July 2010
For many years now I have been asking the Trustees to stop their illegal activities and the dishonest and illegal activities of the Facilities department. As the Trustees have decided to unilaterally ignore this request. I have filed some complaints. It is worth noting that there would be no point in trying to get the Attorney General after the School Board because the AG is tasked with protecting them. My first complaint was against Edwards who was the 4th Trustee joining a Bond Oversight committee meeting. That made it an unannounced School Board meeting and therefore illegal. Of course the pundants said that I was juts complaining about her because I'm running against her. Then I went to the ethics commission about President Janison failing to disclose and recuse in a hiring process that involved potentially hiring her husbands boss to be superintendent of schools. Radio host, Alan Stock, then asked me if I was filing complaints about illegal activities to draw attention to my campaign. Now I have filed a complaint against Trustee Wright who saw fit to vote for her husband to get a raise. Wright also voted to grant contractors and extras for a contractor who employed her mother to prepare the accounting to get that money. Does anyone get this simple problem?
I'm running to stop the illegal activities.... Not complaining about the illegal activities because I am running!!!
Here is the link on the Wright complaint.
March 2010,
There was an interesting report in the Las Vegas Tribune regarding the School board meeting on February 25 2010. I thought that I would post this because the situation seems to be similar to the mood during the March 11 Board meeting too. Here is the link
General Notes on Clark County School District Board Meetings.
Dear Trustees January 2010,
For quite some time you have seen the "Talk to the
hand." logo on the front page. It appears that it should be logically
moved to your page because of the general attitude to the chairperson
towards public speakers. It was also a graphic problem for those
reading the front page. I think it is really sad that there is such a
dramatic difference apparent between the City of Las Vegas, County and your board hearings.
It is your choice to change or not. I received a reply to my complaint
to the AG. The AG admitted that I was cut off and choose to ignore
that I spent 1/3rd of my time arguing to finish and declined to do anything
about it. So I'm going to the County Commission and the televised
session will let the public know.
December 2009 January 2010 Board Comments:
Got Propaganda?
Although the public is barely able to find out what is really up with the district, some instances of public reporting are more worthless than others. As the BOC meetings are never posted to a web site and the press only occasionally shows up about the only way that you can find out what happened is to request audio recordings or miss 4 hours of work to go. For that reason there is usually slightly less obfuscation about what is going on there. I was going to say more honesty but alas no. There is a pretty good size disconnect in what gets reported to the BOC and the representation that goes on at the Trustees Board on the supposedly same topic. In December 09 and January '10 the interesting topic was: "What land to we own and why?" Most of the presentation was on how the land acquisition process is now "Cleaned up". Notice that part of the cover up process is getting shenanigans behind the staff and board. So they change the system and say "Things are different now." Some people call this locking the barn after the cow is stolen. You should listen to the Board hearing because everyone is in top form. Jeff Weiler is making up excuses as he goes along and the Trustees are just looking for political cover.... particularly the old ones who were around when they did some of the purchases of unusable or overvalued property. Mr. Weiler suddenly became a school planner and began spouting crap that he apparently has no training or knowledge about. Some of the same ignorance that the new (2 years) land acquisition person has been apparently fed. Fortunately for them no one with the district knows the difference between crap and education when it comes to school planning. So it would have gone uncontested unless I spoke.
Next Carolyn Edwards came out with another ridiculous assertion. During the presentations that were made to the BOC and the Trustees it was mentioned that CCSD pays a ton of money for things that have no educational value. Carolyn then said that the district should not be doing that. Now we are locking the barn again! We also heard from the staff asserting that when the district pays for a waterline (example) in the street then people / developers who attach to it later are required to reimburse CCSD. Do the Trustees deliberately tell staff to do one thing and tell the public another? I think so. Do the Trustees tell staff to get up and obfuscate the truth about history? I don't think so. Upper level bureaucracy has to just figure out to do that... Right?
