RestonWeb

[Bob Bruhns]

This is good.

Given that the same broken MWAA that got a stunningly bad preliminary audit review from the Inspector General of the US DOT on May 15, 2012, is overseeing the contract bids for this job that they massively overpriced, I would say that all possible emergency measures should be taken, to prevent MWAA from causing any further damage.
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Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[stix]

The final DOT IG Phase 1 report, started in 2009 has been issued. All issues originally raised by the IG have been satisfactorily addressed, although not completely closed.

The IG was most critical of FTA performance, summarizing they were,

...slow in responding... not sufficiently proactive in addressing risks that could impact project cost, schedule and funding... underscoring the need for FTA to assess the effectiveness of its oversight processes.

Good advice for Phase 2 and still needed on Phase 1....
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[stix]

This article says nothing we already do not know about the MWAA board. On the other hand, with Phase 1 75% complete, the important fact is that the project has been executed flawlessly to date...
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[Bob Bruhns]

I wouldn't call Dulles Rail Phase I flawless, stix. Mark Canale, a Dulles Rail Project Manager with Fairfax County’s Department of Transportation, said that the cost of the rail stations in Phase I was very comparable to the outrageously overpriced cost of the rail stations in Phase II.

Dulles Rail Phase 2 Project and Silver Line Station Naming Process
Fairfax County Government website, March 9, 2012
Transcript

[stix]

If one reads the rest of Mark Canale's reply to Mr. Bruhns suggestion that the the Route 28 station and Phase 2 garages are "1.7 to two times what they should cost", he essentially says that idea is nonsense as the Phase 2 cost estimates are in line with what the comparable Phase 1 items are actually costing in construction today....
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[Bob Bruhns]

Actually, this is simple.

I have shown that a Dulles Rail Project Manager with Fairfax County’s Department of Transportation, who actually gets to see the prices, said that the Phase I prices were comparable to the Phase II prices.

I have also shown how the Dulles Rail Phase II prices are far above the prices that such things actually cost in construction today. Parking garages cost more like $15,000 per space, not $34,000 per space. Even if they inflated as high as $17,000 per space around here, that's still half of the MWAA $34,000 per space price. And the only comparable Metro station I can find that was recently built (it opened in December 2011), cost more like $40 million, not the MWAA price of $101 million for our Rt 28 station now. That's more than 2.5 to one overpricing.

OK, let's review. I showed that Dulles Rail Phase II is horribly overpriced, and a Dulles Rail Project Manager says that Dulles Rail Phase I is about the same. This means that both phases of Dulles Rail are severely overpriced.

But stix finds that inconvenient to his argument, so he ignores it. Stix thinks that a comparison of Dulles Rail Phase II to Dulles Rail Phase I proves that the prices of both are correct. To reitierate: I have compared a few big ticket item prices that were revealed in Dulles Rail Phase II to prices in other systems, and it showed Dulles Rail Phase II to be hugely overpriced - and a Dulles Rail Project Manager with Fairfax County’s Department of Transportation says that Phase II pricing is similar to Phase I in pricing. This indicates that the entire Dulles Rail project was obscenely hyperinflated under MWAA control. We have seen the MWAA Board getting more and more in love with excessive costs as Phase II progressed, and the very article that stix cited shows that MWAA Board is not getting better.

Dulles Rail board denounced as 'dysfunctional'
The Washington Examiner, August 1, 2012
Article

Bottom line: MWAA needs to be removed from this project before they can produce even more ridiculous hyperinflation. As for the various pen-name apologists for our massively overpriced Metro extension, one must seriously question their motives.
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Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[stix]

My only argument is that the Phase 2 100% Preliminary Engineering estimate is 2X what it should be is nonsense, no matter what Mickey Mouse "amateurish" analysis has been done to support that absurd assertion, and how many times the falsehood is repeated. And Mark Canale has essentially said the same thing in response to Mr. Bruhns direct question to him.

The best way to determine what something will cost in the future, is to first look at what similar items are costing TODAY. Unless Mr. Bruhns can prove the Phase 1 costs ACTUALLY BEING INCURRED are wrong, and how the costs could have been less, his absurd 2X overprice assertion is simply nonsense.. that is my only argument...
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[Bob Bruhns]

Actually, Mr. Canale took the same position that you did, stix - he only said that Phase II cost about the same as Phase I, and that this justified the prices of Phase II. Unfortunately, that's only saying "Well, MWAA jacked the price of Phase I way up too," because clearly the Phase II prices are way too high.

Defective contract practices allowed the Dulles Rail project to be ridiculously hyperinflated. Somebody somewhere starts ballooning the price, and nobody knows or cares. Certainly the MWAA Board didn't know or care. Unless they actually did know. You'll have to ask them about that, stix.
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Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[stix]

I am confident that Mr. Canale would disagree with your rendition of his words to mean "MWAA jacked the price of Phase I".

