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Mayor Elect Sullivan is a founder and member of The Minutemen.
Some noteworthy observations from the Minutemen web site:
The current administration: No Response to Public Input, Promotes Special Interests, Unaffordable Assessments, Taxation Without Representation.
Our mayor and our city council keep taking until we have nothing left. We have no voice here in Cape Coral (Florida), just as the colonists had no voice.
The people here go before the council and speak. The mayor and council just ignore the people as if we don’t exist.
The administration’s arsenal consists of unaffordable assessments and taxes. Like the English, the administration has a contingent of foreign troops.
The English had Hessian Soldiers. Today our mayor and council have special interest groups.
The administration has builders, large land owners construction companies like MWH and speculators.
The city manager and all his flunkies must get out of town and never look back.
What real choices do the public have when they are abandoned or even exploited by their representatives?
The first thing on our agenda must be to stop the utility expansion projects.
The projects are being used to extort money from the residents and therefore the water and waste water utilities must be taken out of the hands of a city that cannot be trusted.
We need to start a water and waste-water authority or it must be converted to a non-profit entity or a Co-op.
The Nattering One muses... Strong words indeed, and perhaps a rush to judgement...
We agree, taxation without representation has been the MO of government for many years...
Anyone who thinks this is a democracy, or government is by the people and for the people, is naive and mistaken.
Our Republic is based upon goverment by the rich and for the corporations.
The first thing on the agenda should be what Jason did for the Argonauts...
cut the many heads of the hydra off and slay it. Then revisit the Kessler audit to root out the rest of the suspects...
As we have stated before in these pages...
the UEP can be completed by in house city staff at one third of the manager at risk cost estimates.
At the plant level, the in house staff are competent, knowledgable and capable of managing the Capes utilities.
With the hydra's many heads out of the way, this will become readily apparent to Mayor Sullivan and the Minutemen.
Apparently the man on the street was an accurate reflection of voter sentiment.
Sullivan was elected in a landslide, as predicted. Interestingly enough, only 18% of all registered voters cast a vote.
The final tally rounded: 11.5K to 6.5K or 64% to 36%. That's right 18K voters decided for an estimated population of 125K.
With the election of Mayor Sullivan and District 4:Chulakes-Leetz, add District 2: Brandt and District 3:Deile for a tally of 4 council votes.
Opposing them will be 3 votes: District 1:McClain, District 6:McGrail, District 7:Donnell
Leaving the wild card or swing vote: District 5:Grill
Now that the man on the street's will has been imposed... we have a piece of advice for the victors... walk softly, carry a big stick and...
do not become victims of the same malady that struck down those who went before you, arrogance.
Regarding tomorrow's City of Cape Coral elections... whether your Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, Independent, etc...
Get out and vote! If you don't, you get the government you deserve.
Predictions? If the man on the street is any indication... when asked how they were planning on voting...
two comments, one from a stranger, one from a neighbor...
The neighbor: "Well, I will tell you this, I'm not voting for the guys already in there..."
The stranger: "Voting for the incumbents would be like placing a loaded gun to your head, and pulling the trigger."
Alrighty then, sounds like these two are voting for change, any change, but at what cost, if any?
TBD (to be determined) Tuesday night. More to come.
The last two "jobless" recoveries... it took 11 months for job growth to turn positive in the wake of...
the 1990/91 recession and an interminable 19 months for payrolls to become positive on net after the 2001 recession.
Small business expansion is being hampered by constrained access to financing. Grants, loans and bailouts are going almost exclusively to the big guys.
The financial houses being bailed out are hoarding the money, rather than lending and spurring growth.
Firms of less than 500 employees account for some 50.2% of total payroll employment.
Pressure on small businesses needs to ease for a more durable economic recovery.
We keep banging this drum... no durable economic recovery until 6 million outsourced jobs are repatriated.
It took 25 years of financial deregulation, globalization and outsourcing to labor at the margin to decimate and emasculate our durable economic base.
This emasculation was bipartisan, and led by an army of lobbyists that our whores on the hill still pander to, witness the latest round of banking bailouts.
We no longer manufacture anything, so we have a non durable service based economy which is comprised of tourism, hospitality, food service and 1/6 health care.
Thats right, 1/6 of our economy is based on health care of which 35% goes to middlemen or health care management firms.
In other words, the sicker the population, and less health care insurance regulation, the greater the profit.
