On Tuesday night, the council finally heeded advice that should have been taken long ago – to slow down the water project to get community buy-in. Missing from the discussion that night were critical figures that were the nucleus of the council’s problems, long before most of the members of the current council were even seated.
The event was the launching of Don Saylor’s campaign that would make him mayor in 2010, before moving over to the Board of Supervisors. The consulting firm is the one that would be directing the city’s water project.
If there were ever a such thing as a conflict of interest, this would be it. In fact, West Yost’s fingerprints have been all over such projects, with Jim Yost playing a critical role as a paid adviser to the city. In May of 2009, the council voted 3-2 (with Councilmembers Greenwald and Heystek dissenting) to authorize the city manager to “Execute Consultant Agreement with West Yost Associates for Wastewater Reclamation Alternative Analysis as a SOLE SOURCE AGREEMENT.” This meant they allowed West Yost to have non-competitive bids for conducting Wastewater Reclamation Alternative Analysis.
Around the same time, the council contracted again with West Yost to construct the East Area Water Storage Tank – yes the same one generating controversy for the art – the original cost was $600,000 as approved on July 15, 2008, but on April 21, 2009, a consent item authorized a project listed at $10.94 million.
“”The total project costs to design and build the East Davis Water Storage Tank are estimated to be 10.9 million. The 10 million dollar low interest loan with I-Bank (30-year amortization/approx. 4% interest rate) would fund construction, construction inspection and construction management costs associated with the East Davis water storage tank,” wrote the staff report.
Mayor Saylor’s decision to run for County Supervisor and leave the city council after six months played another role in this mess. In fact, both he and Bill Emlen share a good amount of blame, not only for leaving, but in the policies that were enacted, while they were there, on the water project.
However, the decision by Mayor Saylor to leave in January and Bill Emlen’s decision to take a position in Solano County last September left Davis in a leadership void. The city had an interim city manager, whose background was in finance, steering the ship with an interim public works director, and a mayor who had served less than a year on the council. It was an arrangement that was inviting trouble.
What is less known is that a policy perpetuated by Mr. Emlen and Mr. Saylor has helped shaped this debacle. It goes back, in fact, to the budget crisis.
As we have long argued, the City of Davis was largely, in 2008, oblivious to the perils it was facing. It was overly-reliant on a real estate bubble that was about to collapse, and sales taxes from an auto industry that was about to fail. Nevertheless, over the course of the first decade of this millennium, the city implemented labor contracts with salary increases, and pension and retirement benefits, that were wholly unsustainable.
When the economy finally collapsed in late 2008, the city tried to survive a multiyear recession and budget crisis by making a series of short-term moves to minimize impacts on employees. One of those decisions was to rely heavily on early retirements to create attrition for positions and then not replace the retirees.
And so we saw a number of long-time department heads leave their posts, and be replaced through a re-alignment by others with less experience and expertise. In addition, Mr. Emlen had a hiring policy that seem to favor the internal promotion of loyal employees to fill positions well outside of their expertise. This has left a huge vacuum in city hall that the current city manager and council are only now starting to grapple with.
All of this was done because the council, in 2008 and 2009, was not prepared to make the types of critical reforms that the council is now being forced to undertake. They thought they could ride this out short-staffed and through attrition, rather than through policy change, and they were wrong.
More importantly, from the perspective of the water policy, there are actual policy implications. One of them was the decision to allow Bob Weir, the longtime public works director and the person with the most direct knowledge of the water supply project, to retire.
It is not that we always agreed with Mr. Weir, nor is this meant to disparage Bob Clarke, but we maintain that the city lost a huge amount of institutional memory and specific knowledge of the project and how to accomplish rate increases when it lost Mr. Weir.
Taking over, at that point, was not only Bob Clarke but Jacques De Bra, who helped develop a rate structure that, frankly, no one exactly understands or knows how he arrived at it. The leadership vacuum led to no one seeking a proper rate study.
But there are more problems than just this facing the water supply project, and they come down to comments made in June 2010 about a smaller water rate hike and the outcry from the public on that modest rate hike.
Much has been made about the failure of the council to ramp up water rates during the planning stages of the water supply project. But less has been made about the failure of the council in 2010 to anticipate the storm of protests that have occurred.
