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12/7/2007
The Perfect Storm at the water plant
Interesting – An Appleton alderperson was quoted in yesterday’s first online edition of the Post Crescent (and the quote has since disappeared from the article – what’s that about??) as having said, after a two-hour closed session on water plant litigation, that “speculation about what went wrong with the water plant ‘may be worse than the result.’” (If you google this complete quote, you'll find it, but then won't see it in the article. Isn't that weird?)
Hmmm. I hope speculation is worse than reality – but fear it may not be.
Real: Appleton’s Water Utility is working to collect on a $5 million “errors and omissions” insurance policy paid for by – and insuring - contractors that built the plant.
Speculation: The city isn’t answering the “who’s responsible?” question because city employees could be complicit in whatever errors were made. Yes, hopefully engineers and contractors will acknowledge responsibility for portions of the $15 or $20 million in corrections/expansions needed to bring the $54M water plant to what was promised a full ten years ago. That means we’re now looking at a total plant cost of $75M!
But the maximum (if anything!) that can be collected from the engineers and contractors is the $5M mentioned above. Depending on how much can be recovered ($0 - $5M, minus attorney’s fees, I’m assuming), we ratepayers are stuck with the extra $15 or $20M bill. And that’s so damned maddening.
What do they say... we get the government we deserve?
And that government was the Perfect Storm – resulting in a series of multi-million dollar mistakes.
A Perfect Storm of failure to perform- A renegade Director of Utilities
- A detached Mayor (the Director of Utilities’ boss)
- A dysfunctional Utilities Committee
- A Self-absorbed, pompous Utilities Committee Chairman who was a buddy of the Director, and
- Despite warnings, an obliging Council
Here’s just one example I dug up in my “water plant” files. In December of 1998, I sent an e-mail, trying to convince Mayor Hanna to question one of our engineering firms. “I really think the buck stops there. If in the future, whether or not anything goes wrong, whether or not we go over budget, whether or not the design is relatively error-free, in the end it’s you that needs to be able to explain confidently why X or Y decision was made. I’m thinking that you almost have an obligation, both politically and liability-wise, to either consult an outside engineering firm or (more logically because we’re already paying them) to ask Carollo for their written opinion on several specific issues.”
It was the mayor and the Council and the Utilities Committee which didn’t hold Director Leaf accountable. It was the Council that accepted almost without question, the recommendations of the Utilities Committee. Governing gone bad. Let this be a lesson to all of us.
COMMENTS
You are generally correct in some of the assumptions you make regarding the water plant. Tell us something we don't know. The point you are missing in your analysis is the fact, the city council was "had" by the designers and contractors of the water project. As a former member of the city council, you are aware the work of the city is done at the committee level and with that there has to be an element of trust in the engineers and others involved since individual alderman don't have those skills. If that trust is abused, which is what I believe happened, then it's time to investigate the issue to find the wrong doers. THE PROBLEM IS, THERE ARE SOME LOCAL BIG NAMES INVOLVED AND WILL THE COUNCil have the fortitude to step on those toes? If you were still a member of the council, would you be willing to lead the charge?
walt kalata (Sat Dec 08 01:08:03 2007)
Absolutely Walter. You know I've done it before, raised questions where folks didn't necessarily want questions raised. I was a lone voice in the wilderness questioning the single-source membrane supplier. I joined with Alderperson Goff in questioning the $2 million white elephant co-gen project at the wastewater plant that's been idle since 6 months after it started up. It's a fine line an elected official walks - one can't always be a contrarian and must rely on the experts that run a city. But at the same time, we must be allowed to question, to be the eyes and ears of our constiuents, to be the devils advocate.
In blaming the contractors and engineers, are you steering the blame away from the CEO of the city as well?
Jo E. (Sat Dec 08 08:24:58 2007)
I think it's all the lawyers fault. The original contract had to spell out what was expected, but apparently there was wiggle room or the City would have already sued the pants off them for non performance.
Jim Smits (Sat Dec 08 09:27:35 2007)
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