Public Works Department: No. 4: Violations of the Code

Opinion

Before Taos Friction finishes this series on the Public Works Department at the Town of Taos, the posts will reveal how the Town, including at least two administrations of elected, appointed, and classified officials have circumvented the procurement code: The Town appears to hire the same engineer, repeatedly at a cost below $50,000 in a blatant attempt to escape regulations. (The architect “De La Torre” was similarly hired on a serial month-to-month contract, renewable at a cost below $50,000 for professional services, to design the Youth and Family Center, which disaster taxpayers are confronting today.) Further, the department has “fixed” bids in a post-bid process, renegotiated or otherwise manipulated the contracts to fit the needs of local contractors or “friendly” engineering consultants.

Here’s the point for those whose eyes are diverted by controversies surrounding the Farmer’s Market, Kit Carson Park, or even the Abeyta-Spring Ditch matter: while you were enjoying the spectacle and the Mayor, Manager, and Councilor Hahn released the forces of hysteria against Council Woman Cantu, the Cowboy in the Black Hat and his blue-collar buddies, grateful for the diversion, continue behind the scenes to hijack the public purse.

No amount of GRT generated by a few events will make-up for the hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in the morass of municipal corruption. No amount of fuss about the Manager’s inability to communicate can be quantified by the loss of hundred thousand dollars here, a hundred thousand dollars there.

Recently, the Town merged or otherwise traded in the Chile Line to the Blue Bus people in an attempt to reduce duplication and save taxpayer money in the amount of, say, reportedly $150,000 annually. That’s a start. Hundreds of thousands of dollars go out to the unnecessary outside management of the Waste Water Treatment plant and hundreds of thousands of dollars more over a decade have been lost in the Water Department, where “special interests,” the current and former mayor’s friends, are allowed to operate private wells in defiance of town’s decades-old ordinances and in defiance of the spirit if not the letter of the Abeyta Settlement. Miscreants deplete the Water Department’s enterprise fund and cause honest citizens to pay higher rates for town water.

Potholes and roads, sewer projects and water lines: that’s where the contractors congregate ‘cause that’s where the money is. What activists and supporters must ask, first themselves, then the elected officials: does the political will exist to weed out corruption at Town Hall and stop the hemorrhaging? Regardless of the way Department heads or even the Manager pull the wool over the eyes of elected officials, the Town Council and Mayor are responsible for fiduciary oversight.

Bertha Road Improvements and La Posta Road Sewer

In fiscal year, 2013/2014, a contract was let for the above. Engineers Inc., the Town’s contract engineer, was paid $60,000 plus GRT and estimated the Bertha Road/La Posta Sewer Project at $420, 063.21. The low bid from Northern Mountain Constructors exceeded the estimate by 47% or $198,117.29 for a total of $618, 180.50 and should have been rejected and rebid. But it was allowed.

Among other extraordinary expenses, the contractor billed the town $40,000 for traffic control management and $50,000 for mobilization (to move equipment). (Instead of siccing parking control officers on parking meter violators, the Town could send these “meter minders” out to save the community “$50,000″). According to documents, the Public Works Department combined road and sewer improvements in one engineering contract so as to circumvent a limitation on engineering fees for the road improvements.

(The details will come out in the whistle-blower lawsuit.)

Next up, Taos Friction will bring you brief stories on the scandalous doings of fixing 375 feet of roadway at a cost of $310,990.50 on Merced, as well as news on how engineering costs exceeded 30% of project costs just for waterline design from Highway 68 to Salazar.

While merchants go broke, due to a lack of visitors and poor marketing, so greedy engineers and avaricious contractors get rich by sticking the taxpayers with bills. The current and former supporters of the Barrone and Bellis and Cordova administrations will say, “All small towns do this.”

What’s most disappointing about Bellis and Barrone concerns their former association with Taos County, where they should have learned sound fiscal habits. Time and again one hears presentations from county employees like Leandro Cordova, Finance, Susan Trujillo, Treasurer, and quiet Bob Malone, Attorney who repeatedly report to officials and warn employees to mind the budget and follow the letter of the “procurement” code. At the County it takes three comparative bids and three days to buy an object worth $500.

But at the Town officials look the other way while French wastes a hundred thousand dollars on one project. As a commissioner Barrone bragged about building the county complex, saying the project came in on time and nobody went to jail. Bellis bragged about resolving the TCHA embezzlement scandal. Fritz whined about potholes and promised financial oversight during his campaign, yet, according to my source, Fritz advised the former employee to avoid Taos Friction with his scandalous documents. So much for transparency.

Donde estan Barrone y Fritz? Que Pasa, mis amigos?