Posti and Remely wrong about Morgan Drive change order

You may remember the post regarding the change order on Morgan Drive.  This was the post that mentioned how Josephine Posti and Dan Remely had blamed the municipal engineer for the high cost of the change order.  I couldn't believe that the commissioner who is the liaison to the school board would allow the school board directors throw them under the bus like that.  Additionally, I couldn't believe that no other school board director, superintendent, or construction manager, set the record straight at the Construction Update.  In fact, even in the last school board meeting, Josephine and Dan went so far as to ask the solicitor what it would take to sue the municipality.  Don't believe me? Go back and listen to the podcast. It's all right there.

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.

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?

Construction update

"The project continues to move forward on schedule and on budget despite issues such as the electrical line hit that happened a couple of weeks ago." Josephine Posti, Center Court 8/30/12

"A time extension was granted."
Construction Update, 9/11/12

One of many lies.

Full disclosure.  I am not in building construction. I am just writing about what I learned from the 9/10/12 Construction Update. First, P.J. Dick representative, Mr. Berkebile, explained that 5 columns sank one inch. Dr. Steinhauer corrected him to say that the columns did not sink but the bolt connections sank.  Berkebile agreed. He mentioned that CEC inspected the bolt connections and welds.  Berkebile said that the base plates should have been shimmed but were not. Now the building is out of plumb. They are checking with the wood floor manufacturer to make sure that the warranty is intact. What? It is going to be out of plumb? So if you roll a basketball, it will roll towards the part that was not shimmed? SO THERE WAS SOMETHING SINKING!!! Posti, how dare you mock your constituents! How arrogant of you to blog about rumors! You really need to go.

It's not sitting well with us, members of the School Board.

Letters, documents, and articles are coming my way at a fast pace this morning.  (Not complaining, keep 'em coming!!!) They support Dirk Taylor's letter to the School Board. Maybe it is too much to put in one post, but I thought I would do it anyway.  They are not listed in any particular order.  I don't want to bury Dirk's letter, so make sure you read it!

From Steve Diaz:
Members of the Board:  Given your new decision to break up your project so that you hire multiple prime contractors, can you explain how you justify the redundant administrative and overhead costs, the added delays and costs of likely jurisdictional disputes, and other unnecessary cost-overruns that are invariably associated with such an approach?  What benefit do you see in doing this?  You have gone from tone-deaf to the legitimate concerns of the community to a place that has no connection to reason or common sense.  It is time to look forward to the high likelihood of continued frustration and failure as you mire yourselves down in one ill-conceived step after another:  It is time for a breather -- you should take at least 6 months to study the options and consider how your plan can be made more efficient (not less so) while taking immediate steps to minimize the financial damage that your premature issuance of bonds has caused.  The clock may be running on a process you have played with and mismanaged for years, but simply doing "something" is no guarantee of success.  In fact, it would be good to do what most decision makers would do in a situation such as the one in which you now find yourselves:  go back over what has gone wrong so far, change the team that has been unable to pull it together (including your own membership and committees, not just pointing fingers at third parties), and consider what merit there may be in the advice and opinion you have consistently rejected out of hand.  If you are even now not willing to admit that your building project has been mishandled right along, you underscore your own ineffectiveness.  There is no reason for the public to have any confidence in you or your process.  If you cannot change course, then you must resign in recognition of the totally failed leadership you have offered this community.  This is the third time I have called on you (yes, all of you) to resign for malfeasance, and I will continue to do so if you cannot find a way not to continue doing that which has led to unmitigated failure to date.  You know what they say about people who continue doing the same ineffective thing over and over again expecting a different result.  Look in the mirror, look to the paltry number of "supporters" for your project and ask yourselves "why have so many interested and concerned citizens simply given up on the school board".  There is a reason people are walking away:  no one believes that you listen or respond to anything but your own voice.  You cannot believe you are admired or successful stewards of this community's affairs.

In the meantime, I have to ask, again, why you do not answer the questions I have posed about Federal arbitrage penalties the school board may face on the bonds you issued almost 2 years ago, how you can justify borrowing so much money when you did, and what you plan to do now about the cash- and debt-management fiasco in your building program.  Just a reminder: you also refuse to say how you will pay for the pension funding obligation given the fact that no "bailout" is on the horizon.  Does such conduct strike any of you as responsible or worthy of public confidence?  You must recognize your own failures and take personal responsibility for them.

With Due Respect.  

Steve Diaz

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Here is the application waiver that Baldwin-Whitehall submitted to the PDE for their auditorium renovation after using multiple-prime contracts for their high school. Baldwin-Whitehall waiver See the PG article here.
Update: Letters from the Baldwin-Whitehall architect have been added here and here. 

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The Petersen Event Center was a public school multiple prime contractor project partly managed by P.J. Dick.  You cannot make this stuff up.  Read the PA Separations Act Report and Post Gazette articles.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04102/299310.stm
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04103/299740.stm
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07121/782379-85.stm
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05001/435755-85.stm

Now is the time

As the School Board Directors stated, now is the time to step back, review, and reduce or delete some of our desires.  (Comments from Dan Remely and Dale Ostergaard from Part 2 of 4.25.11 meeting) How big will that second bond be?  The world has drastically changed since 2008.  What are we really able to afford?  Energy savings or a Leed Certificate?
John Taormina, construction manager from P.J. Dick, was asked to compare the Upper St. Clair renovation cost differential to our project.  He said that it would be comparing apples to oranges.  We offer programs that are not offered at USC.  For instance, we have two theaters, they don't. We have several gymnasiums which USC does not have.  We offer dance class.  USC does not.  As a member of the CAC whispered to me last night, maybe that is why USC is always number one in education.
It was mentioned that our project was allowed to grow from a bush into a tree and now we have to cut off limbs.  Do you think it had anything to do with the special interest groups exclaiming that we can get so much more for only $18 a month more?  The VOICE website is on the SOS signs and clearly promotes this way of thinking, to this day.  Last night, the Commission passed the sign ordinance revision for the SOS signs, in the name of freedom of speech.  This group mislead the School Board.  They mislead the community.  They were also silent at last night's meeting.
For a moment in time last night, the entire community agreed that the project needs to be scaled back.