$11K to dig Crompton a deeper pond

4,323 Views | 60 Replies | Last: 14 yr ago by davido
texbcs
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CS City Council will vote on an item to award a contract for $11,000 to 'excavate an additional 1150 cubic yards of soil from pond' in John Crompton Park. (item 2f on consent agenda, 9/24/09 meeting). Net percentage increase in contract amount: 22.4%.

"Recommendation(s): Staff recommends approval of the change order."

Of course they do. John Crompton is on the city council!
duffelpud
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AG
A metaphor suitable.
AgCPA
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They named a park after that socialist?

This ain't the same CS anymore...
AgFan1999
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BlueMiles
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Maybe they need more room to hide bodies.
jumanjimrs
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Ridiculous. I live over there and think it's stupid to have the pond/fountain at all. It's not even that pretty and is a waste of $.
firefly1204
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They could use a little of that money to pay to repair the decking around the playground at Bee Creek park!
texbcs
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Take the $11K from this project and use it to put up the school zone cell phone signs. I can't believe neither side would agree to spend $5200 for these signs. $10400 total cost..

www.theeagle.com/schools/Funding-for-signs-pits-CS--district

The major is correct on this: ""To spend any time on who pays for it, I think, is ridiculous," he said. "I would support the cost to be funded by the city and we move on."
Stucco
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We should put up cellphone signs around animal shelters, construction workers, anywhere with lots of foot traffic, red lights, stop signs, crosswalks and any road within 50ft of a building entrance.

Can we actually work on solving problems? How many CS kids have been hit in a school zone by a driver talking on a cell phone in the last year?
crazymom
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I'm with you stucco...just one more way for this city to make money. I do have a question, Why would the school district pay for this? The city will be writing the tickets and taking in the money.

I used to love College Station. Not so sure anymore.
superspeck
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Bryan's starting to look like a paradise of freedom and common sense compared to CS. Are the city leaders bored? Do they need some real problems to solve?
duffelpud
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Three words: single member districts
SumAggie
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What's the argument? Either way "we" (the taxpayer) is paying for it.......
aggiegal99
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Where is Crompton park? And why does the pond need to be bigger?

[This message has been edited by aggiegal99 (edited 9/23/2009 6:50p).]
texbcs
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www.cstx.gov/docs/john_crompton_dedication_flier.pdf

201 Holleman W

I don't know what is going on at that pond for $60K total, $49K plus the change order for another $11K.

This is very shady as the original $49K price tag was not approved by council - the city manager has authority to approve expenditures up to $50K - interesting how he approved $49K for a park pond dedicated to a sitting council member - he didn't have to - he could have brought it to council and let the public hear about it but didn't choose that path...
toolshed
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Maybe, and I dont have a clue, but maybe they need fill dirt on some other city property. At $11000, it doesnt seem cost effective to dig dirt on one city property to use at another. You can buy it cheaper per truckload than that. Just a thought, that if the park is under const., maybe they were going to use the fill somewhere else.
duffelpud
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Three words: single member districts
newinaggieland
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$60K for pond improvements, esp in this ecomomic climate, is ridiculous. The manager approving essentially up to his $50K limit to start the project without public knowledge is just as ridiculous.
AgDotCom
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Is the $49k + $11k really true? If so, can you post a link verifying this...or did I miss it above?

This was how P. David Romei was able to get taxpayer money from the city manager under the radar on at least one occasion.

When this scheme was busted and Romei was exposed, it was supposed to usher in a new era of transparency. That's why I'd like to see more info before concluding it's true.
AgFan1999
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we can file an open records request for all emails pertaining to the Crompton Park pond?
texbcs
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Consent Agenda Item 2f available on agenda.cstx.gov (Sept 24 Regular Meeting, page 29).

quote:
Summary: Contract #09-222 with Fuqua Construction Inc. was approved July 20, 2009. The contract is for improvements at John Crompton Park Pond.

Contract #09-222 is a Standard Form of Construction Contract, and according to City of College Station Purchasing Procedures “written change orders may be approved by the City Manager or his delegate provided that the change order does not increase the amount set forth in this contract to more than $50,000.00.” Changes in excess of this amount must be approved by City Council prior to commencement of the services or work.

Amount Budgeted: $105,500.00
Original Contract Amount: $49,191.00
Change Order #1 Amount: $11,000.00
Net Percentage Increase: 22.4%
Revised Contract Amount: $60,191.00
benMath08
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According to that pdf posted earlier, we've already spent $800,000 on this park, as of 2007.

EDIT: Actually, assuming land acquisition is not part of the development cost, we've spent $900,000 (as of 2007).

[This message has been edited by benMath08 (edited 9/24/2009 12:55p).]
superspeck
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This town just gets dirtier and dirtier every time I read the news.
texbcs
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quote:
This town just gets dirtier and dirtier every time I read the news.


But it's pretty dirt. The council just voted this afternoon to spend $250K to put in trees at Highway-6/University, even though staff recommended against and there is no money in the budget for keeping it maintained. Crompton made the motion for, Maloney seconded. Massey/Lyles voted against.

from agenda:
quote:
The cost estimate for this phase of construction is $254,474. Once the landscape construction has been completed on a particular portion of the project, the operations andmaintenance of the completed landscape improvements would transfer from TXDOT to become solely the City’s responsibility. The O&M for the Phase One construction has anestimated cost of $12,500 to $25,000 per year depending on the final bids. That portion of the project would be dependent upon future General Fund funding that has not been identified and budgeted for.

