COMPETITIVE BIDDING PRACTICES
During the Public Works
Meeting held on August 19, 2013 a discussion/recommendation to renew the
TEST contract was addressed. Both Alderman Waldorf and Alderman
Lukosus stated they recommended the renewal of the TEST contract without
going out for bids. They had Treasurer Hylla read a scenario of what
possible costs could be. He stated 6 full-time employees salary of
$315,000 per year and testing costs of $289,100 per year. Does TEST
currently have 6 full-time employees at the Water/ Waste Water plants
now? Or 4 full-time employees plus the cost of a secretary and company
President Perra. TEST has never explained how many are really employed
at the Water/Waste Water locations.
How many tests are
performed to achieve a cost of $289,100. I can understand biological
wastewater reporting and testing and chloride testing of drinking water
but at $100 to $150 a test this is an amazing amount of tests
preformed. TEST has held this contract without going out for bids for
many years. WHY? Do certain individuals own interest in this company
that are or were on the city payroll?
It is time to require our
City of Peru Administrators to place this contract out for bids. Why the
rush now, the contract does not expire until December 2013.
During the August 26, 2013
regular council meeting representatives from a Water/WasteWater
Treatment Company were in attendance and an elderly woman from Peru
sitting near them. The Mayor saw new faces and came over to ask what
their purpose was in attending the meeting. They stated their purpose,
the mayor left and had Clerk Bartley return to them and inform them they
would not be allowed to speak even during the Public Comment time at
the end of the meeting. The city was wrong according to the meeting
rules. Clerk Bartley called the representative on Tuesday to inform her
they were wrong. Citizens of Peru need to contact their elected
Aldermen and Mayor and voice their displeasure of a Carte Blanc contract
for TEST. I attended both these meetings and will continue to attend
meetings to get the correct information out to the citizens of Peru.
MIKE HART
PERU RESIDENT
33 comments:
A friend called this morning to let me know that she heard on WLPO Rod Thorson morning show, that he did not see the topic on the agenda for tonight. It IS listed under the Ordinances that will be approved by the Council. This agreement does not draw up a new contract, it simply adds an agreement to the original and is called a rider.
The biggest problem with our elected officials is they are incapable of doing what is right no matter what the issue in the city is. Can't wait for the treasurer to spin this TEST topic tonight. Bill O'Reilly Look Out, the spin DOES not stop here in Peru.
Lois what does the agreement to the original include? How does this rider address the addition of all new county, state, and federal laws?
Have all neccessary duties that TEST has been performing free gratitous been now included as contractual duties.
If for any reason, financial or otherwise, will Peru still have the power to end its contract with TEST upon a 30 day notification?
Ultimately is this $3,000,000 5year no competitive bid being dealt with as a rider rather than a completely new contract to conceal silent partners and the responsible parties acting as Board of Directors (if TEST has a Board of Directors). Would certain disclosures be a embarrassment to both past and present associates of both city officials and TEST's representation. Maybe, just maybe certain influential individuals occupy a chair in each at this time and have for a long time.
Sad to say this issue has emphasized that some of the present city officials, elected and appointed, are not worthy of being in their representative positions.
Ideas of a city council having a combination of ward representation with at large representation may be a thought to be considered within the future of Peru government representation. Also is Home Rule as efficient in Peru as it was when voted in over 35 years ago? Does Peru need a lobbyist in Springfield for representation or would the money be better spent on a energy expert telling us what we should be doing with our present energy problems in Peru? No energy problems? How about a hydro plant that over $14,000,000 is still owed on and gets very little in return for in green credits? How about a agreement with IMEA that being associated with Peabody Coal is costing the resident more money than going out on the open market for energy?
Now is a good time to re-evaluate the city government from the ground up and start to consider positive alternatives such as a City Manager being hired to manage the city with the Mayors position having diminished powers and diminished pay. The $24,000/year Budet Director could be reduced to a $6,000/year treasurer as elected for also if a City Manager was hired, The City Clerks $60,000/year position could be replaced by a lower paying position also if a City Manager was hired.
These are future thoughts but in six more hours the ethics and business knowledge of the present eight city council members will be recorded on video for all to see and judge on their own. Lets hope they are wise enough to vote for open and competitive bidding for fiscal responsibility in Peru.