I'm still disappointed that they wouldn't give Mr. Gerner's written rebuttal to t his annual review to me. Of course the Trustees asserted that it was not public information even though it was posted by the receptionists desk for a few days. I guess sometimes things go beyond the "Wink and Nod" stage? A large part of these types of public works expenditures are paid in contractor extras. How much? Many millions! Money that the public thought was going for schools is actually going for road building, electric utility lines, water and sewer for entire subdivisions, streets that run for miles.... The Trustees who sit on the BOC would know this as would Weiler. Has the public misplaced it's trust in the expenditure of the school building bonds? Go figure? Gerner would know....
As usual there is another elephant in the room. The Trustees happily congratulated the staffer for a great job. She and her team of 4 have been working for two years during which time only one purchase has been made. But they have been mightily busy making huge binders with procedures and paperwork in preparation for the next buy. Which would be when? Yes while the Trustees cut teachers, educational programs and things for students they are still able to budget a propaganda department to put together piles of procedures to convince that the land deal shenanigans that went on in the past will never happen again.
Trustees. The cow is gone. Close the land acquisition department and hire 4 teachers. If they are being paid with bond money then spend it on school building. The department is another poster child for waste and mismanagement!
End of 12/09 - 01/10 comments
Dear Trustees 2009,
I have no way of separating the difference between if or when you have winked at the bureaucracy and asked for some "Study" or "Report" that obfuscates the facts or outright lies... and when they decide to give you the "Mushroom Treatment" on their own. This page is set up to tell you when you have heard half the truth or the truth and a half or just another obfuscation of the truth. Of course there will be the reports of the occasional outright lie too. Take it for what its worth in your own opinion. If you don't like reading about this then try solving the problems.
Dear Parents, Public & Teachers,
Going to a school board meeting is a combination of boredom and frustration. If you choose to speak then you have to sign up before. This will prevent you from coming up to speak after just hearing something false to refute it. If you have become aquatinted with the system, as I have, then you can come back next time or after the item is decided and report your comments. At that point any vote will be done and your comments too late. If you can bare the combination of aggravation, frustration and boredom to get to the "Non-Agenda" speaking time at the end then you will probably have so many things to comment on and 2 minutes won't do one topic justice. Below are the items that I had the time to articulate. Please go to the Blog and make your own comments.
School Board Meeting 09/10/2009 Below:
Tonight I’m going to report on three interesting items:
Topic One
I started my input on the meeting with following up on Weiler's request to me for current illegal activities. Talk about a target rich environment. But what can be said in 3 minutes? So a small but interesting piece:
Background:
Suppose that your car was stolen years ago. And suppose that you reported it stolen and time went on and nothing else happened? Well then one day some guy gets pulled over and the police figure out that he has your car and drove it all that time? What should happen? Well according to the District the guy tells the cops that he stopped stealing cars long ago and they let him drive on!
That seems to be the assertion on all the shenanigans with the Facilities department. “We got away with it. So forget it.” I recently got a letter from CFO, Weiler that implied as much. Looking at the last Board report you can see my first partial reply. This time I submitted proof that Facilities ordered and did not pay for services. This is part of how “Management” works. Take those you want and overpay them. Take those you don’t want and cheat them out of their money. Of course there are plenty in the middle. Even a group this large can’t do something to everybody. But Facilities likes to assert that ‘Some professionals just inexplicably do better than others.’ I know what you are thinking…. getting ripped off doesn’t affect performance. Call it theft of professional services. Link for the evidence.
Topic Two
This one has a lot of background information. But if you don’t understand the background then the basic story doesn’t mean much.
First the obvious. What does affect performance? Money.
I had a consultant give me a commissioning contract proposal and tell me (more like vent) a few things about CCSD commissioning contracts. Pretty close to how CCSD runs architectural contracts… Of course he had better sense than to be blackballed for speaking out. It basically comes down to this. CCSD could decide that commissioning a prototype elementary school pays $75,000. They call 4 commissioning companies that are on their approved list and say “Your work scope is a new prototype school and xyz. It pays $75,000. Do you want the job?” Anyone in their right mind says “ok” in this market.
Facilities seems to have confused the Board into thinking that they can’t set the standard price first. WRONG!
