The Peoria City Council has a library liaison. It used to be John Morris, but since he’s left the council, there’s a new liaison: Gary Sandberg. An inspired choice, if you ask me, considering they’re planning to spend a whole bunch of taxpayer money on capital improvements.
Today’s Word on the Street gives a good example of why you want someone like Gary in there — to keep them honest, to expose back-room deals, and to make sure the public’s business is being handled properly:
…At-large Councilman Gary Sandberg, the library’s new council liaison, discovered that the library board’s building committee voted May 15 to recommend that the full board hire PSA Dewberry to program what will go in the new and expanded facilities. That vote was a full two weeks before local architects were asked to submit their programming proposals. Further, they were only given a one-day turnaround.
This is what you call “going through the motions” or complying with the letter, but not the spirit, of the law. The library board president (Mike McKenzie) defends the board’s actions because he “truly [doesn't] believe [they] would have come to a different result.” So they sent it out to bid just as a formality. In reality, PSA Dewberry was preselected. The firms who wasted their time submitting bids were LZT Associates, APACE, and Farnsworth Group.
This is an inauspicious start to the library building program.
This crap goes on all the time, and has been the case with the civic center as well. Kudos to gary for shinning a light on this one. Make them rebid the project and award to the lowest bidder, none of this request for proposal garbage that is nothing more than window dressing to make it look like you are actually getting bids.
I would disqualify PSA Dewberry from bidding. As for the Library “public servants” [sorry if you choked on that], they should be faced with an independent counsel investigation into how they “picked” PSA.
Sounds like more regional museum crap.
This is why I voted no on the referendum. I am not against improving the library system; I just don’t trust the power brokers in this town to do it properly. Same with the water company buyout. Normally I would support something like that, but not with this town’s asset management history. They should make the board publicly apologize to the firms that scrambled to try to get their work done in one day. That is very unprofessional and disrespectful of the firms’ time. It is very unfortunate that Mr. Sandberg is the only one who seems to get that tax dollars aren’t an unlimited resource that they are entitled to do with what they please. Why is it when normal people get a hold of other people’s money they lose all sense of reason?
Does every major project in this city have to have some sort of shady backdoor dealings attached to it?
I’m sure it goes on everywhere, but I get pretty sick of this crap.
And Mayor Ardis wonders why people have such a “negative” attitude towards the city.
Bullseye to all commenters!
[...] to C.J. Summers for his post about the shenanigans at the Peoria Library Board. For those who didn’t read the post, Monday’s Word on the Street kudos-worthy-column in [...]
At least hiring PSA Dewberry to do some work isn’t as bad as King Hinton going out and throwing away nearly $900,000 for over priced properties of little use. Yup, those in power in Peoria are fiscal idiots and not stewards of taxpayer money! ^oo^~
BeanCounter says “Why is it when normal people get a hold of other people’s money they lose all sense of reason?”
1. I would not assume all of these people are normal.
2. It’s the culture of local government. Back room deals, etc. are so common, they begin, after a while to seem “normal”
PSA should lose this contract, what other way could a message be sent that this is not the way the public wants its tax dollars handled?
I agree – PSA Dewberry’s proposal should be disqualified and a new architectural firm hired. This is becoming pattern behavior in Peoria – think District #150 and the PHA using the same law firm (until discovered), think Hinton being offered the superintendency before the BOE “officially” started their search, etc., etc.