Our non durable economy is dependent on the generosity of foreigners willing to lend us money for our profligate spending habits.
Now is the time for small business and government to swell their employment ranks with durable infrastructure build out projects.
Keep the money local for small business (utilize small local companies) and employees (hire local people at prevailing wage).
In order to save taxpayer money, State, County and City governments need to abandon "at risk" managers and take projects on internally.
Hire managers proven competent in infrastructure buildouts and value engineering. Then staff up with local people and do the work in house.
This will keep local people employed at a decent wage for some time to come.
This is not the time to outsource to outsiders, large companies or foreigners.
Worse yet privatizing vital resources or assets to "for profit" entities would be the Coup de Grace.
Doing so would further cripple the remnants of our durable economic base and make any recovery improbable.
Looks like MWH is at it in Los Osos, CA as well, interesting reading, an excerpt follows...
In 1999, MWH won the engineering contract when the Los Osos sewer was still in the hands of the Los Osos Community Services District and not the county.
By 2006, the district terminated its contract with MWH because of alleged contract violations, over-billing, and conflicts of interest.
Around the same time MWH sued the district for about $1.1 million in unpaid services after the CSD reversed course and canceled the project.
That lawsuit is still pending while the district is in bankruptcy. According to Los Osos residents, MWH helped put the district in bankruptcy.
It wasn’t the first time MWH had problems. In the city of Cape Coral, FL, the contractor was hired to expand the coastal community’s water and sewer system.
The cost of that project quickly rose to just under $1 billion, according to the News-Press.
A 2006 audit found a number of “red flags” in the MWH contract with Cape Coral, including inflating the project cost and bid rigging.
The audit findings were forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Department of Justice.
A representative from the DOJ declined to comment on any investigation and the FBI did not return a call before press time.
A livid group of Los Osos residents have recently shifted their focus away from the design of the new sewer system and more toward Public Works Director Paavo Ogren.
They have accused Ogren of having connections to MWH. Ogren was the Los Osos CSD’s interim general manager shortly before MWH was hired in 1999.
Ogren: “I was the contract interim general manager prior to Bruce Buel, but the proposal process for project management services was independent from the work I was doing. … I didn’t have involvement in the hiring of Montgomery Watson back then.”
There is, however, also an MWH connection to the evaluation committee.
The current project engineer, Carollo Engineers, used MWH as a subcontracted consultant for the project in 2006.
The Nattering One muses... this wreaks of the same stench that plagued the Cape in the aborted Kessler Audit.
Sources indicate that FBI & DOJ have both investigated bid rigging allegations. Neither agency will confirm nor deny, whether the investigations are ongoing.
With the city in dire economic straights, could a lawsuit from MWH put the Cape into BK territory?
One can only wonder what other connections exist between MWH and high ranking Cape officials? More to come.
The Nattering One muses... the relevance of this topic to the Cape and Lee County, which is ground zero for foreclosures is not lost...
50 to 60 Million loans held by MERS could be effected by multiple court rulings in favor of homeowners.
For all those who have or might be losing their home to a foreclosure. As we learned long ago in the REO and reconveyance departments...
the Deed and Note must stay together. Otherwise, these is nothing to foreclose on.
Op-Ed: 60 Million Mortgages May Have Fatal Flaws
Commentary by George W. Mantor
RISMEDIA, September 29, 2009—The latest chapter in the mortgage meltdown is being written in court, as one by one, judges are putting a halt to foreclosures.
The latest was a recent Kansas Supreme Court case. In Landmark National Bank v. Kesler, the court held that a nominee company called MERS had no standing to bring a foreclosure action.
Nor was Kansas the first. In August 2008, Federal Judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada ruled MERS had no standing.
”Indeed, the evidence is to the contrary, the Note has been sold, and the named nominee no longer has any interest in the Note.”
In September of 2008, A California Judge ruling against MERS concluded, “There is no evidence before the court as to who is the present owner of the Note. The holder of the Note must join in the motion.”
On March 19, 2009, the Supreme Court of Arkansas determined that MERS was not the true beneficiary because the Note had been sold. Alabama and Florida have made similar rulings.
In each case, the reason stems from a fundamental misstep in the handling of Notes and Trust Deeds that runs contrary to established court policies which require that the real parties identify themselves to the court.
Each of these cases involved MERS and, in each case, the courts’ rationales were almost identical.