The council had a preview of these problems in May 2010, as they began to increase the rates with a very modest 5% rate increase and were faced with about 50 angry ratepayers.
Protests by residents, fearful of impacts upon business and homes, were met with lectures from Councilmembers Souza and Saylor.
“These rates are a reasonable way to capture the costs we are going to incur and experience during the next year,” then-Mayor Pro Tem Saylor said.
He continued, “The rate changes, that we have now, need to go forward now. It’s a process that’s been under way for some time and in order for them to be effective in August, it is my understanding that this is the time when we need to make that adoption.”
However, Councilmember Souza acknowledged that the community had not been brought along.
“The community,” he said, “I believe the community still isn’t engaged in this. We have not made it to the point where we can make the connection between surface water and wastewater. We need to make that connection.”
While Mr. Souza acknowledged that in May, I made the point, both on these pages and to council, that they needed to engage in a long discussion with the public on what was going to happen with the water rates. Otherwise, I predicted, there would be ten times the number of protests.
And yet, council failed to take heed. They continued to move forward with the project, with the JPA, and did their meager water outreach meetings that found few people engaged until the Prop 218 notices came out and suddenly the public was on fire.
This was entirely predictable and avoidable, but the council, in the years leading up to these water rates, thought merely having workshops and public meetings was sufficient.
And so now the council is finally acknowledging, three months after passing the 218 rate hikes on September 6, that mistakes were made, the public was not on board and the rates were convoluted and problematic.
Someone commented on Wednesday that Woodland leaders were really lecturing the public. The people who need to be lectured to are, in fact, no longer involved – Bill Emlen and Bob Weir on the one hand, and Don Saylor on the other, who was nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that he is the Board of Supervisors representative on the JPA.
I am sure that is mere coincidence, as is the fact that he just happened to be photographed at a campaign event with one of the principles of the city’s water consultant company.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]And yet, council failed to take heed. The continued to move forward with the project, with the JPA, and did their meager water outreach meetings that found few people engaged until the Prop 218 notices came out and suddenly the public was on fire.[/quote]
I have my own view of what went wrong, which does not necessarily agree with the Vanguard’s assessment. Nevertheless, what is it that the city should have done beyond the “meager outreach meetings”; the newspaper articles; the mailers, in your view? Or is it that the public doesn’t become engaged until things actually near the point when it is actually going to hit their individual pocketbooks? As one woman said in one of the outreach meetings, which typifies this phenomenon, “I don’t read the newspapers and don’t have a computer or follow local issues, but I’m angry because I feel blindsided by these water rate increases”…
It is not rocket science and the city is rather forthcoming in admitting that it simply is in the dark ages when it comes to communications. We don’t have a facebook page, we don’t have a real and working email list to send out announcements, the website is useless, that’s how you reach people now and we don’t do that. That’s a start.
You can’t expect the public to read the newspaper and watch council meetings on TV. I wish we could, but we can’t.
ERM
“I don’t read the newspapers and don’t have a computer or follow local issues, but I’m angry because I feel blindsided by these water rate increases”…”
Great quote Elaine. And I think likely to be representative of those who were caught off guard by the increases. I do have a computer and until recently, only cursorily followed most local issues. The amount of attention one pays to local issues is a matter of personal choice. Also, people have different views of what constitutes education vs what is badgering. During this debate, one persons intent to provide an alternative point of view was another person’s “blocking”. The city council should not be held responsible for the citizens willful maintenance of ignorance.
I would join Elaine is asking you what specific steps you think would have been adequate for the city to take prior to the raising of rates.
[quote]We don’t have a facebook page, we don’t have a real and working email list to send out announcements, the website is useless, that’s how you reach people now and we don’t do that. That’s a start. [/quote]
Now let me make sure I have your ideas straight:
1) Facebook page
2) Website page that isn’t useless
3) Send out announcements
To each of these comments I would like to point out the following:
1) Many people do not have computers; if they don’t have a computer or don’t read a newspaper, they are not any more likely to look at/access a facebook page. I don’t use facebook much, and I’m pretty computer savvy…
2) Why is the website page that exists now useless? I can usually find what I am looking for without too much trouble. What is it about the webpage on water issues that you do not care for? Please be specific.
