tried to set some of the record straight, it wasn't enough since the same two board members went down the lawsuit path again the next meeting.
Next, Mr. Deiseroth listed what got changed in the change order and how much each had to do with standard municipal requirements. Paragraph after paragraph were dedicated in his email to describing to the commissioners what exactly happened.
Dan Deiseroth confirmed what many of us already suspected:
All of my directives were per the developer's agreement that they signed to comply with Municipal Standards which had to be applied once they ran into the difficult situation.
In my opinion, the documents they issued for bid were obviously lacking in information which along with the unforeseen circumstances culminated in the change order. I do not see this in any way a case where we required anything more than we would require of ourselves when doing a project or the way we treat others who dig up our roads.
Anyone go to the coffees yesterday morning or this evening?
Here we have the municipal engineer clearly stating his position and that of the municipality. So let's recap. There was a developer's agreement signed that said the roads would need to comply with municipal standards. The school district had to redo the part of the road THAT THEY TORE UP for their high school project and they had to replace it to municipal standards. Also, the district bid documents "obviously" lacked information needed for contractors to properly bid the road repair.
So who do you believe? The engineer who provided facts? Or Posti, the plagiarizing princess and Dan (I will bring the High School project in under $95 million) Remely? Clearly, there is finger pointing going on over at MTLSD. Despite the municipal engineer having a direct conversation with the construction manager, Rus Del Re of P.J. Dick, either the school board is either willfully and shamefully blaming someone else who is clearly not to blame, or PJ Dick did not inform the school district of the scope of repairs. Either way, the school board, superintendent, and central office staff need to look internally to place the blame.
But hey, what am I complaining about? We may just be able to see the school district go 0-2 in lawsuits against the municipality. I wouldn't put it past this school board to do just that. Remember item number 22 on Cost Reduction List for 2012-2013.
Anyone go to the coffees yesterday morning or this evening?
4 comments:
The Board is already 0-2 on zoning lawsuits against the municipality. This lawsuit would put them 0-3.
How embarrassing that the PIO of a major water company would not know the rules for replacing a road when her water company must repair roads to municipal standards on a regular basis.
Then a member of our Master Design Team, who told us his during his election campaigns, that his real estate experience would help with the HS project also revealed his ignorance of municipal standards.
Come on, Josephine and Dan, eight years on a school board is long enough for On-The-Job Training. Get this HS project done right and quit whining to the municipality to pay YOUR bills.
The amazing ineptitude of the these people is something to behold.
I am glad we at least have one governing body with its head screwed on straight.
You are right on point about the district blaming everyone else. I wonder if they knew all the info (and they should have given that Mr. Remely is on the construction committee and Mrs. Posti is the President) and still blamed the municipality. That would make me even more sick to my stomach.
Not a single one of those board members makes me feel good about things. They allow Mrs. Posti to attack Corbett at will and they say nothing. They allow members of the board to attack the commission with no basis and they say nothing. They don't respond to emails from constituents that disagree with them. It's almost like they have their own bubble within a bubble where all is happy and all is right and nobody disagrees with them.
Throwing individuals under the bus that are trying to help you is but the latest in a series of stupid things these school board members have done.
A bit of a description from the meeting regarding Item A or the road construction (from the podcast):
Dan has serious concern-not against contractor or work completed but with how they were told to make their road repairs.
"however we put two lines santiary and storm, each ditch was 15ft across curb to curb. We were required by municipality to replace 6450sq ft or 716 yards of asphalt plus subbase in road after they paid gateway and municipaltiy in excess of $100000 of plan review and 700000 in permits."
"I think the municipality should have some effort to repay us for part of that. Will vote no on A to see if municipality will chip in their part" (paraphrased a little)
Posti shares his concern. Agrees that the municipality should have caught this as well as PJ Dick and architect.
A Few people addressed the solicitor about how they would go after the municipality-
Peterson say the contractor did work at price district approved.
District can assert a claim against a different party anytime during or after the project.
Officials from each body would sit down with consultants and CM to sort through who missed something here. If missed by one of their design professionals, then it wouldn't matter. Cost would still be eaten by school district.
Jo says good point...they can litigate later.
Dale seems to pile on.
Ugly parlimentarian procedures trying to strip out the first change order from the rest. Any amendment to the motion needs to be voted on by the board. Jo instead asks for a "friendly" amendment. I've actually never heard that term before, but hey, its Jo, she can just make things up as she goes along. It's amatuer hour folks. Someone on the board going on 7 years doesn't know how to make an amendment to a motion? ugh.
After Peterson (the board default parlimentarian) steps in, they finally vote to remove the road change order from the motion to be voted on separately.
The vote is unanimous for the bulk of the repairs. Prior to the vote on the road repair, Mr. Peterson reminds the board that they need 5 votes to pass the change order. With both Posti and Remely saying earlier that they will vote against it and three other members absent, it looks like the vote will fail 4-2.
But wait, just in the nick of time, the President changes her vote to be "aye" and motion passes 5-1.
Of course, the Board suggests they will be in touch with the municipality shortly to try and get some money back from them.
Good luck with that!
Thanks, 12:41 PM. It is nice to know that the podcasts are being utilized. Kinda negates my commissioner's curt response.
I still haven't gotten any feedback on the coffees. Was it a bust?
Elaine
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