Or another option is:
Facilities can make a public offering that lists qualifications and a fee offering of $75,000. Then select from whoever applies based upon qualifications and performance criteria. This was just done by HACLV. So it IS legal.
So what they do is:
- Have a preselected list of firms that they like.
- Call one and tell them they got a job.
- Ask them how much they want. Naturally, any worth their salt, know that Facilities paid “X” (a certain amount) last time. It is public information. All of them ask for about the same amount.
- Depending upon the personality of the staffer delegated for procurement:
- Maybe he tells the ones who ask more “Come down it’s too much.”
- Some “Have a relationship.” Maybe he pays more to some “Preferred”. And less to others.
- Maybe he tells them all “It’s too much.” But doesn’t know what is a fair price. So tries to beat them all down not knowing what number is fair.
- Maybe he figures its "not my money" so just stick to the same price if there are no complaints from above.
- Another way. Go figure. It’s Vegas you know.
- In other circles if a consultant does not do such a good job, they are not used again. But at CCSD you are lucky if it is politics that controls. Performance, short of a complete disaster, has nothing to do with it. Law suits count though.
As a comparable concept. Many general contractors know what’s a fair price. Say a good estimator will know that his drywall sub charges X dollars per lineal foot of 10’ wall and so much per corner. So when he gets prices for a negotiated job then he only beats down someone who is “out of line.” This goes for architectural work. All architects know what the current going rates for the types of work that they do are. Clients that hire architects or who hire some trade or professional regularly know this too. But the district has different criteria. They know that they are keeping some companies in business and putting others out of business by paying some more than the market rates and cutting others out.
The Associate Director of Facilities asserts “You get what you pay for.” No not really. Really if you were hiring on quality then you would pay everybody the same and then whoever does the best gets rehired first. This NEVER has happened. Ever. Typically they pay more for who they like and less for who they don't and others are uninvited. When they pay allot more then sometimes they get better service. Sometimes.
This "CCSD gets what it pays for." is nonsense in another way. Once I had a scheduling problem with a blueprinter. So I phoned the printer which was both my preferred printer and CCSD's. I asked them how much more I was paying than the District because I wanted to offer the District to have it done through me and have me get reimbursed from them. After a little beating around the bush I found out that anyone walking in off the street can get a better deal than CCSD got! Can you imagine? Virtually the largest building entity in the state pays more than anyone willing to walk in the front door and ask for “Best price?” “You get what you pay for?” Please! I hope it's a new plan?
End of long winded background
So I told them that they were paying $80,000 plus for services that the market had comparables near $50,000. I said that they should vote to award the 4 contracts at 15% less saving $50,000 total. $50k would do something good for the kids. The Associate Director of Facilities admitted that ‘this was about the same price that they were paying last year’ (before the economy tanked.)
I told them that the commissioning people were needed only if contractors weren’t doing their jobs and that if mistakes were found then contractors should be back charged. I told them that CCSD’s Facilities staff could make sure that this job gets done. The director failed to say "Oh Ken is wrong... if the contractor was doing their job then commissioning would still be needed..." why? Because it is not true. That is why.
Of course, as usual, the Board got confused and Facilities helped them come to the wrong questions and conclusions.
Much of the conversation hovered around the concept of these being a LEED buildings. Which they are not. The Board saw through that. But the idea that a THIRD PARTY is REQUIRED to do this ONLY for LEED never got mentioned. It never got mentioned that CCSD has its own inspectors and already pays for engineers and it's own CCSD project managers. But none have the intestinal fortitude and political guts to make contractors perform. (I once saw an inspector get written up for asserting that the district was overcharged.) So they hire at about $100,000 per school, another consultant. No mention was ever made that they could hire a person for $100,000 total annually as opposed to $100,000 per school…. Or God forbid we think of TRAINING…. As in EDUCATION of staff. Why would anyone think of the idea of EDUCATING someone? To train people, who CCSD already has too many of… to do this work. Why would we want to do this in house when we can hire and second guess consultants? Does anybody actually think that they really follow the consultants advice? Rarely (completely) thank you very much.