3) The city did send out announcements on a regular basis, but a lot of people just throw them in the trash without reading them.
And one other point: do you honestly think anything the city said would have convinced opponents to change their views on this project? The opponents seem pretty convinced they are being lied to by city staff/anyone involved w the project no matter what information is put out there in whatever form…
David
A Facebook page , website, and email list, while I agree are all important and should be instituted, will not help those who do not have computers and choose not to follow local events.
And as an aside, how do you propose we pay for the maintainence of such sites. What city staffer should we appoint to do this ? And which of their duties are they going to let slide in order to maintain these sites ? Alternatively I suppose, we could farm this out as an ongoing internship or public service opportunity for a techie high school group ?
One thing nearly every home has is a TV so in theory better use might be made of the community channel. But I doubt you will get much return on your investment since there is simply no way to make people pay attention to local issues if they simply do not care unless it affects them financially.
[quote]You can’t expect the public to read the newspaper and watch council meetings on TV. I wish we could, but we can’t.[/quote]
So what you are saying is that the public chooses to remain ignorant of the issues? How is that the city’s fault?
Personally, I think there are four camps in this discussion on the surface water project:
1) Proponents who believe the surface water project is the cheapest/best alternative;
2) Opponents who believe there are too many questions to know if the surface water project is the cheapest/best alternative;
3) Opponents who believe the surface water project is the best alternative but advocate delay even if it will result in more costs, bc they don’t want to jeopardize the parks/school parcel taxes or want to pay off the wastewater treatment plant upgrade first;
4) Opponents who just don’t want to pay more for their water and may/may not be engaged at all on the issue.
Someone can add categories if I’ve left any group out…
I might add another category:
5) Opponents that are a little bit of 2, 3, and 4!
The Swanson-Wolk proposal, carried out diligently and conscientiously, with no deadlines but rather in-depth deconstruction of this project with conscientious consideration of alternatives,major efforts at on-going transparency and changes in the JPA and citizen advisory commission membership that adds credibility to this diligent and conscientious effort on behalf of the Davis citizens ….
This Vanguard summary outlines why this project will not be “rescued” by Krovoza pleading “mistakes were made”, and then turning a deaf ear while claiming to hear the voters,”loud and clear”. The above is the only way that credibility and trust can be restored to this project and it will not be going forward without it.
ERM
“do you honestly think anything the city said would have convinced opponents to change their views on this project? The opponents seem pretty convinced they are being lied to by city staff/anyone involved w the project no matter what information is put out there in whatever form…”
I think this speaks to the real issue with regard to the surface water issue. David and I will have to remain in disagreement here. I believe that the most vocal opponents on this issue are not truly interested in facts, reasoned arguments, democratic process or the interests of the low income citizens. What they are interested in is destroying the possibility of the surface water project going through for reasons they do not appear willing to articulate. My evidence for this view ? Michael Harrington’s repeated statements that this is his goal. His consistent refusal to address even the most basic questions about what he and his group would perceive as reasonable alternatives ( unlike Sue who has been very forthcoming).
Ernie Heads statement at public comment that his intent is to relentlessly pursue the issue with initiatives presumably until the outcome suits him.
The use of paid, and as I posted previously, signature gathers whose lack of in depth knowledge and biased coaching made them prime disseminators of suspicion and inaccurate information, and only then just managed to squeak buy with the requisite number of signatures.
To me these actions are the the antithesis of the democratic ideal in which an educated public would make choices based on free and fair debate
Of all the relevant facts and information free from name calling and fingerpointing which seem to be the MO of this particular group.
“…the original cost was $600,000 approved on July 15, 2008, but on April 21, 2009, a consent item authorized a project listed at $10.94 million.”
Can this really be true? $600,000 to $11 million? So much for credibility of the cost figures that we are being offered now generated through the same process.
[quote]The above is the only way that credibility and trust can be restored to this project and it will not be going forward without it.[/quote]
Again you assume you “know” what the voters are thinking… no one knows that. In so far as I am aware, no polls were taken…
Elaine
I would add a fifth category : Those who oppose the project under any circumstances for reasons they do not care to make public.
“Or is it that the public doesn’t become engaged until things actually near the point when it is actually going to hit their individual pocketbooks?