First, a little background. Over the last 40 years, mortgage lending has evolved from a bank holding the mortgage to the mortgage being bundled and sold as part of an investment pool, usually in the form of a bond.
As a registered security, the Note is a negotiable instrument, like money or a cashier’s check, and under securities law that Note must be given to the investor.
In this case, mortgage backed securities, (MBS) were bundled together in a pool and shipped to…well, we don’t really know.
One of the impediments to an MBS is the need to file assignments for the beneficiaries in each county each time the mortgage is resold. And apparently, no one holds them for very long because most have been passed around several times.
In order to avoid the logistical nightmare of trying to maintain a public chain of title, the biggest lenders joined MERS, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.
MERS was created with the sole intent of evading the recording fees due to the county in which the security is located.
In so doing, in my opinion, they also destroyed the age-old practice of making a public record of information concerning real property in general, and legal interest specifically.
The chain of title is a vital record produced to resolve many a dispute. Now, that’s gone.
I believe, erased simply so they themselves, MERS, could siphon off the recording fees for themselves. They sold their business model to lenders as a better way to track mortgages that were being sold and resold all over the world.
But, as there often is with a BIG IDEA, there were also unintended consequences. Only now are they coming to light. Until MERS was challenged in a foreclosure proceeding, no one had taken a look at the law.
The law, according to a Nevada Judge, is that for purposes of foreclosure, both the Note and the Deed of Trust must be assigned. When the Note is split from the Deed of Trust, the Note becomes unsecured.
A person holding only a Note lacks the power to foreclose because it lacks the security. MERS lost track of the Notes. In some cases, according to my research, they deliberately destroyed them.
Every thing was fine until the economy contracted. MERS began foreclosing on delinquent home loans and then one day; someone said “show me the Note.”
In reviewing the judge’s rulings in the above matters, several key points have been determined:
• MERS is not the beneficiary of the Notes and has no skin in the game. It did not lend any money, collect any payments or do anything more than track the sale of the securities.
• Judicial procedure requires that parties identify themselves and prove their standing.
• Splitting the Note and Trust Deed leaves no party with standing to foreclose. The true holder of the Note, the security, paid the lender so the lender is covered. The true holder of the Note was insured by AIG so they are covered. AIG and the banks were bailed out by taxpayers.
So, unless the American tax payer can produce a “blue-ink” original Note, no one has standing to foreclose.
• Allowing a foreclosure to proceed without the original Note places the homeowner in double jeopardy. If the original Note were to surface, the holder of the Note would be entitled to payment, but from whom? The borrower is still on the hook.
MERS currently holds 50 to 60 million loans so this is no small matter. And, just because they have lost repeatedly doesn’t mean they will give up. They will keep right on foreclosing in hopes that the homeowner won’t fight back and, in most cases, they won’t be stopped.
After attempting to club Cape residents into submission on the UEP MWH Halliburton scam by raising the utilities rate (95% phased in over five years); the council decided to raise the millage rate. But why is all this new revenue needed?
The City is currently in negotiation with all three unions for a new contract and despite all the new souces of revenue, they are using this budget review from the “advisory” committee to club the unions into legacy concessions.
The City negotiated its contract in “good” times; and now as is the modus operandi of “management by crisis” wants to take back what it gave. Didn’t these crazy spenders realize, you have to put something away for a rainy day?
We stumbled across an internal document being used in the process: The FAC (Financial Advisory Committee) FY2010 Budget Review Presentation to the City Council.
Some of the “reviews” relevant contents in normal font, our Natterings in Italics…
Further reduction in taxable property values
Controlled growth should have been the mantra, instead of spend, spend, spend…. Now the wanton spenders have raised utility and millage rates to hide their tracks.
Approval of items that were previously scheduled for elimination:
DCD Code Enforcement Team $380K
Yet on Page 16: DCD should evaluate activities requiring permits and inspections (currently seems excessive). So yets just approve the enforcement team that was going to be eliminated???
Parks & Recreation funding from General Fund $1.385M
Public Works
Dredging of canals $637K
Road Maintenance $750K
Street Lighting $1 Million
Total $ 2.387M
Total add back to general fund $4.153M
Total add back to general fund $4.153M
Page 17 if our recommendations are utilized, the City should realize an overall General Fund budget adjustment of $3,372,284
In other words, if you follow our recommendations, we just advised you to SPEND $3.3 Million more. Simply brilliant.
