Also on this page: Crime victims, witnesses, left in cold by Marquette project Annex deal blocked by supervisors. Contract changes drive HNTB charges up almost 80%.

Jan. 11, 2005 -- Crime victims and witnesses in criminal cases will get free bus tickets to the courthouse during the Marquette Interchange reconstruction project, County Supervisor Lynne De Bruin said Monday.

The district attorney's office has agreed to pay for the tickets at a total cost of about $3,800, she said.

County officials are still trying to find parking spaces for victims and witnesses who drive the the courthouse complex, she said.

De Bruin has been working on the issue since the webteam reported last week that while jurors were getting free bus tickets during the project, victims and witnesses were on their own trying to get to the courthouse and back home.

The Marquette project eliminated hundreds of free parking spots under the freeway, and has made parking near the courthouse hard to find.

---

Crime victims, witnesses left out in the cold by Marquette Interchange project
No consideration given as parking disappears

Jan. 3, 2005 --Crime victims and witnesses trying to get to the courthouse complex during the Marquette Interchange reconstruction project will find significant inconveniences and no help from state or local government.

"It's quite frustrating," said Val Chambers, victim-witness coordinator for the district attorney's office. "You have a tendency for people to say 'I don't even want to deal with it.'"

County Supervisor Lynne De Bruin said the situation was "really, really serious" and vowed to immediately begin working to find a remedy.

"The county's going have to figure out how to get those people there," she said. "The judicial branch can't stop because of the Marquette Interchange. That's obscene."

Free parking under the Interchange is gone for the duration of the reconstruction project, and county staff displaced from the free sites is gobbling up most of the paid parking available near the courthouse, Chambers said.

Meanwhile, 9th St. is more congested due to traffic flow changes attributable to the reconstruction project, and law enforcement officers are strongly discouraging drivers from stopping on the street adjacent to the courthouse to drop off passengers, Chambers said. That makes it more difficult for people who would otherwise catch rides from friends or relatives to get to the complex, she said.

And while the county is sending free bus tickets to jurors and encouraging them to use park-and-ride lots, there is no funding available to help victims and witnesses get to the courthouse, she said.

Many of those people are lower-income city residents who can't get to a park-and-ride and don't live on a bus line that runs directly to the courthouse complex, Chamber said.

"It is a great problem, I can tell you that," she said.

"This is an embarrassment not only to the county, but to the state," said De Bruin, who represents Story Hill on the County Board.

The State Department of Transportation refused to offer financial help to the county to deal with the parking shortage, records show.

De Bruin said she was unaware of the situation until informed of it by the webteam. She said she was confident the County Board would take corrective measures.

---

Annex deal blocked by supervisors
Holloway sought parking for jurors, employees

Dec. 27, 2004 -- A deal that would allow the county to use federal

money to tear down the Courthouse Annex was blocked by county supervisors, at least in part because there was no plan to replace other county parking lost to the Marquette Interchange reconstruction project, records show.

The tear-down funding would have come from federal revenue realized through sales of Park East corridor land, but the plan never made it to the County Board floor.

The Courthouse Annex over I-43

Razing the Annex as part of the Marquette project would cost about $3.5 million, County Executive Scott Walker said in a memo. Razing it as a separate project would cost about $6.7 million, he said.

State officials needed a commitment from the county by Dec. 31 to close the deal, according to the records.

Walker pushed County Board Chairman Lee Holloway to bring the plan forward.

"As the legislative branch of county government, it is imperative for the County Board to provide policy direction on this issue," Walker wrote to Holloway Dec. 1. "Given the Marquette Interchange project deadlines, the County Board must act quickly if it wishes to pursue an agreement with the WisDOT..."

The chairman balked.

"I am keeping an open mind on the Annex," Holloway wrote to Walker on Dec. 7. "However, until detailed, reasonable responsible options which meet the County's loss of a total of over 800 parking slots and other needs are addressed, I see no need to make a rushed commitment on demolishing this structure."

Holloway said the Walker administration was exaggerating the extent the building had deteriorated.

"The public statements about the strucural integrity of the Annex made by you and your staff raise unnecessary concerns and are unduly alarming people," he wrote.

Courts and county officials are worried that the elimination of free parking around the courthouse will discourage jurors and witnesses from participating in the justice process, according to the records.

Jurors will be sent free bus tickets and encouraged to take a county bus to the courthouse. Employees will not be given that consideration, although the county is expected to find enough parking for top officials and county supervisors.

Annex issues, including the potential release of asbestos due to vibrations from the Interchange work, were completely overlooked in the state's Environmental Assessment of the project, according to the records.

"Blame clearly is on the state which did not even include the Annex in its environmental assessment of the project," Corporation Counsel William Domina said in a memo."The county also may be the focus of some criticism in that we did not object strongly to environmental assessment voids.

The Walker administration unsuccessfully pushed the state to help with the county's parking dilemma, and Holloway consistently linked Annex demolition with replacement parking, the records show.

WisDOT Secretary Frank Busalacchi offered only minor assistance: "WisDOT is willing to work with the county to identify some of the various parking options downtown that the county could pursue at its own cost to address its parking needs," he said in a letter to county officials.

---

Ka-ching!
Contract changes drive HNTB charges up almost 80%

Dec. 20, 2004 -- HNTB raised its take on preliminary Marquette Interchange design work almost 80% through state-authorized contract amendments that put cash in the firm's pocket, Department of Transportation records show.

Profits, labor and overhead charged by the firm to the state each rose 77% from August 2001 to August of this year, while direct expenses rose a whopping 112%, according to WisDOT documents. The overall increase was 79%, records show.

The contract amendments drove the firm's billings up by $2.8 million, to $6.4 million, records show.

HNTB receives overhead that is 153% of direct labor costs, and profits that are 12% of the combined direct labor and overhead, according to the records.

"It is obscene that the state, during the time of an economic crisis, allows external contractors to set their own profit margins with little or no accountability," said Martin Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union. "The taxpayers set the table and only the contractors are allowed to eat and eat as much as they want. Something is very wrong with this picture."

Brian Manthey, WisDOT's spokesman for the the Marquette Interchange project, did not answer directly when asked why Marquette project contractors were guaranteed a 12% profit. Manthey said in an e-mail the profit margin for lump sum design contract can range between 9% and 15%, depending on schedule, size, duration, complexity and risk.

The criteria for cost-plus fixed fee design contracts includes the first four of those criteria and can fall between 8% and 13%, he said.

Said Beil: "I think that the fact that it's a guaranteed 12% profit speaks volumes to the fact that the state, with its own workers, can do it cheaper because we have a zero profit margin."

Overall, amendments added about $1.4 million in HNTB overhead charges, $915,000 in labor costs, $278,000 in profits and $208,000 in direct expenses to the firm's billings, according to DOT documents.

HNTB got a piece of 34 of the 57 -- about 60% -- of the amendments approved through October of this year, records show.

HNTB was paid through contract amendments for helping in a publicly-funded $1.5 million renovation of Amtrak station offices used by the Marquette Interchange project team; the design of the mchange.org web site; hazardous materials investigations along the Interchange route; emergency management studies; Interchange design changes; real estate appraisals; public information branding and marketing research; an out-of-state site tour; retaining wall tests; and load testing, among other things.

Milwaukee Transportation Partners, a joint venture between HNTB and CH2M Hil, is the prime contractor on the design project. Separately, HNTB and CH2M Hill are subcontractors.