No sign of contractor; city pays $70,000 and work not finished
November 15, 2010 at 6:00 pm in The Dickinson Press
Dickinson will be pursuing legal action against an Idaho contractor for unfinished work to the Armory and in the meantime, all tenants have been asked to vacate until the structure can be made sound. Continue Reading
Well there goes more of the tax payers money. I guess a contract for that type of money being spent would have been a good idea.
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From the article: A second payment made for $30,000 in May was approved by Rapp, a payment Kessel says he was unaware of until a couple weeks ago.
Why was he unaware? Who’s watching the checkbook? Is anyone? He has used that ” I didn’t know”, ” I was unaware” line too many times. imo
$70,000 paid to someone who isn’t going to pay it back in one lump sum (if they catch him)
$28,000 owed to Valley Truss
$8,500 owed to Bosch Lumber
Tenants having to relocate where and for how long and how much?
Insurances to cover any relocation- health problems- etc
Legal fees- $$
Maybe if “those in charge” would be tending to business instead of going around in the night trying to come up with ways to “annex” more problems that they can’t take care of this wouldn’t have happened.
Shorting the Fire Department $4,000.?
“open door policy” , come to the city meetings, we want to hear from you blah blah blah- It appears that they aren’t listening to the people. They are doing what they want -when they want.
When they were talking about the parking down town the mouths moved but I haven’t seen anything done.
Then they spent $194,000 for two homes that are going to be used for what? A homeless shelter? that would cost how much to bring them up to standard? And if that didn’t work out they would use it for a parking lot? Seriously?
Kessle is going to I didn’t know us right into the red if this keeps up.
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This is shameful…why are we outsourcing to out of state contractors and not using locally owned businesses. I know they are busy but then procuring city ( or county for that matter) contracting jobs we should be using local people to provide local jobs. Not everyone is working in the oilfield.
Now we are stuck with the loss of money and have to finish the work. USE LOCAL PEOPLE, people…I when we have jobs like this we have to put them out on bids but there should (if there already isn’t) a provision to refuse any and all bids.
I wonder if Rapp did any kind of background check on the company that did the job…Is this the reason why he retired. (if I remember correctly he did retire) I doubt it.
What a mess…that building was used for the election…so they had to have known that it was unsafe prior to the election…my feelings are they kept that quiet until after…was there an illegal meeting of the commission to discuss this? ALL meetings of the commission have to be announced…if there is any kind of a meeting…even for coffee…and there is a quorum present and they discuss this issue or any other that has something to do with discussion about an issue regarding the issue…they need to consider it a meeting.
Now the taxpayers are stuck footing the bill to finish the job…bad business on the part of the city and Rapp. Maybe it is time for more change on the commission…people who actually care about the taxpayers…if they are just there for the title they need to go.
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http://m.thedickinsonpress.com/article.cfm?id=35603 From the article written May 8, 2010
Nearly 40 garbage cans are scattered throughout the armory, collecting water and needing to be emptied every so often.
“I’m spending half of my day emptying buckets and putting buckets under new leaks rather than taking care of soldiers,†one person who works at the armory said.
After arriving at work, an employee had to dump water out of his keyboard and subsequently ended up driving to Bismarck to purchase a new computer.
A professional carpet cleaner cleaned the facility twice in the past few weeks. One room is filled with a musty, moldy smell. What was once a classroom has now become a storage room.
Aside from the leaking, questions surround the validity of the project.
While Kjerstad’s company was operating without a license March 1, 2009, until April 23, 2010, it is unclear if construction began prior to Kjerstad obtaining the license.
City Administrator Shawn Kessel said Thursday Two Rivers was still assigned to the project, but were not allowed to begin until the company obtained proper licensing.
Kjerstad said he wasn’t sure exactly when construction started, but estimates it was a couple weeks ago.
AND……http://www.dickinsongov.com/vertical/Sites/%7BC05A6D52-8D43-4973-88DA-91DB0DE0D05A%7D/uploads/%7B7A5E16E3-5E98-4A7F-B708-4C928A73D65E%7D.PDF
Grant Money
Administrator Kessel reports the City will receive $20,000 from the Energy
Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant to replace the roof at the armory. These
funds along with the Department of Energy Grant should cover the cost of the roof
replacement.
Maybe there is another link concerning city minutes and more information concerning the cost, who knew what and when but I couldn’t find much more.
I wonder if they followed thru with another inspection? I wonder if they were able to get a “legal document” drawn up for anyone entering the building to sign. (cough cough)
Mold isn’t an issue to take lightly. Very serious concerning health problems. Sometimes with a continued water issue black mold will grow in places undetected by the eye. They actually have people that go around checking for black mold.
More can be found here concerning the city minutes. http://www.dickinsongov.com/
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