Who Investigates the Investigators?
Where else but Port Orange could you design and permit a job, get 2.9 million dollars to build it, and not build it according to specs!?
October 16, 2014
Dear Manager Harden,
Your memo on the operation of the Dunlawton Drainage System before, during and after the flooding of September 23-24 points out a number of failures to follow established operating protocols at the time. While these failures are serious and deserving of correction they may be, however, irrelevant to the question of whether the System will again fail in the next severe rain event. Sometime after the original design the City’s project manager, with the approval of Quentin L Hampton Associates, removed approximately 1400 ft of berm from the project. The berm was to have run primarily along the east side of the Halifax Canal from Dunlawton Avenue to the 90 degree bend in the canal and then veer slightly north across City land to Herbert Street. Removal of that berm from the plans, not failure to follow operating protocol, was the proximate cause of the flooding and closure of Dunlawton and of property damage in the Ruth St/Powers Av neighborhood.
During the September rain event water rose in the canal until it overflowed the banks exactly where a berm was to be constructed. The water then sheeted along Powers Av, ended up at the low point on Dunlawton and was immediately carried via storm drains into the retention ponds. Water was essentially being routed directly from the canal to the retention ponds and I’m pretty sure that is not water the System was designed to handle. Failure to pump down the ponds before the event, improper operation of the leaf gate, and two pumps rendered useless once the event started all contributed somewhat to the severity of flooding, but once water came over the banks of the Halifax Canal the results were inevitable.
It seems in talking with the two engineers from FDOT who were on sight yesterday that the only justification for removing the berm from the project has come from the City’s project manager and from Quentin Hampton. You promised us an investigation of the Dunlawton Drainage Project but now you appear to be letting the investigators investigate themselves. It’s time for an unbiased and impartial look at this whole project and if that can not be accomplished in house we need to involve outside agencies such as the Florida Board of Professional Engineers or the Attorney General. After all, most of the money spent on this project came from State sources and all the citizens of Florida deserve to know how their money was spent.
Best,
Mike Gardner
618 Ruth St
Port Orange, FL 32127
386-527-1959
manddgardner@cfl.rr.com
Well what do you expect? . We have a Landscape Architect in the position of Director of Engineering Projects. Duh!
With Port Orange having such a convoluted organizational chart in many of its management positions we will continue to have one screw up after another.
Gee Gary , it’s only a mistake! For crying out loud, having you made mistakes? Stop being reactive and get proactive which means to forgive and forget Allen Green and vote for Sonya Laney, the champion of mistakes. Written in jest by Hank the Shank. LOL
VOTE FOR LANEY AND PROVE THAT MISTAKES DO HAPPEN!
Exactly Gary! She is just a pretty boob job with an excellent promotion with no engineering experience. Check her promotions. Activists weep about at 3% raise for employees. Check the reclassifications for Landscape Architects!
How about our public utility engineering staff? Peg Leg? His recently promoted eagle scout from his scouting troupe was promoted from interim employee to public utilities engineer with a few more years before he can become a P.E.
Now a new interim that is a friend of Peg Leg’s family that is a college student, no engineering degree and no practical understanding of public utilities operations. Is the head public utilities engineer trying to make it a shoe in for him to get a high paying public utilities engineering inspectors position?
To hell with opening the position up to qualified internal candidates with years of practical experience or qualified external candidates because this is a friend of Peg Legs, the perfunctory head public utilities engineer. Is this the same public utilities engineer that signed off on the protocols and training for the operation of the Dunlawton Drainage Project? Remember, this out of control perfunctory engineer received his unmitigated empowerment from no other than Jason Yarborough, his Golden Corral Buffet buddy.
When is this old school cronyism going to stop. Viable organizational stakeholders are defecated on while friends of certain people are placed on the fast track to orchestrated success. You would think that any intelligent public utility manager would be looking for a professional engineer with public utility process control, construction, regulatory, permitting, and project management experience to build a viable value engineering team in order to solve existing problems. The sad thing about all the interims and rookies we have introduced into the organization is that we do not have a competent engineering mentor on staff to develop these kids. This will simply become a perpetuation of the incompetent culture that Port Orange has tolerated for the past 25 years.
Peg leg was the city engineer in charge of the flood control project. Another waste of a paycheck. Maybe they could have used some of the dirt that the contractor sold to build the berm.
And did you know Gary that the Landscape Architect has a husband that is an engineer?? So she makes great $$ and kickbacks.
Don’t get me started on the “organizational chart” having the right people in the right role, and clear delineation of reporting system. Needs a total revamp.
What do you think of Gravel Gerties qualifications?
It blatently obvious that she is the last bit of remaining cancer from the old administration (aside from the elected Mayor)
As such, she should be offerd a buyout or severance package and sent to pasture. I am hoping as Mr Harden makes his observations and gets things back on track, he will realize this. Get s true experienced and certified HR director and IT department head.
I am surprised Ms. Bertie was not appointed interim Public Works director. She has done it all but is qualified for nothing. She has some dirt on someone or would be gone by now. Lord knows, there is enough dirt on her.
Do you think that her many years as the assistant to the CM overseeing the Riverwalk debacle has provided her with that dirt, and her willingness to assist in scapegoating any employee the mayor or CM might desire has strategically positioned her to be excessively rewarded in spite of unadulterated misfeasance?
You hit the nail on the head!
BINGO !
OMG! I found this whole mess about deleting the part of the project that was really needed to stop the flooding a little hard to believe. So I went to the St Johns Water District website and looked up the permits. Damned if you werent right. The engineers say only 810lf of berm was deleted but I measure closer to 2000lf by scaling the plans on the computer screen (hard to do). Why was any of it deleted?