The conversation also went into assurances about it being “Worth it.” Of course The Associate Director of Facilities never said that CCSD has never had a building perform “As designed” since the 30,000 BTU energy design criteria was set up. Did you know that? That’s what is openly discussed away from the public eye. If it’s not true, then somebody disprove it please! The Associate Director of Facilities is correct that it is typically “Worth it” elsewhere. But in comparison to what? Self performing it? Would it be more “Worth it” if they back-charged when the commissioning agent was told something was done and it was not... so re-inspections were required? If it was “Worth it” at $89,000 then would it be “More worth it” at $75,000. You bet.
FYI I think commissioning has become “Quality Control” for contractors and inspectors. What they look at should already be verified as “Correct” by the sub-contractor and general and only need to be “Commissioned” once. Not subject to re-inspections. Back-charges for re-inspections would lower redoing and send a message that getting it right is REQUIRED. But my experience is that some subs try to slide by and see if they get caught by the commissioning safety net. The other thing that is annoying about this situation is (like Architects) they always have to be looking at CCSD’s project manager to see what he/she is willing to enforce. Again you are up against politics on a good day. And on a bad day worse.
One of the thin ploys that The Assistant Director of Facilities uses to ram rod these things thru the board then it looks like they may send it back for correction is the "It's almost too late" argument. you'll be well advised to know that since he uses LEED process as the standard for comparison... LEED requires that the commissioning agent BE INVOLVED DURING DESIGN. So yes he's running over a year late! So what would another two weeks matter? Your guess is as good as mine on that one. Yes I am a LEED accredited professional. But these are not LEED buildings. So if LEED is a good standard to follow then Facilities already blew it.
This has much to do with expectations from CCSD to its vendors. If they come to expect a hassle then guess the outcome? If they expect to have someone come in behind them and make sure that their job is done then how careful are they? commissioning agents need not worry. Facilities will pay you plenty of extras. Let history guide you.
I can’t say this is happening in all cases. I have met some well “Worth it” commissioning companies. Obviously you know I think it’s “Worth it” sometimes because this story started with me asking one for a price from one. Market price. No extra money for Ferrari payments or new trucks included thank you very much.
Topic Three
It was an interesting meeting because there was a backroom deal announced by the public speakers between WAAK-UP and the School Board. One of the WAAK-UP members reported that CCSD officials had told them that they have a layout for building whatever was agreed upon by them and CCSD. This is pretty interesting because almost everything that really happens is the result of a backroom deal and some behind the scenes think. I don’t know what this is but I’m sure that there has been no design contract let. So you can be pretty sure that the Facilities department has quietly awarded one of (who The Associate Director of Facilities calls) the prototype architects cartel some sort of under $100,000 contract in order to placate WAAK-UP and (you know) and line a favorite architect up with the indisputable qualifications to be awarded the contract against the tier system. During a recent Board meeting Jeff Weiler asserted that there was not enough money. Of course the West Prep people had a fit because it was said that they had to wait until the next (2010 if then) bond election. Of course Donovan calculated on the front page of this site that CCSD will soon “Discover” $16 million. That ought to come close to getting it.
For those of you new to the game you should know that I have never seen the School Board decide to talk with a citizen group during a Board meeting and agree to vote on building or remodeling a school. If this deal had happened that way it would be the only one I know about. So somehow, without public meetings one side thinks that there is an offer on the table? Welcome to Las Vegas. Go figure. A backroom deal is a Real Deal. If they tell you publicly you're going to get something. That means maybe sometime. Congrats WAAK-UP you did it.
A couple of quick "Casual Mentions" because you only get 2 minutes to speak at the end: Today is "Count Day". soon the count will prove that no new schools (the ones started last month) are needed. The previous statistics were a lie... as I said.
I gate the Board invitations to look at this site. Hopefully you are a Board member reading this now!
More to follow 11:00 PM 09-10-2009
School Board Meeting Notes 08/27/09. Below:
This 08/27/09 Board meeting had a very interesting
exchange.... and a couple of comments.
