On the road...

I'm on the road for a few days so my internet access is sporadic. Here's a few items to discuss.

A few of you made some comments on the last topic about the gala event of seating the new council members, the mayoral pick and the ensuing council meeting.

It was interesting that several members of the public made reasonable recommendations for mayor and mayor protem selection. They were promptly ignored in favor of an apparent "fix" according to some commenters.

Let's keep an open mind and give them all a chance to get settled in before we rush to judgement.

Were you happy with the Delafield, Hawkins and Wood contract? It is disappointing to see them repeatedly come to the City Council to ask for another $30k because they're out of "allocation". Shall we take odds on how much over the $60k allocation they have for this year. Last year it was 3 times more. I don't know what the original contract was for. I remember hearing $300,000 at one point but I don't know if that was original or after a couple of amendments.

Did you read the Massachusetts Inspector General report I linked to in a previous topic? They conducted an investigation after a similar wastewater treatment contract was instituted in Lynn, Massachusetts. In their report, one of the findings, Finding 17c states that “The Commission’s(Council's) open-ended agreement with Hawkins, Delafield & Wood cost ratepayers more than $1.5 million over the first three years.”

Oh by the way, you may not have heard my comments about why we had to pay so much for writing a contract when DHW writes more WW contracts than anyone. I was only speculating when I mentioned that they should have a "boilerplate" contract by now that could be modified. These boilerplate DBO contracts actually DO exist and you can buy them online from the AGC(Association of General Contractors) for $15. Now don't get all excited and think I'm advocating paying $15.00 for a contract but I think we're overpaying if it's over $50k - $100k. And we're not done as Patti pointed out.

Notices...

Next Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors is meeting and Bert and I encourage as many as possible to attend and speak up at the open forum and let them know how much our sewer bills are going to be and ask them to help us out with $1,000,000 that they have in a "Zone 2" flood fund. They gave El Rio $2,500,000 a few years ago under similar circumstances.

Have you seen the pretty Christmas lights on Central Avenue? It looks wonderful.

Here's an interesting article from the Daily News on the dangers of diesel particulate matter. I wonder how many tons of it we're inhaling from all the trucks on 126 and 23?