Sunday, November 13, 2016
Conflict of Interest. The Song and Dance Game Anyone Can Play.
It is almost guaranteed you were not at the drainage presentation at the log cabin yesterday morning. Very few Village residents were there.
The issue was how to address our problem with ground water. The presenters were representatives of the Craig A Smith Company, which specializes in improving drainage in communities.
The Smith reps gave us a slide show about the drainage problem they say we have. They've performed a study, for which we paid, and we already had a previous study performed by staff at FIU. I don't know if we paid for that study. It was from 2003. But the studies agreed we have a problem, and the Smith reps explained what we can do about it. The main thing we can do is find funding, and hire Smith to do the work.
It wouldn't take a genius to imagine the possibility that Smith were motivated to find a problem, and offer to accept money to ameliorate it. You could make such an argument about anyone in business. They think everyone needs whatever they're selling. Perhaps of interest, though, Smith did give us some ideas about how to find grant funding that at least in some cases has allowed municipalities to achieve even extensive drainage upgrades without spending a dime of their own money. So there was a level of understanding there of the limitation of some municipalities when it comes to being able to accomplish large projects like this one. But still, Smith had something substantial to gain, if they could persuade us we have a problem, and we should fix it.
On the other side, there were some of the few Village residents present who frankly predictably argued that we don't really have a drainage problem. These BP residents, none of whom is an appropriately trained, credentialed, and experienced civil engineer, and who did not technically study the matter beyond taking companion photographs after and further after rain, decided they know more about these matters than do professionals who do nothing but this all day, every day, for a broad range of municipalities. They seemed to be arguing something that is very much not in their own bailiwicks. One of these BP neighbors even trotted out his stash of photographs, taken two hours apart, showing a nice and tidy disappearance of puddles after the rain. (Of course, the "before" photographs showed very small puddles, so it's not clear that he didn't choose either times of light rain, or streets that don't happen to have much of a problem.)
Likewise, it wouldn't take a genius to conclude that if someone doesn't want to pay for something, a great starting place would be to conclude that whatever it is isn't needed. Frankly, that seems to be what was going on here regarding the drainage issue. The people who seemed most poised against the idea that we have a drainage problem, and/or that the Smith proposal was what we should do about it, tend generally to resist anything that costs more money.
On the surface of it, it's a tough dilemma: which people are more motivated by conflict of interest? Is it the prospective "vendor," who could be using us, or any other area, just to get work? Or is it the BP residents who never seem to want to pay for anything, now finding (or imagining) a reason we shouldn't have to pay for this, either? And some of those same residents also tend not to like change, as well as being poised against any suggestion made by a sometimes majority of the current Commission.
One BP resident seemed to propose to disqualify at least part of the resident questionnaire aspect of the investigation, when she pointed out that her block was designated as having a problem, while she herself had completed the questionnaire, and said that in her experience and observation, the block had no problem. But it was pointed out that there were a few questionnaires from that block indicating that some of her neighbors apparently do think there's a problem. Were her neighbors overstating a problem? Was she understating one?
As Gene Schreiner of Craig A Smith said, he didn't approach the Village suggesting it had a problem it should hire him to solve. It was the Village who reached out to Craig A Smith, complaining of something. He's just doing what we asked him to do. And he said he's seen evidence of the kind of macadam damage that water causes. And we have some residents who complain of various kinds of water intrusion and damage. I asked Mr Schreiner to prove to us, with photographs, that this water damage problem exists here, and to add that proof as an amendment to the voluminous report his company already provided. He says he will.
This is a very expensive project. It's no less expensive if we can find some funding source that will pay for it. It just becomes not our money. But it's our Village. If we don't really have a problem, we shouldn't pay, or ask anyone else to pay, to fix one. But if we do have a problem (and much of the evidence and testimony made it seemingly impossible to imagine we don't), it would be foolish and short-sighted of us not to commit ourselves to addressing it. And sometimes, foolishness and short-sightedness have been our specialty. Especially when it comes to ponying up for something.
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By the way, it also turns out that flood insurance, which is expensive, is charged based on how high is the water table in the area to be insured. We were told that residents of some communities where drainage was improved experienced very substantial relief regarding the flood insurance premium they pay. In that sense, this could be the kind of project that pays for itself.
ReplyDeleteFred
Thanks Fred... my take on it based on what I saw is that our problems aren't severe enough to warrant huge assessments on residents, but if we can get some grant funding to incrementally tackle the worst problem areas, it could be worthwhile (depending on how much a lobbyist costs). I recognize that we have scattered areas of standing water after heavy rain, but I don't see it lasting for over 12 hours, and in most cases, not even 4 hours. I'd much rather see us seek/spend money to bury power lines!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brian. I thought it was left ambiguous as to how "severe" are our problems, and how we could tell. At one point, Schreiner seemed to say the problems are as severe as we think they are: that it was a matter of how tolerant we are about standing water and the complications of it. What might be less subjective is that we really do seem to have damage to the streets-- which we can't afford to fix no matter what caused the damage-- and that we do ourselves a disservice, if we don't improve drainage so as not to make our streets deteriorate faster than they would anyway.
