Showing posts with label Earth Tech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Earth Tech. Show all posts

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Reading the Highland Park “News”

If you think the Master Plan for Storm and Sanitary Sewers is dead, not so. It's alive and kicking, still in the hands of all the same people who didn't care about how it would affect you or your finances in the first place.

On December 18, 2008, the Highland Park News finally did a little reporting on the "Sewer Project." Where was the Highland Park News at the December 3 meeting when City Hall was so anxious about the complaints from irate residents that it called the Highland Park Police for crowd control? Where was the Highland Park News the next night when David Limardi and Mayor Belsky couldn't answer simple questions asked by the Ravinia neighbors about the Master Plan? It seems that unless City Hall provides the HP News with a written report, it just isn't news to them. Don't you think the HP News should take an interest in this community and get out once in a while and actually attend a meeting and talk with people other than the City Manager and the Mayor?

The HP News report stated that "the project would have required residents to chip in as much as $4000 to replace leaking sanitary laterals…" We've got news for the HP News: $4,000 was the minimum, and $10,000 is rapidly becoming the new minimum (a price increase most likely courtesy of the City Manager having a "single source provider" who just to happened to be the only contractor who could meet the bidding requirements), and most of the sanitary laterals aren't the problem. The sanitary laterals aren't the cause of a problem, the City's storm sewers are invading the resident's sanitary sewers and they have not yet been upgraded. Does HP News seems to print only the pap spoon fed to them by City Hall?

The HP News did get one thing right. City Hall has only deferred its plan to spend your savings. They may well circle back to the remaining residents who haven't paid up yet. The plan is on the shelf but City Hall is only waiting to go back and create a report to justify their sewer folly. The City remains interested in coercing you to follow their plan, even if that results in placing a lien on your home, a "financing alternative" proudly offered by Mayor Belsky at the December 4 meeting. The HP News reported that the City "plans to collect more information on the effectiveness of the project and look for another bidder." They should just focus on collecting the essential information that should have been there prior to foisting the Master Plan on all of us.

The Mayor is quoted as saying ""We decided to take a step back from the project because of economic times and explore alternatives that might reduce costs." Mr. Mayor and City Council, and Mr. Limardi, those hard economic times were there when you started to implement the Master Plan – and even if the economy were on the right keel, all of this should have been done before three neighborhoods were forced to pay up for unnecessary repairs. Is rudimentary investigation done only when residents complain in volume?

It was surprising to read that the Mayor told that the HP News that the "program has been already implemented in three other neighborhoods in the city and has proven successful." One may ask the Mayor to tell us exactly, what is your definition of a successful program? Residents being coerced into paying thousands of dollars for repairs they did not want or need? What technical data is there that supports the assertion that this has been successful in any material way? Certainly none has been offered to any of those neighborhoods who have already shouldered an unnecessary and inappropriate economic burden, nor to the more recent Ravinia neighborhood complaints. And, even if it were technically successful, the issue remains that this is an economic burden to be paid by the community as a whole.

Those of us at the December 4 meeting know that neither City Manager Limardi or Mayor Belsky was able to sufficiently answer even basic questions raised by the Ravinia neighbors. This is exactly why the City told us they would go back to Earth-Tech. They needed to seek the answers that were missing from Earth-Tech's initial report. And, as reported previously in the blog, .it is just plain silly for City Hall to have proposed to go back to Earth-Tech which now has a vested interest in bolstering its previous work. If the City needs another opinion, it shouldn't be one where the consultant is told to support the previous consultant. An independent consultant, one chosen on the basis of expertise and from among several bidders, is required.

The HP News quotes Mayor Belsky: "We're not going to approach any individual household until we have exact cost. We're looking for any funding sources to help this neighborhood and help other neighborhoods as well." Good to hear, Mr. Mayor. Yet, for all the residents who have already been coerced to pay for the sanitary lateral lining, none of them were given an exact cost before they were required to sign the legal documents giving the City the authority to proceed – and they were threatened with a lien to gain compliance with the City's demand to sign a "Temporary License" that required them to waive basic legal rights for any harm caused to their property. And, as for alternative funding sources, why didn't Mr. Limardi seek them earlier? Why did City Council rubber stamp Mr. Limardi's plan? And, why didn't they all know that City infrastructure improvements are their responsibility and upgrades need to be planned and budgeting for payment from our taxes?

So, it's time we start looking at the real history of the Master Plan. For many HP residents, the Master Plan already tapped their financial resources. They have written the big check from savings or with a second or third mortgage. For the next few weeks, this blog will share with the readers the saga of the Master Plan and a representative home in Sunset Park. It's a modest home on a modest lot (approx. 55' x 160'). It just so happens to be my brother's home and I've deleted his name and contact info from the documents for his privacy, but the documents are accurate and complete otherwise.