Video tape it on cell phone and put on u tube
1:33 PM
In answer to your first question, residents are not allowed to read the ordinance before it is passed. Not all cities do this and some make the proposed ordinance available a week or 2 before it is presented for a vote.
Peru does not want you to know what they are about to vote on, that is the details.
I wonder what exactly the "5th rider" to the TEST contract involves. I suppose we will not find out until it's approved and accepted. I do believe however that after the lst year a 1.5% increase was mentioned. If my calculations are correct, and the increase is based on a yearly payment of $600,000, after five years we will be paying $131,360 more for TEST services.
MIKE I THINK YOUR RIGHT ! SOME WILL BE MISSING , VOTE , MONEY , OR STOCKS . THE COUNCIL WILL LOSE A LOT .
1:33 don't count on that video working tonight
This is 2:06. I apologize. My total figure was wrong. We will be paying test, after five years, an increase of roughly $91,000 not $131,000.
Videotape on cell phone! Wonder if all alderman will be in attendance? Wouldn't surprise me if one all of a sudden gets heat exhaustion and won't be there.
I wonder if you can have a super majority if not everyone shows up?
The increase is the past was based yearly on the Consumer Price Index All Urban average. The increase was not set in the contract or rider but based in the index.
Kristy
Seen at city hall this afternoon, one of our junior aldermen and looks like Treasurer Hylla was also available. Getting all their figures lined up for tonight.
Kristy
That does not guarantee a nice increase during recessions and price drops. When planning our summer houses and pools, as well as our slush fund for bribery, one needs to have an amount you can count on.
I have come to the conclusion that unfortunately, the people of Peru deserve exactly what they get from these leaders. There seems to be no issue that makes them show up and protest.
5 more years of grossly overpaying so that palms remain greased. So it goes.
Radtke is an idiot and proved it tonight with his comments..Sapienza is gone in 4 years he should have just put Harl name plaque in from of him so weak!!!
I sure hope those union boys from the police, electric, and public works dept heard Radtkes comment about going out for bid with all their jobs since the union contracts are over $20,000. What an ass. Do us a favor and go back to logic 101.
What a disappointment our city leaders are. If there is a problem with the bid not being sealed (Sapienzas reasoning) then I guess test is here forever. Better think about this for next time this comes around. Hopefully there will be a new group in there. We need to make sure people remember at election time the decisions that are being made now.
Perhaps someone could develop a scoreboard of all important decisions and how the players voted.
Most at tonites meeting understood that the issue was the belief that the water/water treatment contract should be let for open competitive bids. This issue was throughly explained by Alderman Perez several times but was deliberately misinterpreted by all other city representation.
There never was a opinion given that the work should be returned back to city employees or that the quality of Tests work was inferior. Once again most citizens of Peru asked for a open competitive bid to set a standard of what a fair cost of water treat would be. In this bid all would have liked to see Test participate. No one asked that a bid would be the sole standard for the judgement of who was to recieve this contract. Everyone would also want the quality factor to be included plus all other important variables.
The 7 to 1 vote cast tonight to reach a council super majority proved that this council and administration is working for itself and has forgotten their true mission which is representation of its constituents.
For some it has taken several years to reach this stage for others it has taken only four months. Many were proud of one person who through self determination and strong character stood alone and stood proudly. Thank You Alderman Rodney Perez.
Besides Rod, glazing over the audience one became aware that there were more qualified people in their midst than there were in front facing the crowd and the final 7 to 1 vote proved so.
Thee is no reason that TEST should be kicked out. They do the work for my company and take all the liability. That is all that peru needs is some more lazy Union idiots that screw something up and people from peru get sick or die and peru needs to hold the responsibility. I have watched a lot of the peru employees working, and there is a fair share of them that are worse that DOT workers. Let a company that knows what it is doing do the work and hold the liability.
Hey 9:06 - the citizens were not in attendance last night to throw TEST out. Those people were at the meeting to make sure that City tax dollars are protected and we are getting the biggest bang for our buck. As for your union bashing, please explain to me why the union is relevant to the no bid policy of the City. I think your comment about "I have watched a lot of the peru employees working" tells more about you than you know. You actually sit and watch people work? Then maybe you would know that those city workers are the ones providing clean water to you on a DAILY basis as they continue to fix the UNBELIEVABLE amount of water breaks that occur in this city. Ask for the repair log sometime. You would be amazed. Maybe we should do a little more competitive bidding to save a little money and use those funds to fix our failing infrastructure system. When you get a break from watching people work, call city hall and them how many water breaks occur in a week. Then ask yourself, how much would we save if we competitively bid out all professional contracts with the city and I bet we could come up with some of the funds to make our repairs. Chamlin should be the first to go! The savings alone from them could probably repair a ward!!
