Consultants who brought us the cracking reservoir on agenda for new $1.5 million contract — on the consent agenda?!?
March 3, 2009 at 1:16 pm by Kelly CorneliusBy Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist
(Insert Blaring Sirens Here) Consent agenda Alert, Consent Agenda Alert!
I guess the great job HDR did on designing the Cracking Reservoir and the 6-Lane Cluster Study of Lithia Pinecrest warrants another contract to the tune of over 1.5 million dollars to the firm for another PD and E study, this time for Van Dyke Road. Where might this sweet deal be going down? The consent agenda of the Hillsborough County Commission, of course! Does this firm (who Tampa Bay Water is currently suing and citizens have exposed due to their judgment, or lack thereof) and its tall tales told to citizens with regards to the Lithia Pinecrest Road Widening/Not Widening Project deserve yet another fat contract?
Does anyone deserve $1.5 million of your tax money without even discussion from board members? I don’t think so. Yet that is what is on the consent agenda for Wednesday item A-30. (Download it in .pdf here and see for yourself.)
Check out this recent article in the Times revealing what goes on here and in other counties regarding consent agenda spending. Recall that other items on the consent agenda were the recent purchase of land for a road widening project currently still in the “study” phase for almost a million smackers, the study itself for $2.5 million (to HDR) and Buddy Johnson’s recent $2.3 million request which was later flagged by Commissioner Kevin Beckner … and since then there has been an FBI investigation and more.
My friends over at U-CAN dug up some past sins for me on the consent agenda (since they are often responsible for exposing them) plus they have the archives of many past skeletons in the BOCC’s closet. Would you believe that the consent agenda is where the funds were hidden approved to clean up ex-Commissioner Blair’s lake (on Jan 4th, 2007) as well as build a seawall for a noisy but evidently well-connected private citizen? (Here’s the 1-4 agenda, again in .pdf form.) I shudder to think what else we have missed in the past on the consent agenda.
