The Mother of All OPRAS

[normkling]

The Mother of All OPRAS was dropped on Sandy Biagi, the City Clerk - a Grand Jury Subpoena returnable to Trenton for numerous records dealing with the Fishing Pier. It was served by an investigator from the Attorney General's Office. This was verified by personal inspection of the subpoena from a source outside the Clerk's office.

Additional subpoenas may have been served on others outside City Hall. The City Clerk is the official record keeper of records that are supplied to her. Based on what prior OPRAS produced, she did not always receive all records during the prior administration.

[harvardave]

Well it's about time!

[Old Timer]

Let's just hope this action doesn't cost us taxpayers more money. Even if they were wrong in their actions the City may have to pay for their defense since they were acting in their offical capacities. Atlantic City is a prime example of what ongoing court cases does to a City budget.







Mod note: There is no information about who the target(s) of the law enforcement efforts might be. In the Sharpe James case, taxpayer payment of legal fees would have happened if the defense was successful and relied on an ordinance. http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates/sharpe_james/

[harvardave]

What if the city were to recoup money. After all the city has paid all but 60,000.00 dollars to the contractor. A little hasty on their part I think. If the problem was with the previous administration would the tax payers still have to foot the bill? I really think that those people are to blame in the first place. Let the present commission do what they have to do. I believe the present administration is for the citizens of Ventnor and not themselves.

[OPRA Reporter]

The following post is from ADMIN (from an e-mail with OPRA and a phone call) who asked for it to go on messageboard.


Before leaving town on Thursday, and with no awareness that the OAG was about to deliver any demands of its own, WLV dropped off three OPRA requests to city hall asking to be allowed to make document inspections. In the wake of news coming from two sources outside City Hall about the OAG having visited, City Hall was advised yesterday that the date set for production (October 10, 2008) as to documents sought from engineer Carter would be willingly postponed in deference to what might be the needs and/or demands of law enforcement, now apparently taking matters before a Grand Jury. The rightful pecking order of priorities should need no explanation.

First OPRA request.

Building Inspector:

Any documents presented to the Code Enforcement office respecting the contractor’s work on the Ventnor City municipal fishing pier, or reflecting inspection by the Code office, inclusive of:

1. Pile Installation Log
2. Pile Driving Log
3. Foundation certification
4. Foundation inspection (if carried out by city)
5. Framing inspection (if girders, joists were inspected by city)
6. Electrical inspection – inclusive of information about subcontractor used
7. Plumbing inspection -- inclusive of information about subcontractor used
8. Final Inspection

Second OPRA request was directed to both Public Works and the finance area and it sought records for a period of 6/23/08 through 7/3/08 respecting Work Orders and payroll and employees clocking in and out. A request has been made at Workshops or Meetings by several "tax-and-spend" conscious individuals that City of Ventnor consider altering the summer schedule to suspend beach cleaning on two weekdays, so that city workers at PW could be redirected to do a better job of keeping the rest of the city clean and maintained. Commissioner Weintrob had argued against such alterations when offering up his opinion in response, which included a "legal liability" concern he had if Ventnor didn't groom the beaches every day in summer.

It was believed that a two week period such as that chosen, for document production, might assist in determining how manpower is allocated, how much it costs, and reflect both a "normal" week in summer (end of June) as well as a "busy" week in summer (leading up to July 4th Holiday weekend). WLV does basic research whenever interesting proposals crop up, to determine whether WLV might support them. If taxpayers / citizens renew their request to examine the merits of their proposal for next summer, WLV would take photographs to document the condition of the beach on a typical Tuesday or Thursday morning before cleaning and grooming begins, or random other days at mid-week. WLV believes the "legal liability" argument to be non-meritorious. However, the revenues derived from beach badge fees face certain constraints in that they must be spent in ways that benefit beach-goers. Hence, it is appropriate to examine what expenditures "follow" certain aspects of the work performed by PW payrolled personnel. Another OPRA to determine how much was spent on portable WCs may also be filed, since those costs would be matched up against beach badge fee revenues, as would any allocated Overhead for beach grooming equipment.