Item 1
Background - I plan to download and cut up the video when it is posted which usually takes forever. The chain of discussion that you should look at beginning with my comments under item 4.02 regarding a letter that Jeff Weiler sent to me. This letter was a reply to comments that I didn't get to finish on July 23rd when the Board Chair cut me off. (The reason for my complaint to the AG.) He basically said that my previous comments were about things too far in the past. so I brought up that the items mentioned were current and not in the past... in my reply letter. My letter was too long to read.
So I briefly reported how Facilities is sole sourcing products. Sole sourcing is a way that someone could use to allow one general contractor or subcontractor to bid and not another. If that was done then it would be called "Bid Rigging". bid rigging is illegal. Of course my time runs out and I ask that the letter go verbatim in the written record. And I think I'm done on that subject. (wrong)...
A few minutes later a supplier comes to the mike to object to someone else's product being used in the bid. He was specified as a sole source supplier. The second low contractor and supplier said that the low bidder contractor did not use his specified product. The Board then got to talking about other issues and came to the conclusion that everything was done correctly. (wrong question)
I then got up at the end and asked the question, again, "why are we sole sourcing products". I pointed out that this could result in a lawsuit. I pointed out that t Facilities does as it pleases about this type of thing and is governed only by state law (making this legal). BUT Facilities will let the Board wonder what the answer to the wrong question is and not mention it letting them come to the wrong conclusion. The question that needed to get asked is "Is it necessary to sole source this product to design an elementary prototype?". Of course the answer is NO. But the Facilities department has gotten no policy governance regarding this type of issue. So the architect has done no wrong because Facilities runs "Loosey Goosey" on good Facilities control practices like not sole sourcing. It's incumbent upon the Board to get some governance on these issues. It's sadly lacking.
IMHO the board should have sent this job back out to bid with multiple vendor specified for that skylight and the intercom and whatever else. Of course the vote had come and gone. Too late for me to act because I was not signed up to speak on that item.
I was later gratified to get a voice mail from the board Chair indicating that she found value in my comment and intended to remedy the situation... or something like that.
Item 2
Misstatements about extras -
Background - It's important to understand one simple thing. Extras are additional money paid to the contractor beyond the amount that the contractor bid. The whole idea of the lump sum bid process is for the owner to know what exactly (given human error) the cost will be. Extras are not necessarily "Wasted money". However the way Facilities manages planning, design and bidding is like trying to get a drink of water out of a 4" fire hose. "Efficient" would not be properly used to describe how it is done. That said, in some fairness to Facilities, I'll say that government typically does not build efficiently. And the other truth is... Facilities does not build efficiently compared to comparable entities. Lots of money is being wasted... not just in extras.
Edwards - during this meeting Trustee Edwards stated that extras typically run 4 -5% and that's industry standard. Totally incorrect! The first part is confusing. The word "Typically" would lead you to think that this is an average or some such. In fact Jeff Weiler reported to the Bond Oversight Committee that Facilities is over 5% average.
Second (But foremost) - Edwards had been trained by the BS of facilities to repeat something that Facilities constantly repeats and is untrue. That 5% "Industry standard. Most of the dollar volume of what CCSD builds are prototypes. "prototypes" are cookie cutter buildings. Like house subdivisions in middle class neighborhoods, they are almost all the same. If I worked for a commercial developer building "Prototype" houses or office buildings... and I had some cost more than 2% (maybe 1%) in extras I WOULD BE FIRED. I would simply find a pink slip in my pay envelope and no third chance. However, Facilities averages the ridiculously high cost of extras in prototypes (which is lower than one time designs or remodeling) in with other project types to make it look like they are doing a satisfactory job. NOT!
This is aside of my point but... so you know. For some of the prototype elementary plans that CCSD just retired.... mistakes that contractors found in the plans WERE NEVER EVER FIXED. So the district just paid extras over and over each time that the prototype was built. And the head of Facilities never made them fix the mistakes. Why? Go figure!
Going back to Edwards comment for details
Sometimes brevity becomes an excuse not to deal with an unpleasant situation. The fact is that CCSD has had projects run dramatically out of the money on extras. DOUBLE the cost of the original bid was the actual final cost of the project. CCSD Facilities has set up a tracking system that DELIBERATELY does not track it's own staff's mistakes as part of the system. Some staff have a TERRIBLE RECORD. This has absolutely no effect on promotions or advancement in Facilities.