The committee recommends the following:
Salary Freeze
COLA Freeze
Salary reduction across the board
Unpaid Furloughs
Reduction of Work Force
Continued Control of Overtime
Comp Time
Reduction in benefit costs through an employee contribution of $50 per month
(1786 employees x $50 x 12 months = $1,071,600)
Standardization of the leave policy across all employee groups
Reduction of hours that can be accumulated, less vacation.
Implementing an employee funded short term disability program
Not a benefit, but a program that costs the employee and furthers the cities goal of reduction of participation in the leave policy and associated costs.
Elimination of the leave buyback program
A counterproductive elimination of accumulation over 400 hours, which will make bad employees out of good ones.
Instead of saving your time and working, you are forced to take time off. Increasing overtime costs in most cases.
The idea of a 400 bank, in case of accident it fills the gap (10 weeks) till long term disability takes over.
Hire an external consultant to report to Council to identify actionable means of reducing benefit costs for FY09 to achieve an overall reduction in benefit costs from 38% to 30% overall personnel costs leading to an expected $10.1 Million savings. Cost of consultant to be borne by realized savings.
In other words, deforestation by a for profit logger, the more the hatchet man cuts, the more he earns. You eventually wind up with no trees and no forest.
Actual benefit cost as a percentage of salary for FY10 is projected to be 47.4% across all funds, which is excessive and represents an area for significant expense reduction.
This is excessive only because, contrary to public opinion, government wages are well below private sector for the same job. However, the government benefits are usually more comprehensive and cost more. Higher benefit costs divided over lower salaries will always yield a higher benefit cost as percentage of salary.
Benefits as a percentage of salaries
Police 35.6%
Fire 33%
General 22.4%
ICMA 12%
Again we see how police and fire much like the Bush administration, have milked the fear of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. What makes these groups who volunteered at a very generous rate of pay; to collect so much more than the rest of the public?
We never could figure out why anyone in their right mind would allow pensions to be based on total earnings (best five of the last ten years), rather than a straight 40 hours multiplied by the hourly rate.
This total earnings clause causes overtime abuse in the extreme. In particular during the latter part of ones career, when their wage level is higher.
In effect this is a double whammy, paying out more hours at a higher rate; and ballooning a pension (in the case of fire & police; some are collecting a higher pension than they did while working.)
This along with bloated budgets and overly generous pension benefits (100% of wage for police and fire; as opposed to 80% for rank and file) are driving many cities to bankruptcy.
Consider public/private partnerships
Expand use of volunteers
Consider outsourcing eligible services as opportunities arise
All euphemisms for sell, lease, outsource or privatize assets to FOR PROFIT orgs such as CH2MHill or MWH.
These carpetbaggers will spend the minimum to avoid maintenance and higher service levels, resulting in substandard service and the assets getting run right into the ground.
In a 4-3 vote, the Cape Coral City Council voted to delay voting on the utility expansion project indefinitely.
A step in the right direction. Again, the recipe for future economic success is:
The city should be allowed to move forward with UEP ONLY IF:
1. NO MORE OUTSOURCING: MWH is removed and no outsource or at risk contractors are involved. The Cape does not need to spend taxpayer money to benefit Halliburton.
2. CREATE JOBS & AN ECONOMY: The project must involve city project managment & labor; we need jobs to create a durable economic base for the Cape.
This is when the City should be spending to hire and create a permanent base, rather than cutting back.
3. NO PRIVATIZATION: no infrastructure assets are sold/leased to service ANY debt.
NEVER sell or lease the rights to your most valuable asset of all, your water.
Beware of demagogue's wearing sheeps clothing...
Word has it that for a sack of gold, old "Sleepy" Sullivan would sell the city's future out from under it to CH2MHill at the drop of a hat. Say it ain't so Sully!
4. TRIM THE FAT: Deficit ridden fire & police payrolls need to be trimmed...
along with fire & police bargaining units cutting back on outrageous 100% & overtime aided pension benefits. This is what truly bankrupt's municipalities.
Fire & Police could actually benefit from major concessions being proposed by the rank and file bargaining unit. (More to come on this in our next post.)
These four steps are the Cape's ONLY way out of this economic depression. This Mayor and future council's would be well advised to heed the above advice.
This may be a bit off topic, but may satisfy enquiring minds that need to know...
I was asked recently by a Naybob of Realty, in so many words "what do you stand for?" My retort follows...