Third OPRA request was filed since WLV's Forums ADMIN and organizational Secretary didn't get very far with questions directed to engineer Mr. Carter on the night of the last Commission meeting. Questions and concerns have been raised about the pier. WLV was founded and still exists to beam a little sunshine upon government, and seeks answers to questions.

OPRA for City of Ventnor City Engineer:

1. Please produce on public premises at City of Ventnor City Hall, all documents relating to your professional services (design, supervision, monitoring, contractor-oversight) on the Ventnor municipal fishing pier. These are requested to be made available for inspection, cataloguing and selective “tagging” for photocopying under OPRA. The documents sought are anticipated to be inclusive of, but not limited to, the following:

2. Blueprints for 1962 pier, as relied upon by city engineer in drawing up new plans

3. Blueprints for 2007 pier as originally provided in a bid-letting to contractor

4. Revisions to 2007-08 pier [blueprints] as revised during progress of construction

5. Soil tests, whether undertaken at the planned site of pier reconstruction or whether adapted from another coastal site deemed by you to be typical of coastal soil conditions.

6. Material which may be cited by Title, Paragraph, Section and Publication Date and not required to be produced, but rather listed, and consisting of the following: Any authoritative sources, studies or professional publications relied upon by city engineer in preparation of design blueprints for the pier

7. Worksheets showing any mathematical calculations performed by engineer for pilings, girders, beams, joists, lumber, hardware used for attachments and the anticipated loading factors they were anticipated to withstand.

8. If “debris loading” was among the loading factors, identify weight of debris and water speed employed in calculations mentioned above.

9. Piling installation log or any similar documentation noting relevant data about piling embedment, relationship of markers on piling to fixed marker on land, or length of pilings as determined from a “surveyed point of reference” on land to the pile tips, and documented cutoff lengths taken from the butt-end of pilings #1 to #70. If the project relied upon a fixed upland marker, please identify its location and Mean Sea Level.

10. Pile driving log, inclusive of any log created during what may have been “test pile” driving and indicating the piling numbers of any piles #1 through #70 which may have served as test piles in varying locations.

11. If the “logs” delineated immediately above do not provide information about the weight of pile-driving hammer, please provide any documentation supporting what that hammer weight was.

12. Contract documents inclusive of original-as-executed contract and any later amendments, revisions, supplements or other alterations to terms and conditions by whatsoever manner achieved.

13. Work Orders issued by city engineer to contractor, if any. If any such Work Orders required approval of a Commissioner, or a Resolution of full Commission, please produce any documents reflecting that approval.

14. Work orders issued by engineer or any other city official to city workers, respecting work activities performed by them at the pier worksite.

15. Letters, facscimiles, e-mails, notes from meetings or any other written material (inclusive of electronic) to or from any of the following:
• R. A. Walters & Sons, Inc. as contractor
• Engineer(s) retained by contractor
• Any letter or other written (inclusive of electronic e-mail) communication from R. A. Walters & Sons, Inc. to engineer Lamont Czar which pre-dated the letter from Czar to Walters of 1/28/08 and provided Czar with a set of assumptions used by Czar in rendering his opinion in the later 1/28/08 letter. If you were not provided this documentation by R. A. Walters & Sons, Inc. then please request it from the contractor and furnish it.
• Subcontractors retained by contractor
• Suppliers of products or services, whether in direct privity of contract with contractor as purchaser or with City of Ventnor as purchaser.

16. Weekly progress reports from contractor

17. Weekly payroll reports from contractor

[OPRA Reporter]

Third OPRA request (continued)

18. Daily, weekly, monthly or any other periodic logs maintained by you, as City of Ventnor engineer, which show entries accounting for the date, time and observations pertinent to engineer’s inspections at the pier from start to completion of project.

