But Hatch, who fancies himself something of an expert on pile-driving, wasn't satisfied. Without consulting project manager Juan Rendon, he called a halt to the pile operation and engaged Geotest Engineering for a second opinion.
That burned Rendon, who couldn't understand why the jetting, which had been tested successfully, had been rejected. And he was further miffed that he hadn't been consulted before the action. "I told [chief engineer] Sheri [Holloway] that I did not agree with Mr. Hatch's decision to stop the project, since I had worked so hard to solve the pile problems," Rendon wrote in a memo. "I also told Sheri that it was going to cost the city a lot of money in downtime."
A few weeks later, Geotest came back with a new solution: Drive the piles into the sand and leave them. But design engineer Charles Tamborello found the idea unacceptable and told Hatch he wouldn't participate if the city tried to use the alternate pile plan. Eventually, Hatch cleared NBG to proceed with the original design, using jetting.
NBG, which had to keep its construction crew on standby while the issue percolated, has billed the city $277,000 for the delay.
Hatch says he asked Geotech to study the matter on a recommendation from Holloway. The chief engineer, in turn, says she suggested Geotech because of the firm's expertise in pile-driving. It had nothing to do, Holloway insists, with the fact that her stepdaughter worked for Geotech at the time. To pay the firm its fee of more than $7,000, Hatch billed the work to another city contract Geotech held, though he doesn't know exactly which one. "I was told they had a contract they could do it under," Hatch says. "This is [Geotech] telling me."
Hatch can't say why he left project manager Juan Rendon out of the initial decision to hire a consultant. But he defends his decision to stop the project, even though it might cost taxpayers more than a quarter of a million dollars.
Others familiar with the project disagree. "It was a total waste of money, because the guy in charge [Hatch] had no idea what he was doing," says one engineer.
Hatch probably doesn't have to worry, because odds are the city will just pay the bill and let the matter drop. In the big public works scheme of things, $284,000 is chicken feed. When the contract increase goes before City Council for approval, public works deputy director and spinmaster Dan Jones will run interference for the measure, and the vote will likely be unanimous. It's not as if the city is in any position to challenge NGB.
Under Bob Lanier and Jimmie Schindewolf, the public works department has rebuilt the city's infrastructure at a pace not seen in decades. The image of Lanier as chief architect of the countless new roads, storm sewers, traffic lights, bridges and other basic bedrock features of the urban landscape has been polished to a fine gloss by endless ribbon-cuttings, press conferences and back-pattings at Council meetings. Schindewolf, who has long harbored political ambitions, might one day try to cash in on the popularity of Neighborhoods to Standard and other public works programs with a mayoral run of his own.
Last week, the Council was presented with a motion authorizing the latest expenditure for the renovated police headquarters at 1200 Travis. Though construction has come in at almost 9 percent over budget, no new appropriation was necessary, since the initial appropriation had a 10-percent contingency figure. The item was passed without discussion.
No one mentioned the $227,000 that had been taken from an account set up to accumulate rent money paid to the city by two restaurants and a parking garage located in the building. The money was used to pay the contractor, Constructors Inc., for asbestos removal and other work that would ordinarily have had to go before Council as a change in the Constructors contract.
But there was no intent to deceive, says assistant public works director Jerry Dinkins, who oversaw the project. The items weren't really part of Constructors' contract, even though the firm did the work, he says. They were actually part of the building management contract with another firm, which had the freedom to spend the cash from the lease account on the building's monthly operating costs. The Council didn't need to know about the $225,000 because it was all part of the plan. "We're saying that the [Constructors] contract came in under budget," Dinkins insists.
It's the less visible parts of Lanier's public works legacy that may ultimately be the longest lasting: the cracked and broken pavement from botched design and construction jobs, the list of dedicated city employees who left or were pushed out and replaced by cronies or consulting firms with little accountability, the enormous hole in the budget where millions in wasted funds should have been.
Don't expect any serious evaluation of the department any time soon. With Lanier on the way out of City Hall, the clock is ticking. And there's still a batch of projects to manage and contracts to award before the deadline.
And the deadline will be met.
"We do enforce schedule," says Buddy Barnes, "and we reinforce schedule.