DeleteWe also did not discuss the matter of a lobbyist, and the cost of one. We already have and pay a lobbyist in Tallahassee. His name is David Caserta. If he can help us with this matter as much as he could help us with anything else, then a lobbyist costs us nothing beyond what we already pay.
It was also left unclear what is the definition of flooding, or, as you say, standing water, and even more unclear whether an observed length of time of standing water correlates with an amount of water damage. But if we have water damage, and that can be proven, then it doesn't matter how long the water stands without receding.
Oh, yes, burying the power lines. It was 10 years ago (or maybe 9) that FPL offered communities a 25% discount on the cost of burying all the power lines. For us, the calculation was that the whole project would cost $7.7M, if I remember correctly. Let's say that would have cost each property-owner about $7500, once. I pleaded with the then Commission to canvass the neighborhood to see if property-owners would agree to the expense, for the sake of buried power lines. The then Commission refused even to ask us the question But we still complain about power outages, and the need to "butcher" our canopy to avoid interfering with the lines. And some of us complain about more secure power poles, too.
So I love your idea. I'd be disappointed if we went forward with it now, and if it cost about $10K per home, because we couldn't mobilize ourselves when it was $7500. But that, like annexation, and now maybe drainage improvement, might be just another on the list of ones we let get away. It would be great if we could learn from our mistakes.
Fred
PS, Brian, I agree with you that if we agree we have a problem, we should address it in stages. The worst indicators of a problem are at the bottom/point of the upside down triangle (these are also the smallest areas, because of the geometry, and therefore the cheapest to address), and it's where we should start. We could also address, as you say, spot areas, like 9th Avenue between 115th and 116th Sts. We might even be able to do ourselves a meaningful favor if we empty, redrill, and refill some of the drainage silos beneath the manhole covers. It just doesn't make sense to do nothing. It seems very clear we really do have a problem. And spot treatments only work at early stages, where complications are only spotty. We have to think big now.
DeleteFred
We did not reach out to Smith to do the survey. It was their lobbyist who said we could get the survey done for free, so the commission jumped on it.
ReplyDeleteYou do not have to have any training to look at photographs and see, that the standing water drained away well within the time frame necessary to say we do not have a drainage problems.
Water damage on roads that are over 40 years old, maybe just be old age.
Dry wells being filled with debris, is partially cause by blowing grass clipings off resident property and into the street. Easy fix, enforce littering.
Water draining off paved swales into the street, dig a drainage trough next to the roadway.
Harvey,
DeleteI think you're mistaken. I'll check to be sure. I think we thought we had a drainage problem, and we contacted Smith, who had done other work for us, for a survey. It's possible we put this survey out for RFQ, but again, I'll check. No one said we could get a survey for free. It was the Smith people who have told us some communities can get the mitigation work done for free. We paid a lot of money for that survey.
There are two variables involved in concluding whether we have a drainage/damage problem. One is whether there is standing water that meets a certain cutoff to be declared excessive, or representing flooding. The Smith people told us yesterday that some of this concluding depends on our tolerance, for things like how long a collection of what size stays on the street. The other variable, however, is not subjective. Water invading and immersing the undersides of macadam causes a certain kind of leaching of components. That is the indisputable evidence of water damage. We have that. Could we choose not to repair the streets anyway? Sure we could. (It's our specialty.) Do streets deteriorate over time, even without water damage? Sure they do. But since we have the survey (two of them, counting the '03 survey from someone unrelated to Smith), and we have road damage, and there's a possible opportunity to get financial help with repairs, why wouldn't we repair the streets, and improve the drainage? What would be our motivation not to do this? Because it costs money? But it's our Village. We have to use these streets. It improves or increases the sense of value of the place, if we have fewer problems. It makes it a pleasure, not a chore, to drive through here when there aren't collections of water impeding traffic. It decreases water invasion into private homes. It lowers flood insurance premiums.
Of course we should also clean what collection and dissipation system we have. You're advocating for that, right? And for drainage troughs? So once you come that far with spot improvements, why wouldn't you just do the whole correct job?
By the way, I didn't get that far, but it has been pointed out to me that it doesn't help the Village when people corral cut grass with leaf blowers. Not only do they make a lot of noise, and create a lot of air pollution, but they also lead to the lazy way to deal with loose clippings, that then results in exactly the problem you cite. So I hope the next Commission will take a look at outlawing the use of motorized leaf blowers here.
Fred
Save the leaf blowers!
ReplyDeletejessica@mail.postmanllc.net
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