This seems like it goes beyond a simple mistake and into negligance. Anybody with Public Utilities/Public Works background out there that has seen the plans and can say why this might have happened?
Here is page 2
Here is page 3
What the Port Orange Public Utilities and Public Works Department needs is a good infusion of internal value engineering. Hopefully the procurement of directorial staff will be accomplished with the assistance of internal employees that possess technical expertise to evaluate all candidates on the basis of their possession of the practical knowledge and skill sets to identify, develop, and inspire the existing institutional knowledge and encourage the employment and stakeholdership of those individuals in consensus development of value engineering benchmarks for all future Public Utility and Public Works projects.
Politicians and Administrative management egos should be checked at the door and we should allow our professional staff to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayers. If this was the policy adopted throughout city government in the past we would never be experiencing the magnitude of problems we are now. Most of our existing problems result from past and present demigods in politics and management trying to establish an edifice to themselves as opposed to selflessly pursuing the publics best interest. Example being the Green/Parker/Blaisse failed reuse lake project.
Value Engineering: Value engineering is a structured technique commonly used in project management. Value engineering is often referred to as “VE.” Value engineering is an organized attempt to optimize the overall value of the project in project management endeavors. Often, creative strategies will be employed in an attempt to achieve the lowest life cycle cost available for the project. This means the project manager and those working on the project at hand must consider all costs associated with the project, from the initial design of the product or service through its eventual disposal. They must then consider any cost-saving alternatives to be employed at any given phase of the project. Value engineering includes taking an in-depth look at the functions of any equipment, facilities, services, systems, and materials used in the project. This part of project management requires an analysis to be performed on each of these components. When analyzing these components, managers will be looking for ways to improve cost effectiveness while not negatively affecting the quality, reliability, performance, or reputation of the product or service. Some methods used in value engineering include reducing production time, reducing expenses, increasing earnings, expanding market share, using existing resources more efficiently, and improving product quality.
There have been some major successful projects within public utilities and public works in the past that have saved taxpayers millions of dollars. If you do not believe me then simply ask employees and due your own research. One common denominator is that in each case a cohesive internal value engineering team was employed that had the technical skills and received the empowerment to accomplish the task at hand. Another factor is that the successful projects were not politically driven or politically motivated and there were no special interests involved to be the recipients of enrichment. These successes were not met with a lot of joy or acknowledgement from consulting engineers because they inevitably meant the rejection of an expensive alternative that would have generated lots of engineering fees for the consultant’s coffers. Most successes like these are generally not acknowledged by the city politic because they generally do not receive a lot of press by the powers that be, are often beyond their technical understanding, and are not about politics & special interest.
Although this kind of positive accomplishment is never recognized and rewarded the taxpayer is, and has been the recipient of great value on numerous occasions. The problem is that until true value is recognized, rewarded, and institutionally embraced by our city officials and administration we will never be able to truly cultivate a culture of internal value engineering going forward. I encourage our city officials and many of the city activists & civic minded individuals on this blog to investigate and identify past success stories in major city projects that have never been given full credit and recognized as an example of the kind of culture we need to establish in our organization. Then insist that value is recognized, rewarded, and culturally established. If you recognize, reward, and support value in the organization value will serve you very well.
Sorry Don, but until the southern plantation owner departs this organization will continue to be about letting disgraced administrators that are asked to resign use sick leave to bolster their retirement, hiring FCCMA administrators with jaded pasts and who do not apply without background checks, handing out linchpin administrative assignments to unqualified individuals that know too much and willingly wield the axe against anyone the city politic is threatened by, scapegoating people as needed, and moving forward without removing the cancer and fully acknowledging the sins of the past. As a wise man once said, there is no salvation without true repentance, and their is no true repentance until one comes clean. This not only applies to individuals, but it applies to organizations as well. Until that occurs, you can never successfully move forward. Your sins will come back to haunt you. Him that does not learn from their past mistakes is doomed to repeat them over and over again.
Well said Mr. Matus.
So now all the dirt about the Dunlawton flood project comes out. (pun)
The berm part of the project was cancelled because the engineers had illegal plans to sell the project’s dirt elsewhere. , When it came time to build the berm the dirt was already sold and had been hauled away so the berm was not built resulting with Dunlawton flooding.
After they got caught about the missing dirt they used Sonya’s & Mayor’s favorite excuse ‘Honest Mistake’ and simply walked away whistling
Yes it is time for a real investigation.
Mr. Annonymous would you be able to support your contention the engineers had a plan to illegally sell the dirt? I doubt that you do, but this is not the first time speculation has come up about people working for the city removing dirt and not paying for it. It says to me that the city and the public have to start demanding accurate records be kept regarding any dirt removal or transportation by anyone doing work for the city of Port Orange. — hank springer
Could it all be about the dirt NOT coming out? Read the letter from Quentin Hampton about Mrs Grubbs saying she owned the dirt that the city wanted to put its berm on top of. BS. More likely she had all the dirt on every one at city hall and threatened to use it if they messed with her.
It is interesting that the City felt compelled to hire a surveyor and pay $3200.00 for a survey in a property dispute between private parties on behalf of the Atlantic Marine project but did not want to get involved in a direct dispute with a property owner for a project that affects an entire section of the City.
The capricious nature of these kinds of decisions are almost always motivated by special interest that is not in the best interest of tax payers.
Blog Reader–Are you perhaps saying that the City will spend money hand over fist to promote development in the Ruth St/Powers Av area but will not spend any money to prevent flooding in the same area?