My point is: It's not the jobs that finished under 5% in typical construction nor the prototypes that finished under 1%. It IS the disasters of 20% or 100% in regular construction and the over 1% in prototypes that are a DISGRACEFUL waste of money!
Moulton - Responded to a member of WAAK-UP complaining about extras being wasted on a school under construction when CCSD claimed that it doesn't have money to fix west prep. She said that CCSD had no choice because the extras were "Government Levied". This is general training from Facilities to the Board. If you surround a board that has zero construction training with bureaucratic staff that repeat the same BS over and over the Trustees can be trained to repeat any statement.... no mater how ridiculous it is. You can say much of this crap to my 9 year old and she can see through it! Of course she was raised in an architect's office part time.
In 2007 the Associate Director of Facilities had one of his immediate subordinates, K_____y, report the Facilities "Official party line" to the board regarding extras. I went right up after him and completely refuted his logic. Everyone should understand that the district uses "Government levied" as a cover for "CCSD doesn't plan ahead or work well with other government entities". Many times money that taxpayers expected to go for schools actually buys traffic lights, streets and public utilities that literally run blocks. These are often not just in front of a school but rather the mile it takes to get from the nearest civilization to the school. What really stinks is that these things are not bid as a part of the low bidder process. They are added after the contract is signed. So there is no competitive bidding on them. A solution would be to make policy governance that any offsite additions over $100k must be subject to 3 invited competitive bids. I realize that Facilities will complain that this slows down the process but inviting 3 bidders saves the delay because it can be done quickly. This keeps the contractor who already has the main contract for the school within competitive pricing. I wouldn't even require Facilities to go with the low bidder. they would just have to disclose to the board that they didn't and say why.
The rest of the story. There are two serious problems with how this money is being wasted. The first is that CCSD can just tell the other entities NO we are not paying for that. 'If this was privately owned the developer would fight that and so we are no doing that.' The other way is through COOPERATION cooperation. CCSD should work out an arrangement where by they inform (typically) the County that they will be building a school on a certain site and plan to open it on a certain day. It should be the counties responsibility to make sure that utilities and roads get there... if not then don't build there. The county would not necessarily have to shoulder the burden of paying for the off-sites either. They can require developers to make time lines and get bonded for infrastructure. Of course schools won't run without water, sewer or electricity. But CCSD shouldn't have to make road improvements regardless and having to upgrade flood control ponds and the like for school remodeling to be allowed by the county is absurd.
Summary thoughts on the "government levied" comments: Money for schools is money for schools. The district can hire civil engineers separate form the building design architect to design roads and off sites BEFORE the building design ever starts. Then competitively bid that separately. Of it Facilities messes up the planning AGAIN, they should bid it separately during construction. But mostly 'Just say no' to government levied.
End of 09/27/09 Board comments
Follow up: Karen Gray of NPRI wrote a report following up on this topic.
Below are some salient news reports with a little introduction that I wrote.
Article on time to speak at the board. At least one of the reasons why this web site exists is that in 2007 the old board decided that I had not cared to hear so much public input. Obviously they realized that cutting maximum time down to five minutes eliminates much of what can be proven. tough to prove anything in 5 minutes. Near imposable to make a sufficient statement in 2 or 3. So the "Off topic" items give the public 2 minutes now.
The fight to keep Trustee email secret continues at
taxpayer expense. If you sit
through enough Board meetings you begin thinking that either the board
members are omniscient or there is some way that they are getting an
understanding outside the public view.
Of course they would be able to meet/talk privately within the limits
of the open meetings law but it feels like they have come to some agreements
when they vote. The only way you
can come to wonderment about this is to have been to the prior board
meetings and know that there was no prior agreement meeting.
If you were just at the one meeting then you could think that maybe it was
discussed at a prior meeting. But it was not. So when did the
agreement come? Surely they were
smart enough not to use the emails? http://www.lvrj.com/news/52636352.html