This is exactly the political calculation that was made, to advance this project in piece-meal fashion,under the political radar of the Davis voter, without its rate impact being addressed publicly until Saylor’s Xmas “coup” which they then hoped to ride out public outrage with the claim that “the horse had already left the barn”.
Editorial in today’s (Friday, 12/9/2011) Sac Bee:
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/09/4110581/is-davis-set-to-scuttle-woodland.html
Davissite2 wrote: “‘ …the original cost was $600,000 approved on July 15, 2008, but on April 21, 2009, a consent item authorized a project listed at $10.94 million.’ Can this really be true? $600,000 to $11 million? So much for credibility of the cost figures that we are being offered now generated through the same process.”
THanks for taking us down memory lane. I forgot about that one.
The same people allied around Saylor and Yost brought you the huge increase for the tank are the ones who gave you the surface water project’s rates debacle, and the basic project itself.
Connect the dots.
ERM: why don’t you use some of your copious amounts of free time and study the last 10 years of campaign contributions and look for the patterns?
Is that really true? $600,000 to $11,000,000 in only 3 years?
I’ve got to believe that those numbers are wrong.
Michael Harrington
better yet, why don’t we all use our “copious amounts of time” to present and discuss alternatives instead of stirring up unneccesry fear and animosity and issue threats ?
DG – While there has been a lack of principles at times during the water debate, it is clear from your story that your headline should have read as follows:
[i]Commentary: Water Problems Were A Long Time Coming with the [b]Principals[/b] Absent on Tuesday.[/i]
Learn the difference between principle and principal here (and eleswehere):
[url]
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/principal-versus-principle.aspx%5B/url%5D
$600,000 was for the initial planning and consulting. It was a consulting agreement. $10 million was for the construction of the tank. When you distort something intentionally, that is called [i]lying.[/i]
[i]THanks for taking us down memory lane. I forgot about that one.[/i]
Apparently you forgot because it never happened – but sometimes, inconvenient facts get in the way of a message, don’t they?
[i]ERM: why don’t you use some of your copious amounts of free time and study the last 10 years of campaign contributions and look for the patterns?[/i]
We should also spend some time looking for the patterns of Ernie Head’s behavior. He has sold water well sites to the city before (and been involved in lawsuits with the city over the water well sites). Perhaps he owns others sites that are suitable for the new deep wells the city would be forced to drill if the surface water project were to be delayed.
“$600,000 was for the initial planning and consulting. It was a consulting agreement. $10 million was for the construction of the tank”
An interesting piece of further information would be whether Yost was awarded both the consultative fee and the construction and what the nature of the competitive bidding process.
David Suder and others, sorry I did not catch that when I went through David’s article a little while ago.
davisite2 said:
“$600,000 was for the initial planning and consulting. It was a consulting agreement. $10 million was for the construction of the tank”
“An interesting piece of further information would be whether Yost was awarded both the consultative fee and the construction and what the nature of the competitive bidding process.”
davisite2, to the best of my knowledge, West-Yost is an engineering firm. They consult and they design. They do not construct projects. It is also not uncommon for design or consulting work not to be bid-out, but simply awarded after looking at the credentials of various candidates and negotiating the terms of an agreement. Bidding isn’t always the best way to get the best quality/cost/timeframe outcome. Did you seek bids when you selected your doctor or lawyer? Bids work much better when the product is a commodity and when there are a number of people or firms that can do the work equally well. Sometimes certain people and/or firms are in a better position to do a project or assignment because of experience or past work. Also, the cost and time to bid-out a project should not be overlooked. You might eat up any savings in bid process and lose important time as well. I don’t know the specifics of the project you have identified, but these could all be legitimate reasons for a sole-source contract decision. It would be nice to have some evidence of corruption before you start implying such things, but I guess we all have our own standards.
It would be interesting for the public to know how much of an indirect financial interest you had in one of the firms that bid on the project and didn’t get the job. (Since we’re just looking for “interesting pieces of further information”.)
DG, that was pretty sloppy “reporting” if Don Shor is correct about the design work being $600,000 and the construction being $10MM+. Have you since delved further into this to either contradict Don or offer a retraction? This is what can happen when you are trying to find support for a conclusion you have already made.