I stand against the following: Big Brother.
the moral majority "Strength through Unity. Unity through Faith."
the Orwellian "War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength."
a society that is ruled by government, rather than the government being run as a voice of the people (vox populi).
government surveillance, torture, fear mongering, media manipulation, not to mention corporate corruption and religious hypocrisy.
Remember the 1605 Gunpowder Plot? A group of Catholic conspirators led by Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament while King James I of England and VI of Scotland and most of the aristocracy were in it.
The plot intended to kill the king, his family and most of the Protestant aristocracy by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening on 5 November 1605, in order to spark a revolution in England.
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot
Guy Fawkes was ranked 30th in the 2002 list of the 100 Greatest Britons, sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public...
he is referred to as the only man ever to enter parliament with honest intentions.
and to this day, Guy Fawkes night is celebrated in the UK every November 5th. Proving that the spirit still lives on.
The Nattering One believes that the pen is mightier than the sword.
Those who make the effort to fight the good fight may suffer or die for their efforts, but not in vain, as their ideas live on.
Behind this mask there is more than flesh... Behind this mask there is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof.
Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici
LCEC’s non demand rate is much like a residential bill in that...
it has only an energy charge for the electricity consumed during a billing period plus a customer charge to cover the meter reading and billing costs.
On the other hand... demand is measured to determine the amount of the utility’s equipment that is dedicated to serving a specific customer’s peak needs.
When a facility demands twenty or more kW of power at its time of peak use, it becomes a demand rate customer as opposed to a non demand customer.
As opposed to the energy charge being based on the ACTUAL amount of electricity consumed over the entire billing period…
the demand charge is related to the maximum demand for electricity that a customer COULD place on the utility’s system during the customer’s peak use.
This theoretical “demand” is calculated by the total electrical load of the equipment turned on at a facility during the highest fifteen minutes of use in a billing period.
A charge is assigned by LCEC to recover the investment in the under-used utility equipment.
At LCEC, the demand charges range from $6.99 to $12.07 per kW, depending on which of the demand rates is applicable.
The mechanism for insuring recovery of investment is demand ratchet and ratchet charges.
Ratchet charges require that billing demand (as compared to the actual demand) for any month will...
not be less than 70% of the peak demand set by the customer during the previous twelve months.
So, it only takes fifteen minutes to set a demand peak, and using a large amount of energy for fifteen minutes on any one day can affect your billing for the rest of the year.
As is normal, during new systems startup in June 2008, to test electrical capacity handling...
the Everest Water Reclamation plant separately loaded both sides of its “circuits” for several days.
To accommodate the Everest plant redesign, LCEC had provided a newer second service with two meters, in addition to the existing service with meter.
Bare in mind that the plant improvements were designed to (and actually did) DECREASE electrical demand through greater efficiency.
Thus, LCEC did NOT actually have to provide any additional capacity for the new plant design.
However, LCEC assessed the City of Cape Coral with a ratcheting charge for the atypical performance testing.
The Everest plant used 1500kw on each side during the test, but their average usage is only 700kw.
This generated a 70% of 1500kwh (1050 kwh) charge on each side for each month during a twelve month period.
Actual use was only 700kwh, resulting in a (1050 – 700 = 350kwh) 50% over charge on both meters for one year.
Worse yet, LCEC charged CCC, $6.99 per KW for demand on the new meters and $12.07 per KW on the older meters...
resulting in further excess cumulative demand charges for Q409 of $80,000.
If the service provided to the Everest plant was treated as a single bill by LCEC, the actual demand charge would have been $39,000 for the same period.
In other words, CCC is paying 100% more in demand charges for electricity that it NEVER has nor will consume.
This situation has resulted in an additional $10K per month being billed to CCC since June 2008.
Multiply $10K by 14 months you get $140K paid to LCEC by CCC for electricity NEVER USED.
The original intent of the demand charge was to compensate the utility for their investment in the size of service required for the maximum power use.
LCEC is a FOR PROFIT power distribution coop which still charges the city non demand charges for infrastructure...
that was put in to place thirty years ago and has long since been paid for many times over.
2008 Water, Sewer & Reclamation revenue totaled $55 million, while costs were $42 million...
that’s $13 million in profit being spent by the city fathers on bloated fire, police and other cost centers.
LCEC’s ratchet charge scam has resulted in the 2009 water reclamation operations budget running into the red.
To date, LCEC refuses to rectify the situation, hiding behind their co-op and “non producer” distribution only mandate.
