You know, no matter how much we think things will change, they seem to stay the same. The December meetings of our Board of Commissioners points this out, again.
Due to family illness, I was unable to attend the Commissioner’s Thursday night planning meeting and of course due to the totally inadequate public notice for the Jail Committee meeting, that was held on December 3rd, the only opportunity to exercise my right to participate and get the answers to any questions that I might have had concerning the letting of the construction contract for the Jail, was at Monday’s official/regular monthly meeting.
Other than three somewhat routine housekeeping items, the only other item on the very short agenda was the ‘Discussion and Possible Action on Bid Invitation for [the] Hardin County Jail Project.’ No problem, there should be plenty of time for any ‘discussion', right? Wrong.
There were only two points that concerned me, at this phase of the project.
1. Based on my past experience in the development of commercial and industrial projects, the time that was going to be allowed for the bidding process seemed extraordinarily short, unless you already have an idea who the contractor is going to be. Put the plans out for bid on the 19th of December and opening the bids on January 16th.
That is only 28 day, during the Christmas and New Years holiday season, which actually works out to 19 working days, for the general contractors to get the plans to their sub-contractors, get their bid prices for all labor and material costs back, pull together the total bid package, arrange bonds and to finalize their bids on a estimated 10 Million Dollar, plus/minus, somewhat specialized project.
2. Were the plans for the Jail Project, complete plans? Were they for a turn-key project, which means when the contractor complete the construction, he hands the Sheriff the keys and the County can start operations in the new Jail/Sheriffs Department/Courtroom. Bare in mind that the last time we got an estimate for the cost of the Jail Project, most of the furniture, fixtures and equipment had been left out.
Well, to make this as short as possible, after about only 4 or 5 minutes of the Chairman/Mayor trying to explain something about I should have been there on Thursday night, when the TLM representative was there, and had assured the Commissioners that the time frame was not a problem, Commissioner Whitehorn interrupted and called for ‘the question,’ which stops any further discussions of the matter and prevented even the asking of question #2.
Of course this is just another example of Mr. Whitehorns’ history of telling me to set down, shut up and let things work out the way he wants them to, and I will be a lot better off.
Most folks that know me, know that that set down and shut up thing ain’t gonna happen and for you folks that keep telling me to work with the Commission and use my experience for the good of Hardin County, perhaps you will share with me just exactly how one goes about doing that with this kind of reception to legitimate concerns.
As a matter of information, the entire meeting from opening to adjourning lasted about 30 minutes. It’s not like there wasn’t time for the advertised ‘Discussion’ of the Bid Invitations. If one does the math, the taxpayers paid each commissioner $100 for Monday night’s meeting which lasted 30 minutes.
Respectfully submitted for your consideration,
Uncle Ted
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