DG: “Mayor Saylor’s decision to run for County Supervisor and leave the city council after six months played another role in this mess. In fact, both he and Bill Emlen share a good amount of blame, not only for leaving, but in the policies that were enacted, while they werer there, on the water project.”
DG: “However, the decision by Mayor Saylor to leave in January and Bill Emlen’s decision to take a position in Solano County last September left Davis in a leadership void. The city had an interim city manager, whose background was in finance, steering the ship with an interim public works director, and a mayor who had served less than a year on the council. It was an arrangement that was inviting trouble.”
I thought you were happy that Saylor was gone from the City Council. Are you now missing his “leadership”?
DG: “More importantly, from the perspective of the water policy, there are actual policy implications. One of them was the decision to allow Bob Weir, the longtime public works director and the person with the most direct knowledge of the water supply project, to retire.”
I agree, Davis should not have “let” Bob Weir retire.
DG: “Someone commented on Wednesday that Woodland leaders were really lecturing the public. The people who need to be lectured to are, in fact, no longer involved – Bill Emlen and Bob Weir on the one hand, and Don Saylor on the other, who was nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that he is the Board of Supervisors representative on the JPA.”
OK, Bob Weir needs to be “lectured”, but the City shouldn’t have “let” him retire. And you think that Saylor should have appeared before the Davis City Council to voice his opinion on the whole matter, or “just be seen”? Do I have that right?
DG: “I am sure that is mere coincidence, as is the fact that he just happened to be photographed at a campaign event with one of the principles of the city’s water consultant company.”
Are you implying that the photograph was not a coincidence or that the Mayor talking to one of the “principals” of one of the City’s consultants was not a coincidence? What’s the issue here related to the photograph that you are implying is inappropriate? Reporters and their photographers take lots of pictures and they print the ones that they think help convey the point of their story. Not sure what the relevance is of the “coincidence” comment. You are making a lot of suggestions and/or insinuations of impropriety, it seems to me. I hope that from a “reporting” perspective you’ve got something to back it up, if that is the appropriate standard.
“It would be interesting for the public to know how much of an indirect financial interest you had in one of the firms …”
Actually, I have no financial interest(or any personal interest) in any of this. Rifkin suggested, in an earlier posting, that my interest(at the age of 72) was in blocking change while I was still above the sod and not in the future of my city. On the contrary, at my age, the long-term effects of this project,as proposed,will obviously have a quite limited personal impact.
“$600,000 was for the initial planning and consulting. It was a consulting agreement. $10 million was for the construction of the tank”
My recollection is that the water tank was described as necessary for water pressure issues in South Davis and no mention was made of it being integral to the surface water project. Is this correct? If not, it would be another example of how this project was moved forward while the “offical” narrative was that no decisions had been made.
From the staff report cited in David’s link re: consulting contract:
“Seven consulting firms submitted responses to our Request for Proposal and four of those firms were interviewed. West Yost was determined to be the most qualified for this project.”
Further information from Google search and from city council minutes:
The tank was built by DYK Incorporated. A bid was also submitted by Natgun. A choice was made between steel vs concrete tank, and costs were compared both in immediate outlay and long-term costs and lifespans.
West Yost won an award for the design of the tank.
The history of the East Area Tank Project is found in the minutes of the city council from June 2, 2009.
“History of the East Area Tank Project
1989
The idea of a water tank in the east area was first mentioned in the City of Davis Water System
Management Plan, prepared by Brown and Caldwell in March 1989. In their section, “Evaluation
of the Future System” (Page 8-8), they state, “Two or more storage tanks should be located across
the demand centers from one another and generally equidistant from the sources.” Later in that
same section: “Two storage tanks were located on the (water distribution) model, however,
additional tanks would benefit flow distribution.” Map 2 of that report “Future System” locates
these two storage tanks, one in the west area of Davis and one in the east area. In the next section
of the report titled, “Storage Versus Production” (page 8-8), it states, “Based on this analysis, it is
recommended that the City provide between 4 and 8 mg of total storage volume by the year
2010.”
There is more there. The minutes are on the city web site.
“Davis should not have “let” Bob Weir retire.”