While Mayor Belsky and the City Manager asserted on December 4 that they were surprised by the Ravinia neighborhood response, the fact is that these questions and complaints are not new. My brother began to complain about 1 ½ years ago and, on the basis of some of the correspondence, it seems he was not the only person to raise important issues, concerns and constructive criticism that landed on largely deaf ears.

Tomorrow, we will start to share the correspondence between the City of HP and the representative house in Sunset Park, the home where my brother and I were raised.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Ravinia Neighbors, Bravo!

On Tuesday, I received an important call from Councilman Mike Brenner who provided me with a brief update on the status of the Master Plan for Storm and Sanitary Sewers.

By way of background, Councilman Brenner is the only member of City Council who responded directly and immediately last year to my brother in response to his letters, on behalf of all HP residents, to the Mayor and the full City Council protesting the fairness and soundness of the Master Plan. For those of us who attended the December 4 meeting at the Public Works building, you may recall that the Mayor indicated a level of surprise about the issues raised by the Ravinia residents. Yet most of those complaints and questions were clearly articulated in my brother's letters to the Mayor and City Council more than a year ago. (Those letters will be posted as soon.)

So, no other City Councilman called my brother to discuss the issues with him, or wrote him a response. The Mayor sent a letter to support the Master Plan in every respect. He did not call to further inquire about the facts or to engage in a discussion. He did remind my brother that the City would place a lien on his home for failure to comply. Except for Councilman Brenner, they all remained staunchly confident that the Master Plan should move forward "as is."

So, we send our thanks to Councilman Brenner who got involved in this subject and was responsive when no others were, and who didn’t need to wait until there were 100 angry residents to see some of the flaws in the Master Plan as illuminated by my brother’s letters. This is what we expect from our Councilmen, regardless of agreement or outcome. Responsiveness and accountability.

This week Councilman Brenner informed me that, at last Monday’s City Council Meeting, the Council decided to place the Master Plan on hold and reassess the issues. He indicated that everyone is now on board (at least they seem to be). We’ll look forward to reviewing the minutes of the meeting. Perhaps those of you who watched and/or attended the meeting would like to share what you heard by adding a comment. Councilmen are welcome, as this blog is for everyone interested in good City governance.

Councilman Brenner also indicated that the City will look into whether to reimburse the citizens who already paid with their personal checks under the Master Plan and what the mechanisms for paying them back might be. Let’s hope that the citizens in the Highlands and Sunset Park - the people who were coerced to pay for City Council's ill conceived scheme - will become active and let their voices be heard.

The City Council’s decision is all because of you – our neighbors in Ravinia. You vociferously objected to a wrong and made yourselves heard about your rights. Bravo, Ravinia neighbors, bravo! You have made a huge difference in the future of our community.

Just don’t stop now…and stay involved, active and vigilant because the Master Plan isn’t exactly dead. You heard at the Public Works meeting last week that the City was returning to Earth Tech to seek answers to the simple questions you asked. Tell the City it is unacceptable to pay this same company to review their own work, especially when it seems that their first report was so lacking in the answers to the questions any homeowner would ask - at least we can base this perspective on inability of the City Manager to answer the questions based on the existing Earth Tech report. The City should hire an independent consultant and not one chosen by our City Manager, David Limardi, who was the major proponent and implementer of this poorly designed and mismanaged Master Plan. The new consultant should be chosen among several viable bidders to review the work done to date and help assess the future with your review and input. (We can note here that we've been told that Performance Pipeline was the only bidder to meet the City Manager's specifications for doing the sewer repairs. Certainly one would expect at least 3 bids for any City project, unless the bid has been designed for a single provider.)

Now that we're not in the crisis mode of homeowners having to shell out $3,500-25,000+ from their personal savings or obtain a new loan, the challenge for us is to not sit back and forget about the Master Plan. Our City Manager and City Hall ignored the voices of many individual homeowners and ignored their valid objections. It seems they listen only when there is an organized group of citizens with enough people to vote as a block against them. Tell the City Manager, the Mayor and our Councilmen that you expect nothing less of them than fundamental respect for HP residents and responsiveness when they have a complaint. Respect and Accountability in the City where character counts!

We also should recognize that stepping back from the Master Plan for Storm and Sanitary Sewers is a big, if not historic, step for the Mayor and City Council. While it is difficult to understand how they decided to adopt this plan that was so unsupportable in the first place, and how they managed to ignore the various individual citizens who complained about its inherent unfairness and baseless technical justification, we should acknowledge that they were good enough to stop and think now, and we can thank them for being willing to set another, and hopefully, better course. Thank you to our Mayor and City Council - we look forward to working with you in a constructive manner.

It is a learning experience for all of us.

The Mayor and City Council should confine itself to developing budgets that spend tax dollars, and not your savings.

We, the citizens and residents, need to speak up when something is inherently wrong. We can, and do, make a difference.

And one more thing we should all know by now. The City needs new management. The Mayor and the Councilmen need to be supported by an administration that cares about and respects the residents. Time to speak up. Time for change!