Anon 9:06 Where did you get the idea that TEST was being pushed out?
The issue was: A contract which is $20K or higher is to be submitted to bidding. TEST would have had every right to bid as all other interested corporations would.
It would be open to the clauses of the contract of how much any of the bidding corporations would have to assume or not assume.
10:43 nicely said.
My thought is any company could find out how much the city paid TEST for the last 5 years and make a logical judgment of what the price would be for the next 5 years. It doesn't matter that the figures for TEST were known.
Alderman Sapienza, I will call your bluff. As you stated to Alderman Perez, in a card game with a person holding the most money you cannot win. WRONG! NOT ONE TIME DID I HEAR ANY MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL MENTION OF A ONE YEAR CONTRACT AND THEN PUT IT OUT FOR NEW BIDS! In one way or another the Mayor , Treasurer, City Attorney, and at least 5 of the 8 Aldermen in the public jobs they have or had, had to have competitive bidding. I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST TEST, Mayor working for Local 150, contractors receive bids by being yhe lowest bidder not the best contractor. Hylla you competed for the lowest interst rate for potential homeowners. Ferrari and Radtke you are employed by companies that bid out to jobs. Potthoff the Board of Directors informs you as CEO to go out for bids. Sweickert your job is to get your client the most money in a settlement. All of you need to enroll in Business 101 at a local college. Did TEST have equipment in the building on Water Street that was flooding? To bad none of this was addressed at the meeting. The citizens of Peru are stuck once again. Thank you Rodney for speaking out.
The city attorney also has very limited environmental liability knowledge. No contractor can completely abrogate liability for environmental damages. It is true they can be jointly liiable,
It was similar to the shell game at the Power Plant demolition. Sell the building for a couple bucks to a demo contractor, claim no liability for the environmental clean up, then buy it back. True those are standard legal tactics to avoid environmental liability, but they have failed repeatedly when contested.
The city may have the grossly undermanned and understaffed IEPA in it's pocket, but in such cases citizens have enormous power under the enforcement provisions of the CWA. The attorney is in way over his head in these matters.
Next mayor Mike Hart! Perez stays as alderman. Get rid of everybody else. Even the hospitality person of clerk.
Schwekert is a stock holder in TEST. Just like he's was a partner in Peru Development Land Trust. And Peru Trade Center.
He was also in the group of prominent business men that bought up all the farm land north of 30th street long long long ago and sold it to development companies and or the city for 1000's of times of what they paid for it.
Anon 1:56 If you have proof of any of the above please bring it forward, of special interest is your statement that Schwekert was among a group of prominent business men that bought up all the farm land north of 30th street long, long, long ago and sold it to the city for 1000's of times what they paid for it. Was he a City Attorney or a Assistant City Attorney at the time and what was the time frame between this groups purchase and their sale to the city. This would not be the first time that the City of Peru has had legal difficulties with its own corporation counsel. In the 1960's the than corporation counsel resigned during a coucil meeting in which his actions were being debated.
10:13 That is the problem. Accusation. Nothing to back it up. If an attorney for the city openly lied about ownership on the public record, it is a big deal. If he in fact has ownership in it, there are many avenues to take to really cause a stink about this.
Who would just post that on a blog. Take action.
Can anyone check and see on the IEPA website how many black marks TEST has had recently?
Wasn't the city attorney the original owner of the house on debo off of twenty eight street- one blog from 30th street? Didn't this house get water in the basement over the last few years? Did the attorney speak up when these problems arose stating he use to live in that area (whether he had water in basment when be lived there). You are saying he owned that land north of 30th street. True??? Peru gets crazier by the day. A friend was thing about this one when there was basements getting flooded from the sewers being overloaded with rainwater. ???????
5.57
zero marks. now what? maybe we can look to see if they put bad things in their dumpster out back? maybe we can check to see if they paid the tax on their building? maybe we can see if they didn't pay for the new flowers at thier building. people stop with this nonsense. vote out the councel or run for office and then see what test really does or better yet, call them. i believe they have a phone number listed or on their website.
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