Great
work if you can get it
Marquette Interchange consultants
offered $25,000 to go to a single meeting
Feb.
20 -- The State Department of Transportation
offered its Marquette Interchange consultants more
than $25,000 to prepare and participate in a single
public meeting, records show.
Jim
Rowen, a Marquette Interchange critic and political
commentator, said the money was "taxpayers'
money simply wasted."
CHM2
Hill, at the time the no-bid main contractor for
Marquette Interchange design study, was offered
$10,946.28 to participate in a fourth public informational
meeting, according to a 2002 contract amendment
obtained by the webteam through an open records
request.
HNTB,
then a subcontractor to CH2M Hill, was to be paid
$15,852.64 to help prepare and conduct the public
information session.
There
was no requirements for the amount of work that
HNTB would have to do for that money, according
to the documents.
"There
must be people
working for HNTB/CH2M, or WisDOT, who could routinely
handle these tasks - - like meeting site arrangements
and news releases which these days is done by email
and fax," Rowen said.
The
only contingency on the total of $26,798.92 to be
paid was that the Legislature would have to provide
a budget big enough to accommodate it.
Mixed bag in Senate transportation
bill
Feb.
20 -- The $318 billion federal transportation
adopted by the Senate this month would increase
air pollution and reduce environmental review
requirements, according to the Natural Resources
Defense Council.
It
would also, however, require that wildlife and
spraw issues be considered when officials are
plannign transportation projects.
President
Bush has threatened to veto the Senate version
of the bill because of its large price tag.The
House version of the six-year bill would be even
larger -- $375 billion -- and work on it is expected
to continue for several months.
The
Senate bill would limit controls on car and truck
emissions of ozone-causing pollutants, according
to NRDC.
The
bill also includes provisions that would restrict
environmental review and public comment on transportation
projects.
On
the other side of the environmental ledger, the
bill would fund a $958 million
program to reduce water pollution from transportation
project runoff, which is responsible for nearly
half of the pollution in our nation's waterways,
according to NRDC.
The
bill also would maintain the current ratio of
funding for public transportation.
DOT's $4 million, no-bid start
to major Marquette Interchange work
Feb.
15 -- A politically-connected engineering
firm got a lucrative no-bid contract for Marquette
Interchange work after the State Department of Transportation
revived a dormant, 7-year-old contract with the
company and added $4 million to the deal, DOT records
show.
An
official of the firm, CH2M Hill, donated $500 to
Gov. Tommy G. Thompson's campaign fund while the
contract was pending. CH2MHill employees donated
a total of $6,250 to Thompson's campaign fund from
1991 through 2000, according to the Wisconsin Democracy
Campaign.
"Now
that the Marquette Interchange is on the front page,
we need to think about consultant selection and
budgets," DOT official Arthur Cupps wrote in
an e-mail in May 1999. "CH2MHill was selected
in 1992 for the Marquette Interchange thru design
study report. There is approximately $400,000 remaining
encumbrence under there current contract. It is
anticipated an additional $2,000,000 will be needed
to bring a DSR...New solicitations are not required,
since the work scope has not changed since the 1992
solicitation."
CHM2
Hill's Patrick Klampe was designated the firm's
contact for the new agreement, records show. Klampe
donated $500 to Gov. Tommy G. Thompson's campaign
fund in August 1999, while the agreement was pending.
The
contract's price tag shot up immediately.
The
new contract that DOT issued in March 2000 authorized
$1.9 million for CH2M Hill and a similar amount
for subcontractors, for a total of about $3.8 million,
according to the records, obtained through an open
records request.
By
mid-2002, the value of the contract increased, through
amendments, to $4.7 million, records show. Among
the beneficiaries were HNTB, another firm with an
open wallet for politicians, and Creative Marketing
Resources, a public relations firm run by Jacqueline
Moore, the wife of Milwaukee contractor John Bowles.
Bowles,
who himself was a consultant for the DOT, has been
implicated in the corruption case against former
State Sen. Gary George. Bowles has not been charged
with any crime.
CH2M
Hill and HNTB still dominate Marquette Interchange
work. Together, they form Milwaukee Transportation
Parterns, the lead agency for preliminary and design
work on the project.
The
payments to CH2M Hill and its consultants were to
be as follows, according to DOT documents:
