No Cost Overruns Should Be Allowed IN GREENBURGH

The King of Greenburgh, aka The Paul, reported on his blog that the Town pool at the Anthony Veteran Park will finally be repaired after a big to-do and several years of inaction. Back then, The Paul reported that the condition of the pool was so bad that it must be destroyed and rebuilt for the guestimated fee of five to seven million dollars. This, coincidentally, is the  amount of the federal judgement against him and his Town Board for discrimination and destroying evidence (among others verdicts) in the Fortress Bible Decision. While a favorite tactic of The Paul is to throw out ludicrous numbers and/or information when there is an opportunity for press coverage, he hardly ever nails a good idea. Fortunately, other cooler heads prevailed and after being ignored for about five years, a decision was finally made to utilize pool liners at a much lower cost.

Commissioner Gerard Byrne, of Parks & Recreation along with members of his staff decided that repairing the pool shell, such as filling in cracks, failing concrete, etc., along with the installation of a PVC pool liner, would suffice. So, at the February 7th Town Board meeting, they awarded Ray Palmer Associates a contract for $110,850 to make the necessary repairs as the lowest bidder. The bids listed were for the contractor submitting the bid, the bond percentage amount and the bid amount itself as follows Ray Palmer Associates, 5%, $110,850.00; Aquatic Dynamics Inc., 5%, $124,974.00, Norberto Construction Inc., 5%, $129,000.00.

Also on The Paul’s blog as well as in his various free daily and weekly press campaigns, picked up by a media system no longer capable of actually reporting news, but simply and perhaps more cost effectively reprinting his blatherings, is the headline and a portion of his text below in orange:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 09, 2012

NO COST OVERRUNS SHOULD BE ALLOWED ON NEW TZ BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION PROJECT

… Some of the companies that are planning to bid on the Tappan Zee project have histories of millions of dollars in cost overruns and months of construction delays on high profile projects. Two of the companies that are bidding have reported $42 million in cost overruns on the I-287 reconstruction project.

SUGGESTION: Before qualified companies submit bids - why can't NYS advise potential bidders that no cost overruns will be allowed on this bridge construction project? If there are unanticipated additional costs - the company … should absorb the costs of the additional work. In addition, there should be penalties if there are delays in the construction.

Companies that win the contract on a high profile bridge must not be allowed to manipulate the bidding process by coming in with a low price and ultimately getting paid much more. When they submit bids they should be realistic.

Are the same considerations he insists on having applied to the Tappan Zee project being applied to the Town Pool Renovation project? Are these bids for the pool renovation realistic? There seems to be a significant disparity between the highest and lowest bid with the three submissions the Town received. The difference between the two high bids is only $4,026. To ABG, this indicates they are about the correct amount for this project. The difference between the highest and lowest bids is $18,150. This begs the question of why such a wide disparity? We’re not saying or even alluding that Ray Palmer Associates is doing anything wrong. But we wonder if The Paul, so active in issues that don’t concern the Town to garner him media focus, is applying these same principles to Town contracts?

Another question raised by an ABG staffer is whether or not the Town insists on requiring unionized help? A way around this for the vendor is to have one union member on the project with a bunch of non-union laborers and “subcontractors” participating. Was this a consideration or not when the Town went with the significantly lower bid? What other parameters might have been ommitted? When dealing with the Stepford Board, Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan is the default contract expert, since he is a criminal justice instructor. Yes, we know, there’s no correlation. But with the Town’s non-participatory legal department, ABG believes it’s probably helpful to have someone look at these documents, whether qualified of not.

Another consideration along the lines of what The Paul espoused for the bridge, is whether or not there are penalty dates for failure to complete certain steps by certain dates, penalties for missing those dates, using non-union labor, missing opening day for the pool, carrying all the regulatory insurances (social security, FICA, OSHA, PESH, etc.). Does any of this work require standby safety crews? Will the vendor be required to absorb any changes, additions or requirements if they run into something unforeseen? The Board hasn’t provided answers to those questions. We can only hope.