Monday, June 22, 2015

Questions Remain on Council's Demolition Investigation

At the last City Council meeting, the governing body passed a resolution approving Yanuzzi Group of Kinnelon as the contractor to complete the demolition at 117-125 North Avenue and to clean up the site, despite objections from two minority contractors who say they were left out of the hiring process.

Council members expressed sympathy with the contractors' concerns, but faced with a mess at the site since the failed demolition on March 21, the larger concern was getting the work done and securing the site.

"We can't delay this," Councilwoman Diane Toliver said before the unanimous vote to approve the contract.

Yanuzzi was the winning bidder among three, and the minority contractors said they had not submitted bids, a curious thing in a city where minority enterprise has been supported for three decades with education on how to compete. The bid opening, according to a notice on the city web site, was on May 27 and the resolution passed on June 16.

There was another bid opening on May 29, for independent counsel to investigate how the original demolition contract came about and "other procurement matters." The latter may refer to another controversy, how two $26,000 Explorers were purchased for use of the mayor and city administrator. No action was taken on June 16 on the bid for independent counsel, and in the hullabaloo of that meeting, it didn't even come up. The next regular council meeting is on July 20, so maybe if bids were received, an award will take place then. Or maybe the notion of an investigation was just some pre-primary sabre-rattling by the friends of Column A, who knows?

Looking back at blog posts on the demolition, there certainly are some oddities. A special meeting to approve the demolition contract was preceded by the demolition itself. The black-owned realty firm that won the bid subcontracted to an outside firm. A restaurant next door was crushed by debris from the demolition. The method of the demolition remains in question. Liabilities are being sorted out.

Mayor Adrian O. Mapp posted a mass of information regarding the demolition on the city web site and blog commenters, some with professional expertise, have added their analysis of the situation.

The council previously approved a law firm on April 13 to undertake an investigation, so the May bid opening appears to be a correction of sorts. If bids were received, the next step would be an award at the July 20 meeting or at a special meeting if necessary. Meanwhile, there is the hope that at long last the site will be cleared and secured. The uncertainty has already spilled over onto plans to hold the annual arts festival on North Avenue - but that's another story.

--Bernice

1 comment:

  1. There were three bids for the remainder of the the demo work, for which an RFP was noted on the City website, as well as through aggregating services (http://www.cdcnews.com/), according to the Caravella representative who attended the bid opening, as I did as well.

    The legal services bids were opened later the same week, and this RFP too was scrolled on the City's website, and presumably published elsewhere. That only generated two bids, from Eric W. Bernstein & Associates at $125/hr, and the Weber Dowd Law firm at $135/hr. Weber Dowd was the firm first granted the work before the RFP process was engaged. With only two bids, both can be rejected and a new RFP issued, which might actually be the best outcome. The Bernstein firm has long done legal work for the City, and principals from both firms have contributed to Jerry Green campaigns. I don't think this is the sort of impartiality that would best serve the interests of a fair investigation.

    But it is imperative that an investigation occurs. The original demolition was fraught with problems, not only from a contracting standpoint, but from the lien purchase by Frank Cretella in April 2014, the anonymous inspections complaint filed the following day, and the ongoing foreclosure action begun last August. It is clear the Mapp administration, despite the reams of documents it has released to date, left out significant information that casts a long shadow over the whole process. Every indication suggests blatant profiteering, public official ethics violations, and legal negligence regarding the lack of safeguards to protect the adjacent property housing Mi Buenaventura.

    None of this was mitigated by Administration attempts to deflect attention by turning this into a story about the 2010 demolition further down North Avenue, and the big hoop-dee-doo about tacking on $181,000 in demo costs to the already outstanding liens totaling over $700,000. The paramount lien on that property, the one with the legal right to foreclose after two years, has been owned for 17-years by the City itself.

    Meanwhile, the name Cretella pops up with both properties in one fashion or another, so it will be interesting to see what comes next. Title to the recently demolished property may change hands before any demolition costs are added, and the enormity of the outstanding liens on the other property is essentially funny money. I can see the City foreclosing on that one and handing the property over for a song.

    With all the big-time and big money shenanigans that have gone on in Plainfield, it is unfortunate that in the realm of investigations, our wad was spent on the mite that was WBLS. In terms of the growing lack of collegiality, and the degeneration into time wasting tit-for-tat strategeries that solve little or nothing, that one took the cake.

    ReplyDelete