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Just a few thoughts on Dan Bice's piece on the no-bid contract awarded to Graef-USA to inspect county buildings.
If you read Bice's article you'd be led to believe that Graef, which has contributed to Scott Walker's various campaigns over the years, would be inspecting the O'Donnell parking garage, the site of last month's tragedy.
But Graef isn't inspecting the O'Donnell structure because it's the “engineer of record” for the site.
Here's an excerpt from a memo from DTPW director Jack Takerian to Scott Walker and the board:
So who's inspecting the O'Donnell site?
You won't find that info in Bice's column, but you will find it in Dave Unhoefer's article on the progress of the investigation.
It's INSPEC, which also got a no-bid contract, just like Graef. As far as I can tell, INSPEC employees haven't contributed to Walker so that's probably why Bice didn't mention it.
Here's what Takerian wrote in his memo:
At the time of the memo [possibly July 1] Takerian was still developing the estimated cost for INSPEC's work.
So there are two “sole source” contracts: one to INSPEC, to deal with the emergency inspection of the O'Donnell structure, and another to Graef-USA, to conduct inspections of other county buildings over the course of 6-8 weeks.
I spoke with Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan yesterday, who's been critical of how Graef got its no-bid contract.
INSPEC's emergency contract seemed OK to Weishan.
But Graef? Weishan's got problems with that one.
First, it's not really doing emergency work. It's taking 6-8 weeks to inspect major county-owned buildings. Weishan wondered why the county couldn't have taken a week to ask a handful of engineering firms for bids to do the work.
“This could have been done in an expedited manner,” Weishan told me.
Second, Graef is subcontracting a lot of that work to 10 other companies. So, Weishan wonders, why didn't the county contact those companies and ask for bids? Why did Takerian (with Walker and Holloway's blessing) give Graef a sole-source contract for work that could be done by others?
“If Graef can subcontract, then there was time to do a bit of competitive bidding,” Weishan said.
Weishan chalked up Graef's contract to political influence and Walker “abusing his emergency powers.”
He said he wants a review or audit of the contractors' work before they are paid “to make sure it was done correctly.”
If you read Bice's article you'd be led to believe that Graef, which has contributed to Scott Walker's various campaigns over the years, would be inspecting the O'Donnell parking garage, the site of last month's tragedy.
But Graef isn't inspecting the O'Donnell structure because it's the “engineer of record” for the site.
Here's an excerpt from a memo from DTPW director Jack Takerian to Scott Walker and the board:
Milwaukee County DTPW staff along with staff from Graef USA reported to the site [on June 24, the day of the accident] to assess whether there were additional safety concerns. Graef is the “engineer of record” for this structure and their staff is very familiar with it. … Concurrently [after 7 p.m., when the structure was closed off] I decided that since Graef USA was the engineer of record for the O'Donnell parking structure it would be best to hire an independent third party that had expertise in structural engineering of similar concrete structures and forensic analysis of such structural failures.
So who's inspecting the O'Donnell site?
You won't find that info in Bice's column, but you will find it in Dave Unhoefer's article on the progress of the investigation.
It's INSPEC, which also got a no-bid contract, just like Graef. As far as I can tell, INSPEC employees haven't contributed to Walker so that's probably why Bice didn't mention it.
Here's what Takerian wrote in his memo:
DTPW staff selected INSPEC on a sole source basis. INSPEC is an engineering consultant with experience in both structural and forensic engineering analysis. INSPEC has also recently worked with the County Risk Management Division in inspecting the courthouse after a piece of masonry broke off of the east façade. Since that time, DTPW staff has worked with INSPEC to develop a plan to properly determine the nature and cause of the precast panel support failure.
At the time of the memo [possibly July 1] Takerian was still developing the estimated cost for INSPEC's work.
So there are two “sole source” contracts: one to INSPEC, to deal with the emergency inspection of the O'Donnell structure, and another to Graef-USA, to conduct inspections of other county buildings over the course of 6-8 weeks.
I spoke with Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan yesterday, who's been critical of how Graef got its no-bid contract.
INSPEC's emergency contract seemed OK to Weishan.
But Graef? Weishan's got problems with that one.
First, it's not really doing emergency work. It's taking 6-8 weeks to inspect major county-owned buildings. Weishan wondered why the county couldn't have taken a week to ask a handful of engineering firms for bids to do the work.
“This could have been done in an expedited manner,” Weishan told me.
Second, Graef is subcontracting a lot of that work to 10 other companies. So, Weishan wonders, why didn't the county contact those companies and ask for bids? Why did Takerian (with Walker and Holloway's blessing) give Graef a sole-source contract for work that could be done by others?
“If Graef can subcontract, then there was time to do a bit of competitive bidding,” Weishan said.
Weishan chalked up Graef's contract to political influence and Walker “abusing his emergency powers.”
He said he wants a review or audit of the contractors' work before they are paid “to make sure it was done correctly.”