Recommendation(s): Staff requests that the Council consider postponing this project indefinitely until such time as funding for the required operations and maintenance has been identified.

kraut
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texbcs - but it's ok, since that money is coming from WindWatts!

The discussion had everything from council discussing "offering" WindWatts to commercial businesses to Crompton going on a global warming tirade. If you have the chance it is must-see TV!
twiggy
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I saw that too. Yes, they are going to transfer money from the utilities fund to pay for it (why not, they just raised the rates), but I bet it will cost more than what wind watts is bringing in. They are going to expand WW to commercial properties soon, so all will be well because businesses will surely sign up!

The Crompton global warming tirade was a definite classic, paraphrasing 'scientific journals' that he has likely never read.
kraut
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Enjoy.

Around the 1 hour, 31 minute mark, the council hears the presentation by staff about the trees to be planted around the University Drive/SH6 intersection; around the 1:50 mark is when Crompton goes on his global warming tirade.

http://collegestation.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=12&clip_id=1411
duffelpud
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I love it. Crompton twice called his fellow council members “stupid, irresponsible and lacking in integrity” if they refused “to safeguard our future” by planting trees at University Drive & Hwy 6 and by spending $5,000/yr (or more) to maintain them. After listening to his 'fragile Earth as a lifeboat' tirade twice I'm convinced the guy is a certifiable nutcase.
1984Consol
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I like what Dufflepud said about the metaphor.

think about it- the park is named after John Crompton. Metaphoricallt speaking, the park is now an extension of him. If a hole is to be dug in that park, again, metaphoically speaking, he will be diggin a deeper hole for himself...
AgDotCom
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Just watched Crompton's rant.

Wow.
Nom de Plume
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Wow. Interesting.

Chrono-recap of Crompton's speech:
- Council won't allocate $25k for tree maintenance next year, "bet your life on it".
- We're essentially going to abandon this project if we don't do it right now.
- We can do this at minimum standards at $5k per year, which can easily be found because "Mr. Cisneros has a $9M budget."

"So it goes like this, Mayor..." [and here we go...]
You've got a rowboat, and you're going across the Pacific Ocean. And its a sort of 25-ft rowboat. And you look after it real carefully, because there's 3,000mi of water. And you take great care of that rowboat; you make sure you've got plenty of water and plenty of food onboard...and so on and so forth.

And we have this little thing called Earth roomed in this massive cosmos of infinite size. Its kind of like my rowboat on the Pacific Ocean. And this little thing called Earth has a very fragile environment, very fragile, and if you shift that environment 3 or 4 degrees you essentially wipe out life.

And so, we see, we see temperature change, we see carbon issues now, and if you pick up Nature and you pick up Science, in every month's issue the conclusion of the top scientists in those top journals is "its worse than we thought it was." And the situation accelerates... And so nobody was forecasting 5 years ago the melting of the Arctic, and that's happened. And so, as the Arctic melts and the permafrost melts and the tundra melts, the carbon gets released and its magnified and as the temperature heats up the oceans become sterile because the plankton becomes toxic in those 2 degree raises in temperature and so the massive sinks of the Amazon and the Congo are disappearing and not only disappearing but the carbon is accelerating...

And so, I go forward in my lifetime I'll get by before the catastrophe happens, before the apocalypse happens, but my grandchildren won't. And in 50 years time, Bethany will say to Sherwood, "Look at Grandad's journal. And on September 24th, 2009, look what he wrote: 'The city council declined to start the beginning of an urban forest which will be a carbon sink because they couldn't raise 5 or 10 thousand dollars.'"

And Sherwood will say to Bethany, "$10k and 92,000 people, that's about 12 cents each, isn't it?" And Bethany will say, "Yes, that's right."
"So that's a cent a month, isn't it?"
"Yes."
And Sherwood will say, "Bethany, were they so stupid, were they so irresponsible, were they so lacking integrity like all the other public officials in those days, that they refused to safeguard our future?"

This is not about tree hugging, and you can smile all that you like at my analogy, but we have a responsibility here and its a very serious one. And we need to get on with it and take it seriously and do it. And we need to plant these trees and I move that we do #2 and get on with it.


Maloney basically says, "Look, I don't know about Global Warming and don't really care. I just like a whole bunch of trees."


Massey states for the record he doesn't want to ruin the earth for his grandchildren, and that in providing for the health and safety of our citizens choices in funding must be made.


Crompton: There is nothing more fundamental to the health and safety of our citizens than the survival of our ecosystem. And economics is absolutely trivial alongside that; its absolutely short-term thinking, and in my view as I said, stupid, irresponsible and lacking in integrity not to get on with it!

[This message has been edited by Nom de Plume (edited 9/29/2009 8:03a).]
duffelpud
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I rest my case.
AgFan1999
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how about taking the $11,000 budgeted for HIS park and use it for the trees?
duffelpud
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How about giving 92,000 taxpayers their .12 cents back?
AgFan1999
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that would be OK as well.
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