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.
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Gee, I wonder if any of the good Commissioners will have the internal fortitude to pull this for discussion. Seems like someone should just to give the appearance of business in the sunshine. Tomorrow might be an interesting day. Stay tuned because I’m still asking “Who’s next?”
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
You are absolutely right, Kelly. $1.5M warrants public discussion and a public presentation from whoever on county staff is recommending this expenditure, along with a slide or two showing the competitive bids from other companies and explanations as to why THIS company, with its lousy record, is being recommended again.
$1.5M also warrants the public awareness that comes from putting an item up front on the board’s agenda rather than burying it inside the part that slips through with no more than a rubber-stamping.
Citizens are clamoring for more transparency and accountability in government, and our county commission seems to keep doing business in back-room deals with the same old contractors — even when those contractors’ track records cry out for greater scrutiny.
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Wow. Cool. This is like being admitted into a drive-in movie by entering in the trunk of a car. Or swallowing contraband ~ or inserting “cargo” into bodily cavities to avoid detection. Who’s in charge of the consent agenda? I’d start there.
The devious mind can come up with a lotta crap. I say prison bars. Scrutinize more closely, BOCC. There are crooks among you.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Let me get this straight…You mean they have like this…SEPARATE agenda? One they don’t look at and discuss the items one by one..? One with lots of items that cost lots of money, that they just vote YES on, for the whole bunch of them lumped together? Pages of items, all voted YES on? And that’s why they call it the CONSENT agenda..cause they always automatically CONSENT to these items????? Couldn’t they at least call it the MAYBE CONSENT agenda??? and at least pretend to be scrutinizing the items?
And this is WHY??? To save TIME? Effort? These things are so trivial that they don’t need to be explained or discussed before the general public? Is there a dollar amount threshold for these items? I would think it should be in the neighborhood of one thousand dollars…certainly not $1,500,000.00!!!!! And that to a company that we’re SUING!!! WHAT THE HELL!
But seriously, the consent agenda is way too convenvient a hiding place to slide things through. Cause the general public is not reading those fine print pages…but thank GOODNESS a few are. Reporters ought to be going through them with a FINE TOOTH COMB every single time. I’ll bet there are stories in there!
March 4th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Update – I tuned in to the BOCC meeting this morning and Commissioner Ferlita pulled this item for discussion. Commissioner Beckner also voiced concerns. Bob Gordon from Public Works gave high praise for HDR and they took a separate vote on the issue to approve HDR’s contract. It passed 4-2 Ferlita and Beckner voting NO!
March 4th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
It’s very telling that the same (group of) commissioners never seem to want to pull these items for discussion…only Ferlita and Beckner. This same group of commissioners keeps selecting this same consulting firm…and all this while the county is suing them for the problems with the reservoir??? That’s like hiring the same contractor that screwed up your bathroom renovation to install a new roof on your house.
We need some new rules…if the amount you are spending is $100K or more it must be discussed, period. And if the commssioner meetings are longer as a result, so be it!!!
This is our money they are spending. How dare they approve it without going into detail for the citizens’ benefit!!!