I am assuming that Bob Weir’s retirement was has choice and I see no way that the city could have stopped him. Let me posit another possible narrative: Bob Weir recognized that the sh%t was about to hit the fan when the control of the surface water project passed from Saylor’s Council Majority to a new group that would closely examine how this project was handled for the past decade and the rate hikes finally had to be addressed. It is interesting that all of the principals, Saylor, Emlen and Weir do not hold office in Davis now that would require them to give an official account.
West Yost Associates, which is based in Davis, had 95 employees as of 2010, and was ranked in the top ten of civil engineering firms to work for:
[url]http://www.cenews.com/magazine-article-cenews.com-october-2010-2010_best_civil_engineering_firms_to_work_for_-8062.html[/url]
Bidding to select a consulting firm isn’t only “not always a good idea”, it is against the law. You start with a “request for qualifications”. You interview the consultants who are interested. You then rank them in order of who you believe is most qualified. You then attempt to negotiate tinal scope, and try to reach agreement on price. Failing that, you move on to the #2 choice, and repeat the process, and so on, until you either retain a consultant to abandon the process.
hpierce, thanks for the better insight into how the process is supposed to work. All of this inuendo by some regarding how the City’s process of selecting various vendors is improper, with not only a lack of evidence of impropriety, but when the method of selection is required by law, appears to be what people resort to when they don’t like decisions or outcomes,but lack justifications that they believe would be compelling to others. How sad….
So, just to clarify:
David Greenwald:
[i]“Around the same time, the council contracted again with West Yost to construct the East Area Water Storage Tank – yes the same one generating controversy for the art – the original cost was $600,000 as approved on July 15, 2008, but on April 21, 2009, a consent item authorized a project listed at $10.94 million.”
[/i]
Incorrect.
davisite2:
[i]“Can this really be true? $600,000 to $11 million? So much for credibility of the cost figures that we are being offered now generated through the same process.”[/i]
Incorrect.
Michael Harrington:
[i]“THanks for taking us down memory lane. I forgot about that one. The same people allied around Saylor and Yost brought you the huge increase for the tank are the ones who gave you the surface water project’s rates debacle, and the basic project itself.[/i]”
Incorrect. And the “same people” didn’t cause the “rates debacle.”
davisite2:
[i]“An interesting piece of further information would be whether Yost was awarded both the consultative fee and the construction and what the nature of the competitive bidding process.”[/i]
No, it wasn’t. They don’t do construction. The bidding process for the initial consulting contract was competitive. The bidding for the tank was competitive.
davisite2:
[i]“ My recollection is that the water tank was described as necessary for water pressure issues in South Davis and no mention was made of it being integral to the surface water project. Is this correct? If not, it would be another example of how this project was moved forward while the “offical” narrative was that no decisions had been made.”[/i]
It would be hard to say where you got that recollection.
This whole discussion has been an excellent example of the amazing distortions and denigrations that have characterized one side of the debate about the surface water project. Too bad David Greenwald enabled it with his incorrect reporting. And the amazing thing is, most of the incorrect reporting here was easily disputed by looking at David’s own link, and a little online research.
The ongoing vilification of a reputable local engineering firm has troubled me from the beginning of this discussion on this blog, years ago. You all should get your fact straight before you report or comment.
newhoundpm said: “Davis should not have “let” Bob Weir retire.”
davisite2 said: “I am assuming that Bob Weir’s retirement was has choice and I see no way that the city could have stopped him.”
I was being facetious. Of course the city couldn’t have stopped him. However, this is what DG seemed to be implying should have been done. Too many silly statements in this “Commentary”, if you ask me.
From what DG has said in the past, he believes that all of his writings are “reporting”, including his Commentary. What is the distinction between “Commentary” and “Editorials”, if anything? I’ve no training in journalism, so I guess the distinctions are lost on me. Are there any journalistic standards to “reporting”, “commentary” or “editorials” as it relates to presenting or checking one’s facts?
DG said: “If there were ever a such thing as a conflict of interest, this would be it.”
So, what is this prime example of a “conflict of interest”? Is it that someone attending a fundraiser where the candidate in its current job has made decisions that have benefited that individual? Maybe it should be illegal for anyone to contribute funds to anyone who has or could make a decision that would have a material effect on the donor. Should that be the standard?
hpierce, do you know who ranks the firms that submit their qualifications in the RFQ process and then decides whether the terms that could be negotiated are acceptable or not? Is it just staff, with the City Council having to ratify the decision, or do some members of the City Council take a more active role in such a process?
