If the article in this morning’s Coeur d’Alene Press is even close to accurate and complete, the public’s pocket is being picked by elements of the McScrew’em Park Project.  One source has estimated this pocket-picking’s value to be between $220,000 and $225,000.

But why be concerned?  After all, our City officials built $600,000 for that purpose into the budget.  It’s called the “contingency fund.”  The $600,000 is about 4.1% of the Project’s projected total budget.

Never mind that your pocket is still being picked.  It was planned!  Now, doesn’t that make you feel better?  It shouldn’t.  That means there could still be about $380,000 in the planned pocket-picking account before the Coeur d’Alene City Council would have to vote to approve an increase in the budget.   That’s a lot of money that can still be doled out.  And it might not end there.

The issue is whether Coeur d’Alene’s crony-payback parking garage project is a bridge or a building.  The answer is that it’s a bridge.  Understand something:  That should have been known to everyone involved in the design before the design was done and the bid specifications written.  The cost to do it right (properly design and build it)  should have been budgeted in items other than the contingency fund.

This design error was a breach of professional duty.   It is inconceivable that competent designers who have designed and built public garages in Idaho would not have known and resolved this before statements of work were written and bids solicited.  While the contingency fund may cover the offender’s rear to keep the project on track, the ultimate increased costs of redesign and corrective construction should be borne entirely by those who had the responsibility to properly design and write the specifications for the project.   That’s why professional engineers and architects have professional liability insurance (sometimes called errors and omissions insurance).

Mayor Sandi Bloem and her cronies pushed hard to get this project underway.  Bulldoze McEuen Field and Front Avenue so they would be unusable this summer.  Close the boat ramp on June 1 (for the convenience of the contractors!) and keep it closed until October 1.  Make traffic and parking miserable Downtown.  In other words, they generated as much irreversible, past-the-point-of-no-return  damage to Downtown as possible as quickly as possible so that the Council would be forced to approve any budget increases that might appear once the $600,000 contingency fund has been depleted.

So why doesn’t the Council simply direct the City Attorney to demand that the design flaws be corrected now at the offender’s expense rather than just pay the money out of the contingency fund?   Pursuing remedial legal action could cause the work to slow or stop completely and so protract the agony the Mayor and her cronies have already inflicted on Downtown.  Thus, legal action now would put the honest members of Council between the dog and the fire hydrant.  They would be blamed for delaying the project and making a bad situation even worse.

No, in their zeal to have a “bitchin’ ” McEuen Park, the Mayor,  some members of the Council, and some members of City staff have created a situation that is going to end up costing the public more than the project needed to cost.

The AIA notes in its best practices publication linked above, “Contracts provide for contingencies to pay for unknown conditions such as price escalation of a product; design changes in scope or due to errors and omissions; or necessary construction changes that are realized on site during construction.” Assuming this huge error was innocent and not intentional, civil recovery should be sought by the City after the project has been completed.  Additional money should not be “recolored” into the contingency fund to replenish it.

And if evidence surfaces that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that this or other errors have been intentionally built in to further milk the contingency fund, criminal investigation for antitrust violations should also ensue.