Further, why is each CCC facility not extended a consolidated municipal rate for bulk or volume electricity usage citywide?
The City of Cape Coral is no longer a trailer located at the CC Pkwy & Del Prado intersection.
Isn’t it time that the CCC fathers seek legal redress for LCEC’s long time price goughing and also negotiate a blanket non demand rate for city wide operations.
After all, who is LCEC’s largest customer? Not the 52,000 individual Cape Coral customers...
but the City itself, who blindly misappropriates those very taxpayers monies to line the pockets of LCEC and it’s constituents.
MWH sold the city Bio-solids processing equipment for $14 million...
But wait, that’s not all you get, as this fiasco gets even better….
Would Martha Stewart order and pay for furniture to be delivered to a house that was not yet built?
The equipment was ordered, paid for with city money, then shipped to the Southwest reclamation plant.
But, a funny thing happened on the way to the new Biosolids Building…. it wasn’t built or funded yet.
So there the $14 million worth of equipment sits, out in the open, loaded on pallets...
wrapped in plastic, waiting for a building to be constructed, that funding was never approved for.
That might be the end of our story, except for the fact that MWH wanted $40 million...
to build a 45 ft tall building with six ft CBS walls, with the remainder finished in metal.
Some people in the city finance dept and a certain young business manager thought that $40 million might be a bit on the high side.
So MWH struck out certain items and came back at $32 million, sounds good eh?
To Bin or not to Bin… MWH eliminated several items, the most important is called as a bin activator.
Bin Laden or Activator? Biosolids come in three forms, final pellets, liquid or cake sludge, preprocessing each is a viable source for revenue.
A bin activator facilitates trucks loaded with cake sludge from other county’s plants to dump their loads at the plant. We take their sludge and turn in into money.
Don’t let them eat cake… Alas, no bin, no revenue from Cake sludge, and that’s a 33% revenue loss on the operation.
But that’s not all folks… this MWH offer gets even better…
In early 2007, Bonita Springs finished a new bio solids building (all CBS construction...
which was almost the same height with half the square footage and half the equipment (1 train, 1 dryer).
Interesting enough, the equipment came from the same manufacturer chosen for the Cape. Can you guess how much BS paid for half the equipment?
$2 million, not half of $14 million. How about the building cost, and mechanical installation of the equipment?
Can you say another $4 million? Add another $1 million for incidentals and you get a grand total of $7 million out the door.
If you DOUBLED this price to $14 million for twice the building and equipment, you get what the Cape paid for the equipment alone.
No building with MWH, that’s an EXTRA $30 million without our buddy Bin.
Out the door, $14 million vs $47 million, sounds like MWH’s standard 3X markup strikes the good citizens of the Cape again.
Who approved ordering equipment for delivery to a building that was unapproved? Where was the cost oversight on this project?
The Cape could manage this project and do the build out internally for around $13 million...
then pay engineers $2 million for the mechanical install of the bio solids equipment.
Oh, and one other thing, the BS building did not have a bin activator either.
Incidentally, the equipment vendor is now threatening to void the three-year warranty.
MWH is trying to use the warranty ploy as a way to coerce the city into approving their plans.
The city could still do for $15 million what MWH is essentially attempting to extort out of them for $42 million.
Coercion and extortion, sounds like the Soprano’s do run this town.
Regarding current MWH activity in Cape Coral...
The Nattering One has cultivated some unique sources over the years.
This time we have come across some inside information that needs to be shared with the public.
Please bare in mind that in all three of these cases, city employee's at both plant's...
have been adamant in their complaints about MWH's lack of engineering and refusal to rectify the situation that MWH directly caused.
Peroxide Blonde Design?: Both Everest & SW water reclamation plants have a malfunctioning sodium hypochorite (bleach) system & untenable bleach building's.
The skids where the VFD's (variable frequency drives) & pumps sit are a maintenance & operational nightmare.
VFD's were placed directly on the pumps, on the ground, open to the elements (rain) and separated by only 6-8" inches.
Because of the spacing and due to the pump/drive combo positioning the skids are almost impossible to maintenance or repair.
The VFD's & pumps are not even water resistant, so last year, 8 of 10 pump drives failed with the first seasonal rains.
Next to monitoring for dissolved oxygen, sodium hypochlorite levels are extremely critical to the process of reclaming waste water for safe public use.
These buildings and pump skids are a $750K disaster that MWH still refuses to take ownership of and insists that the city must pay to rectify.