I hope that these are not staff recommendations. Also, why hire a highly qualified locally based consulting/engineering firm with vast local experience and a long-standing relationship with and reputation in the community that also happens to provide a fair number of pretty good jobs? No firm or individual should be allowed to contribute financially to anyone whose decisions could have any sort of a material impact on them, financially or otherwise. Or, maybe more reasonable would be that you could only contribute to those who haven’t and won’t support any interests of the contributor that the contributor would deem material. Well, maybe that’s not too likely. I know, make campaign contributions illegal altogether. Don’t allow candidates to self-fund because heck, they have maybe the biggest interest to see themselves get elected. Maybe either the government should equally fund all campaigns, or campaigning simply should not be allowed because there are “conflicts of interest” whenever anyone funds. Maybe this would be the best way to address this conflict of interest problem that is running particularly rampant in Davis. I now understand why some people believe that campaign funding should be solely by the government. Brilliant! Maybe I should start a campaign to push for this in Davis. Oh, that’s right, how would I fund such a campaign? When volunteers contribute their time, does that have any value? Should that be considered a campaign contribution? Need to think about that some more….
per davisite2: [quote]Let me posit another possible narrative: Bob Weir recognized that the sh%t was about to hit the fan when the control of the surface water project passed from Saylor’s Council Majority to a new group that would closely examine how this project was handled for the past decade and the rate hikes finally had to be addressed.[/quote] WOW! The city should not have let Bob Weir retire! The City could have been completely solvent, with oodles of cash to spare, if the City had him pick lotto numbers.
Bob Weir retired in December 2009… he had told the City Manager of his intentions 6-12 months in advance of that, as I understand it. It was June 2010 when Saylor ran for supervisor and Krovosa and Swanson won their seats on the council dais… in order to avoid deletion of this post as a personal attack, let it suffice to say that davisite2 has lost any credibility he/she/it may have had as far as I am concerned, and I suggest others use the above info to form their own opinions…
[quote]hpierce, do you know who ranks the firms that submit their qualifications in the RFQ process and then decides whether the terms that could be negotiated are acceptable or not? Is it just staff, with the City Council having to ratify the decision, or do some members of the City Council take a more active role in such a process?
[/quote]My understanding is, it varies… generally, it is senior/management staff, but depending on the nature of the work, it could involve an outside “third-party” (neutral) as well, but I believe the latter is very rare. Just like other employment decisions in the city, those making the final decision do not participate in the early evaluations. For city employment (normal employees) neither the future supervisor nor the department head sit in on the qualifications interview. The supervisor & department head often do the second interview, and make a recommendation to the City Manager. The CM either approves or disapproves.
“Selection Process for Design Consultant
A letter requesting consulting services for the design of the tank was sent to several engineering design firms on December 3, 2007. Seven firms responded by the April 11, 2008 deadline, and three were selected for interviews. The three firms selected were Kennedy Jenks, Carollo, and West Yost Associates. There were 5 City staff members on the interview panel, two from Engineering, one from the Water division, one from the Utilities Resource Management division, and the last was the Assistant Public Works Director. The firms were ranked with a scoring sheet and West Yost was selected as the most qualified team. On July 15th of 2008, City Council approved the consultant agreement for West Yost Associates to design the East Area Tank….”
“Around the same time, the council contracted again with West Yost to construct the East Area Water Storage Tank – yes the same one generating controversy for the art – the original cost was $600,000 as approved on July 15, 2008, but on April 21, 2009, a consent item authorized a project listed at $10.94 million.”
I apologize for not writing that as clearly as I should have. The council had gone through a good deal of discussion and approved the $600,000 to explore the option. The staff then came back with a $10 million project but for some reason decided to put it on the consent calendar rather than the regular calendar. It was ultimately pulled and fully discussed. So I didn’t mean to imply that a $600K project suddenly became a $10m project, what I did mean to imply was the magnitude of the cost, the influence of West Yost, campaign connections b/w West Yost and Saylor, and the fact that originally they tried to sneak it through as a consent item, suggesting it was non-controversial.