19. Your report, or log or other documentation reflecting inspection of the pier after Tropical Storm Hannah.

20. Any letters, notices, or other communications from federal, state, county or other government agencies respecting the contractor’s compliance with relevant laws, regulations or standards and either sent to engineer by the agencies, or copied to the engineer by contractor or others.

21. Purchase Orders, whether executed by contractor or one of its subcontractors as direct payor(s), or whether executed by City of Ventnor as direct payor.

22. Invoices in engineer’s possession respecting the pier project, whether billed to contractor or one of its subcontractors as billable party or parties, or whether billed to City of Ventnor as billable party.

23. Change Orders or any other documents evidencing that contractor’s scope of work was increased, and showing nature of work performed and/or incremental charges.

24. Charge Backs or Change Orders or any other documents evidencing that contractor’s scope of work was decreased, and which evidence the nature of work waived, who other than contractor was to perform it, and the deduction from the Contract Sum granted as a credit to City of Ventnor as Owner with payment obligations under the Contract.

25. Orders respecting the handling, storage, removal, or other disposition of the railings removed from the pier during demolition phase(s).

26. With particular attention to the letter of 1/30/08 seeking waiver of the contract requirement for driving pilings the final 5 feet, and approved by intials on 2/1/08, please provide any written documentation inclusive of e-mail or FAX pursuant to which other city officials were placed on notice and/or approved alteration of contract requirements. If no written documentation exists, but an oral approval was secured, provide a supplemental explanatory sheet with relevant details of date and official consulted.

27. With respect to the letter of 1/30/08, which represents that certain equipment had already in the past, or would in the future, provide an adequate test of loading capacity on the pier, please provide a description of the equipment you observed at the work site and whether you personally saw it positioned on the pier proper, and at what locations on the pier proper it was so observed.

28. Please enumerate other projects which used Greenheart pilings and for which you have been the design professional in charge, and whether pile driving caused damage which you personally observed.

29. Pertaining to the Downbeach Current article of January 11th and an article interviewing you about the pier, and new railings, please advise who initiated the decision to replace all railings and on what date (approximate) that decision occurred.

30. Pertinent to the decision to purchase new railing, please indicate whether there was then known to be a problem of some of the old railing having become “lost” or “missing” such as to render re-use of old railing impracticable or impossible.

The new Commission entered the picture as the pier project was in its final stages and much might have been done by their predecessors in office, as payments were issued, which left the City of Ventnor in a weak bargaining position with the contractor. Commissioner Piatt noted the problem of the Current Fund being raided to pay the pier's costs in one of his first written reports to citizens in July.

Retainages are common in the realm of private contracting, and typically set at 10% of the total contract price if it is a Lump Sum Contract. Public contracting is a different beast, and it might be expected that Change Orders issued by or on behalf of City of Ventnor might have played out with additions and subtractions.

The contract might also have had a stated deadline for completion of the project, with penalties against the contractor. Why? An unfinished pier which was not available for use in high season might find pier revenues suffer.

WLV has one page of the contract -- the one which imposed a requirement that the final five feet of piling installation of all the piles be accomplished by so-called "pile driving" with a hammer. That same page of the contract waived off the requirement for so-called "test pile drivings" but the city engineer, in providing oral answers to questions at the last Commission meeting, suggested that some pile driving was done in his presence which sounded like it was, in fact, used as a form of test pile driving.

On a final note, WLV worked to achieve -- both as to its own piece of the workload and that requested of outside professionals -- the expedited segmentation, compression, and uploading to YouTube of the video of the last Commission meeting. It may be available as early as Monday.

In the expectation that there might be claims that WLV has any kind of sensibility about the plans for a clubhouse, WLV would deny that as being the case. WLV endorses all that enhances the experience of Ventnor residents in their enjoyment of the city. WLV has only one sensibility: that "good money" not be allowed to follow "bad money" if the pier cannot be fully documented as providing a safe foundation for further building. There are many ways to work-backwards to assuring safety if documents proving it, in the here and now, are found to be lacking or deficient. One possibility: Monitored load testing of the pilings could be undertaken in the area where the clubhouse is to be built.