Bar Screens: MWH replaced perfectly functioning 2 year old bar screen systems at both Everest & SW.
The new bar screens cannot perform allowing large clumps of debris to enter each plants process...
causing both plants massive deragging and maintenance problems downstream.
True Grit Blast? The grit system at SW Reclamation can only capture 45% instead of 95% of the grit as guaranteed.
The vendor was the only vendor which would guarantee 95%, the same vendor whose "teacup" systems failed miserably in the Cape a few years ago.
The system failed the initial test, so the vendor hired an “outside” firm and claimed passage of a dubious 2nd test.
City employees witnessed the 2nd test failure, nevertheless, MWH stood behind the vendor’s vailed legal threats.
Excessive grit entering the system would not only cause excessive downstream maintenance and process issues...
but it would also cause premature catastrophic failure of the new biosolids centrifuge systems at SW reclamation.
More to come on the Southwest Biosolids fiasco in our next post.
According to the United States Public Interest Research Group, as of year end 2008...
15 roads in the U.S. had been privatized, and another 79 roads in 25 states were being considered for some form of privatization.
States and municipalities eager to find ways to finance transportation, and facing large budget deficits, are increasingly considering public-private partnerships to fill the void.
Misinformation: MWH performs quality work that the City could not manage to perform.
Reality: MWH has spent all of the citys contingency money to fix their engineering mistakes.
This has left the city without critical funds to finish the reclamation plants with much needed improvements.
Reality: The City Council will revisit the UEP in their next session with several financing alternatives...
and one alternative which removes MWH as the contractor while issuing the contract for a rebid.
Removing MWH is a good start but... don’t let these politicians sell your future’s out again.
Keep the pressure on and make them take their time, reevaluate the assessments and rather than go with an outside contractor, do the job in house this time.
Create a future for the Cape or destroy it through gross mismanagement & taxation, the choice is yours.
Misinformation: MWH doesn’t need all the trouble here in the Cape, they have plenty of work elsewhere.
Reality: The Cape Coral project is MWH’s largest, worldwide, with the exception of Australia.
This job is so big that MWH hired a telemarketing firm to call North residents in an attempt to sway their opinions with a disinformation campaign.
Misinformation: The City needs to use a contractor to perform all the work because of liability issues.
Reality: The City can take out Errors & Omissions & Liability policies at a fraction of the cost of hiring ANY at risk contractor such as MWH.
Since 2000 this would have saved the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars paid to MWH, which now have to be paid back to keep the city solvent.
The City could have hired competent staff to manage and oversee city employees on the projects. This would have created thousands of infrastructure jobs.
Infrastructure jobs are the key component to a durable economic base.
A durable economic base would have been much more resililent than the service economy based on vapor loans.
Instead, the Cape decided to avoid taking ownership and pay extra to OUTSOURCE.
Now the chickens have come home to roost and the future economic costs will be enormous.
Misinformation: Doing just water in the NW instead of water/sewer/irrigation is cheaper.
Reality: Three separate pipes, three separate trenches, three separate paving jobs, three separate upheavels to achieve what you could have done in one fell swoop.
Yes, the pipes are still in separate trenches, but it’s easier to get the crew to dig, lay and bury all three at once. A single upheavel, reduced costs and your done.
Misinformation: We should move ahead with the UEP now, because later it will be more expensive.
Reality: If the City elimates MWH, the rebid would come in at 35% less.
Better yet, if the city does the right thing by taking this job on internally, taxpayers will save 66%.
That means water/sewer/irrigation for $6K upfront, not $18K.
Not to mention the incalculable benefit of creating a durable economic base in the Cape, which will reap multiple benefits for years to come.
Misinformation: De-salinization is the way to go, why are we bothering rebuilding the RO & reclamation plants?
Reality: At one time the SW RO plant was the largest in the world.
Pulling from our aquafiers rather than the Gulf allows us to pass water through the membranes at lower pressure.
Less salt means lower pressure, which means the pumps use less energy and reduces the cost per gallon by seven fold.
Misinformation: The Cape doesn’t need reuse water for irrigation.
Reality: 40 to 60 percent of all water usage is for lawn irrigation.
Without the reuse water from Cape water reclamation plants, the residents would already have caused massive salt water intrusion into the aquafiers and wells.
Would you send Martha Stewart to do your shopping? Probably not, unless price was no object….