[quote][i]”…the decision by Mayor Saylor to leave in January and Bill Emlen’s decision to take a position in Solano County last September left Davis in a leadership void.”[/i][/quote]As I remember it, we could’t wait to see this pair get out the door. Don’t be blaming the problems with this project on the void left by the [u]departure[/u] of these folks. [quote]”Notable in his absence was former mayor and now Supervisor Don Saylor. It was a seemingly innocuous photo…Don Saylor was shown with Bruce West (at) the launching of Don Saylor’s campaign….If there were ever a such thing as a conflict of interest, this would be it.”[/quote]No matter how many times you try to make something sinister out of this photo, the more innocuous it becomes. Where’s the conflict of interest? And the charges that West got the $10-million tank construction job through the city council maneuvering an underhanded cost increase were discredited more two years ago when David’s misleading report appeared with the same photo. [quote] “More importantly, from the perspective of the water policy, there are actual policy implications. One of them was the decision to allow Bob Weir, the longtime public works director and the person with the most direct knowledge of the water supply project, to retire.”[/quote]Say, what?![quote]”I am sure that is mere coincidence, as is the fact that he just happened to be photographed at a campaign event with one of the principles of the city’s water consultant company.”[/quote]Once innocuous, always innocuous. It’s all a matter of principal.
WHat do you mean where’s the conflict of interest – Saylor taking campaign money from consultants of a major water project and then casting the deciding vote isn’t a conflict of interest? Do you also believe it is not a conflict for Saylor to take firefighter money and then vote for a lucrative raise in their contract?
Had to work and missed all of this fun. Looking it over I am struck with the wisdom of hindsight.
hpierce… almost all of my postings here are either posted in the form of a question or offering something that I believe would be worthwhile for readers to think about and not offered as established fact. IMO, this is important since the narrative for this project was always strictly controlled(with continuing attempts from the dais) and only now is there the potential to reopen it to scrutiny.Don’s replies to my posts are valuable in this respect but the documentation offers little help as to whether there are/were legitimate alternative views that never made it into the record. “history( read narrative of this project) is written by the winners(read those who hold the reins of power)”.
[quote]”Around the same time, the council contracted again with West Yost to construct the East Area Water Storage Tank – yes the same one generating controversy for the art – the original cost was $600,000 as approved on July 15, 2008, but on April 21, 2009, a consent item authorized a project listed at $10.94 million.”
I apologize for not writing that as clearly as I should have. The council had gone through a good deal of discussion and approved the $600,000 to explore the option. The staff then came back with a $10 million project but for some reason decided to put it on the consent calendar rather than the regular calendar. It was ultimately pulled and fully discussed. So I didn’t mean to imply that a $600K project suddenly became a $10m project, what I did mean to imply was the magnitude of the cost, the influence of West Yost, campaign connections b/w West Yost and Saylor, and the fact that originally they tried to sneak it through as a consent item, suggesting it was non-controversial.[/quote]
What if readers had not been so vigilant with their research? Your “unclear” wording would have given the public a completely false impression. To blow this off as mere “unclear” wording is a bit disingenuous IMO. If you are making disparaging comments, try and be clear what you are disparaging, the specific connections and evidence. I understand the service you provide to the community with this blog, but I’m sure you don’t want false information emanating from the Vanguard. Too much of what has come from the Vanguard lately is more fabricated innuendo than evidence based, which helps no one understand the issues…
“It was June 2010 when Saylor ran for supervisor and Krovosa and Swanson won their seats on the council dais…”
Don Saylor ran unopposed for Supervisor so it was a far-gone conclusion that he would lose control of the Council although he did decide to stay on the Council(against all of the well-founded reasons that were offered for him to step aside and allow an election for his replacement)and keep control right up until the Xmas coup vote on the project. Weir’s decision to make the DECISION to retire in December could very well have anticipated the Council and its “leadership” in flux.
[quote]Weir’s decision to make the DECISION to retire in December could very well have anticipated the Council and its “leadership” in flux.[/quote]
Do you have any evidence to back this up?
davisite2 has no evidence (again) to posit that Mr Weir knew, in Spring of 2009, that Saylor would run unopposed, nearly 14 months later, nor who would run for City Council (much less who would win election. Mr Weir is no Nostradamus (sp?).