That is solely your fairy tale, and as much as you have written letters and repeated the falsehood perhaps hundreds of times, here and elsewhere, no one.. NO ONE.. agrees with you. One can only conclude that you have no credibility on this issue.. your "admittedly amateurish" cost estimating analysis, has been proven as you said, to be "amateurish"....
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[Bob Bruhns]

Nobody has refuted what I have revealed, stix. You have only tried (and failed) to cast doubt and shed darkness on it. The best anybody has been able to do is whistle and look the other way. Our so-called 'leaders' and our news media are very good at that, aren't they.

Even just the 50 cent toll increase in January 2013 will start to change the tune, stix. The MWAA Board probably hopes to have their pre-selected contractors locked in by the time people really wake up. I can't believe how people just stand around and watch, like cows in a field, chewing cud. But I have seen this before - during the Bush II administration and its Cheney war in Iraq. The bigshot bunglers could do no wrong! But it changes when it changes. And when it changes, the handlers lose all control.

And as for credibility - aren't you the one who said that Governor McDonnell could not fire Mr. Martire? And aren't you the one who said I was a liar when I reported that Plame leaker Armitage was a signatory of the PNAC? Yeah, you really know what you're talking about. Tell me all about credibility, pen-name stix. Tell me all about it.
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Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[stix]

Notwithstanding McDonnells declaration, Martire is still seated on the MWAA board. It is said he did nothing contrary to MWAA rules or the law, the cause for removal. The case is in litigation. We shall see.

In the meantime your 2X Phase 2 overcost charge remains a fairy tale...
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[Bob Bruhns]

Stix, Mr. Martire is already barred from speaking or voting on the MWAA Board. Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Nordlund denied MWAA's motion for summary decision, ruling that Governor McDonnell acted under the appropriate authority in dismissing Martire - meaning that the legal proceedings will continue for some time. The MWAA Board is resisting with all its might, but the net result of ongoing legal proceedings will most likely be that Mr. Martire will continue to be barred from speaking or voting until the end of his term, assuming that he does not choose to leave before then.

Judge denies MWAA request for quick decision on Loudoun board member
Loudoun Times, July 17, 2012
Article

Judge backs ouster of MWAA board member
Washington Examiner, July 16, 2012
Article

Certainly, the sooner the feeble legal arguments that form the basis for the complaints by the MWAA Board are resolved, the sooner the new Board members can be seated, and the sooner sanity might return to the MWAA Board. I really can't imagine why a dubious board of political appointees, with obviously no knowledge or understanding of rail transit or construction, should resist these changes so doggedly, unless of course there is some hidden agenda involved.
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Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[stix]

Some are advocating the commonwealth take over the completion the of Phase 2, all based on a statement made by Secretary of Transportation Connoughton last April,

“We are actively evaluating whether we can take the project over. These guys (MWAA) are a disaster... We’re at the point, quite honestly, where we think we could potentially do it better, cheaper, faster.”

Nice words, but this will never happen while the Silver Line construction remains uncompleted. In fact I doubt that the state could do the job faster or better, or likely not even cheaper...
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[Bob Bruhns]

Stix, we know a lot of very bad things about the MWAA Board, thanks to the recent report and information from the Inspector General of the US DOT, who has been investigating MWAA and the Dulles Rail Phase II project for years. Surely you have not forgotten that already?

The worst thing about the MWAA Board now, is that they know that they no longer have anything to lose. They have been very well discredited, and at this point they are an embarrassing political liability that is not even supported by Tim Kaine. It's interesting how the MWAA Board doesn't want anybody else on their Board right now, when they will be deciding where a Billion and a half of overcharge should go. It is also interesting how they recently snooped in a Board member's papers and filed lawsuits in a desperate attempt to remain in power.

Personally, I consider it good news that an Inspector General has been appointed to oversee that bunch. (This is the new Inspector General that has been assigned to MWAA, who will be working in addition to the DOT Inspector General who is already on their case.) Obviously, the sooner the MWAA Board is removed from the Silver Line project, the better off Northern Virginia will be.
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Government debt and deficits are robbing your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[RestonResident]

I saw a washington post article about the board. I did not see that any of the crap they did is illegal or even enough to get them fired. How can these guys still have jobs and get away with this?

why would you even have a single no bid contract for something like this? There have got to be several companies who can make bids for each contract.

How is it the least bit legal to give contracts to former board members? They may have been cancelled, but they don't have to give any of their profits back.

What was the state thinking when they gave these guys this much power? Why wouldn't the governor and legislature retain the right to fire people. I don't get it.

These guys have not been that publicly humiliated. You won't recognize them walking down the street.