As Martha would go to the most expensive market she could find (Whole Foods or Bristol Farms) and pick only the highest priced name brands off the shelf.
What would normally be a $100 basket, suddenly becomes a $300 basket.
This is how is works when there is plenty of money floating around and nobody is watching the till.
You want to spend $750K to install a security system for the Kismet North RO? $450K for card readers? $300K for networking and cameras?
Do you really think terrorists would even bother coming to Cape Coral? Much less the water plant?
Couldn’t you have your in house people do this for around $250K on equipment? Yes you could.
A $30 Million Bio Solids Building for the Southwest Water Reclamation Plant?
The city bought $17 Million in equipment and have it sitting on palettes under tarps with no building. Simply brilliant, but don’t blame the city.
Blame the at risk contractor MWH for spending the cities money like this. This is what happens when money flows freely, and nobody is watching the till.
The city could manage this project and build the structure for under $10 Million, but they are afraid to. Why?
The city fathers are afraid of taking ownership because of the risk involved with a new process...
and the three year warranties on equipment which MWH will not honor if they don’t build the structure.
This is what insurance is for. The insurance premium would be far less than the $20 million in tax payer dollars saved.
MWH’s behavior sounds more like blackmail and bullying through FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt).
This is what happens when the people in control can’t grow a pair. They shake at the mention of liability and would rather point fingers and delegate for blame’s sake.
Nobody in this town wants to take ownership and MWH likes it that way.
The city fathers are afraid of a redux of the CDM (Can’t Design Much; Cost’s Double the Money) fiasco in the late nineties.
That was then, this is now. Nobody likes finger pointing, and everybody likes to delegate. Too bad, because when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Hire the best project managers on the city payroll that money can buy. Manage the job and build the infrastructure by creating durable economic jobs.
Build a durable local economy by hiring local Lee County and Cape Coral citizens as city employees at prevailing labor rates.
The 2008 budget deficit was $17 million; 2009 will be on the order of $26 million (when the anticipated revenues dematerialize);
2010 will be even worse coming in at around $35 million (after bond downgrades and another wave of foreclosures).
The solution: The city fathers cannot outsource all the work and risk, while in effect taxing the citizenry to death.
Go to the $250 Million Lee County surplus for a temporary loan, take ownership and complete the following tasks.
The city should be allowed to move forward with the UEP ONLY IF:
1. MWH is removed and the assessment amounts are downscaled by 66% with in-house labor.
2. The project must be performed in-house with a majority of city mgmt & local labor; creating a durable economic base.
3. NO infrastructure assets are sold/leased to service ANY debt.
4. In the future, reduce deficit ridden fire & police payrolls.
The city father’s need to grow a pair, take ownership, and take back the process and risk from MWH.
Is this asking too much from the city manager (Terry Stewart, not Martha), head of finance and utilities director?
Is it asking too much from the part time pay city council with full time side jobs that have a conflict of interest? (developer, attorney, real estate agent).
From the track record so far, it seems like Martha Stewart has a bigger pair than all the city fathers combined.
Let's see what happens at the vote tonight.
Tonights meeting is a work shop. Wonder if anyone will ask MWH about their triple estimated assessment costs?
Better yet, will anyone ask MWH about their triple excessive +$30 million price tag on the Southwest Water Reclamation Bio Solids Building?
That's right, it could be yours for only $10 million, but will anyone ask?
The public has been in an uproar with the City Council voting to proceed with the utilities expansion...
bringing water, sewer & irrigation at an upfront cost of $17K (financed $34K) to SW Areas 6,7; and water to North 1 through 8 at $6K (financed $10K).
The Nattering One muses... these heady cost estimates are based upon calculations used by the incumbent contractor MWH...
during the last surge in commodities & service prices during 2003.
Rebar, concrete, services & labor all cost far less today than during those halycon boomtown days.
In fact, the city could cut costs by 66%. How?
Fire the carpetbagger locusts at MWH, manage the project, hire permanent employees from Cape Coral & Lee County at prevailing wages to work the project.
Re-estimated costs based on this scenario prove that MWH is attempting to gough the public AGAIN while employing out of area labor at half the going rate.
Taking fiscal responsibility & ownership by bringing this project in house would help to build a durable economic base and save the taxpayers countless millions.
Will the City step up? Will Mark Mason, Terry Stewart & Chuck Pavlos man up? Will the Citzens of the Cape wise up?
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