WLV was informed that an "independent engineer" had assessed the pier and believed it to be safe for people and future buldings. WLV followed up and advised that it would submit an OPRA to request a copy of that engineer's report so it could be evaluated and posted on the Forums to reassure people, and put down any rumors. WLV got a response:

"Please don't waste anybodies time with an OPRA request for engineering study thier is not one."

Past practices which may have been over-reliant on word-of-mouth assurances simply don't cut it in the public realm. Those who only "speak" words of assurance are those who can't be held to account if or when things go wrong. All three elected officials and all city workers need to be on the same page and it is this page: that city business is written business, housed on public premises, and allowed to enjoy a fishbowl existence for public taxpayer viewing.


End of message.

[OPRA Reporter]

Cover of contract - undated - received as an over-the-transom document which was sent to WLV. The black and white document had gray shadowing over the names of Mayor Kreischer, Commissioner Vespertino and Solicitor Abbott. At the bottom, it indicates the document was prepared by the city engineer. The gray shadows suggested that there might be an original document somewhere, which had had color-highlighter applied to the names of individuals who were to be sent copies of the contract. If that were the case, then Commissioner Schafer, Administrator McCrosson and City Clerk Biagi were not included as recipients. The two Commissioners whose names were highlighted may have turned their copies over to the City Clerk's office for filing, however. It is not known if that's what happened.




At the bottom of the next document, and outside the area captured by the document scan, there was a letter and number combination showing "SS-32" which may have been a page number. This page arrived in the same way the cover page did. It suggests that there were contract amendments which might have amended an original and possibly "form contract" of some kind, that was released with the original bid-letting, or developed shortly after the sealed bids were opened. At the top, the page states that an additional part of the contract understanding was that "No test piles will be required."

The next section changes whatever the original Paragraphs 1 through 4 might have read and inserts substituted language. Paragraph 2 states that "Penetration achieved solely by jetting will not be acceptable."

The next set of terms described as 505.07 shows that whatever the original terms were, they got deleted. It repeats the requirement of what was above it, by stating that the last five (5) feet must be driven.

The heading "Determination of Bearing Values" might logically have looked to a stated number of tons of capacity such as 10 tons, 12 tons, 15 tons or the like. Axial capacity stated in that manner determines how much weight a piling can support from the top. It is usually calculated by counting the number of blows from a pile driving hammer needed to drive the final distance of a piling, and using those numbers as part of an engineering formula. Another aspect of a piling's capacity is "lateral" and looks to how much force a piling can withstand if a force hits it from the side.



At the bottom, the number of pilings at different lengths and their unit costs are left blank. The blueprints had listed piles by designated position numbers and at different lengths for each -- from 30' to 65' -- but the contract might have left things open-ended in case longer or shorter lengths were found to be appropriate, or the total number of piles was changed.



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Documents which were part of the original bid-letting in February 2007 had used a "form" allowing bidders to enter the separate components of their bid. It was photo-imaged for the front page articles about the pier and is shown again below. The entry at line #2 of that form suggests that what was going to be removed was 163 old pilings, which had variable lengths of as little as 30 feet, up to as much as 65 feet.

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Also imaged in those front-page articles was this bid comparison sheet from the first round of bid-letting early in 2007. Midlantic was the bid winner at that time, but it never went to contract as the city discovered its coffers were empty in March 2007. Midlantic employs union workers and the documents it produced to show its capability included one showing it as pre-qualified by the NJ Transportation Department to handle multi-million dollar contracts.

R. A. Walters & Sons, Inc., which did not bid for the job in the first round of bid-letting in Feb-Mar 2007, but which won in the second round of bid-letting during summer 2007, is non-union. The Walters Marine which bid in the first round is not the same firm as R.A.Walters.

[VentnorMod]

Documents from the building inspector and finance were picked up from the Clerk's office. Time cards from Public Works were reviewed. There were no PW Department Work Orders for the two weeks of information which were sought by the request. A report will be filed at a later time.