The Observation Deck

Hi,
We are in the middle of a huge construction project, rebuilding our schools.

How many of those construction workers are Lakewoodites?

Workers that live in the County?

Workers that live in the State?

As construction jobs are at a premium, I was wondering if tax dollars are creating any for us.

This information should be known.

Donald,

Great question.

Ensuring that all contracts consider maximizing the use of Lakewood residents in accordance with the law and in the best interest of the Lakewood City Schools is important to me, and was also one of my campaign promises (click here). I know it is also important to Board President Ed Favre.

Much of the Phase II construction contracts were already in place when I began as a board member in January of 2008.

But, as we begin Phase III, we will need to continue to consider these issues.

I do not know the specific answers to your questions so I forwarded them to the Administration. In the meantime, please feel free to call or e-mail Treasurer Rick Berdine directly as well.

Thanks.

Matt

Hi,
Thank you for your quick reply.

I hope the spirit of openness that President Obama just promised to America for him administration is quickly adopted by our local Administration and School Board. I have always felt that you Sir, were swimming upstream trying to do just that.

I think the construction industry is almost by necessity transient, because there are few places (Lakewood certainly isn't one of them) have enough projects going to keep a local workforce busy. Most commonly, you have a large company (they have to be large to support the staff and structure necessary to do such projects) that bids on projects across the country, and even internationally. When they win a contract, they bring in crews and those crews stay locally (usually in the cheapest motel they can find) for the few weeks necessary to do their part of the project, then they are off to the location of the next project. Its not unlike transient farm workers, but the pay is better.

The workers pay state and local income tax where the work is performed, so I guess they are "residents" to that extent. If the BofE puts a requirement in the contract, the price will rise by what it costs the contractor to provide records and documentation of how many of the workers are Lakewood residents, but in all probability they will just show that the transient workers in town for the project are Lakewood residents based on their temporary local address, even though the worker will in fact remain a true resident of wherever they are truly domiciled. So such a clause in the bidding will increase costs, possibly deter some good contractors who don't want to do all the paperwork, and provide no new jobs for actual Lakewood residents.

So such a clause is a bad idea, but with a superficial attractiveness sufficient to fool the public and get politicians elected. But its like putting icing on a turd. You still have a turd, not a cake.

No it's not a bad idea Will.

Most projects with this type of funding have always had points that were added and substracted when awarding contracts.

I worked on the Vertical and Horizontal Construction Boards for the State of Ohio back in the 80's and we awarded points considerations for local labor and for minority and gender participation.

In addition, it is merit-worthy to hire labor that is union because of the certification process of their apprenticeship programs. These programs are very stringent and assure the projects of the very best workmanship available.

It only makes sense to make the best use of our dollars.

This is so not on my radar. Best use of dollars and best person for the job is most important to me.

Will Brown wrote: So such a clause is a bad idea, but with a superficial attractiveness sufficient to fool the public and get politicians elected. But its like putting icing on a turd. You still have a turd, not a cake.

But certainly it is a better tasting turd.

Valerie

How does that figure into "lowest bid" as opposed to lowest responsible bid?

Early in the construction process I noticed that School Board Member Ed Favre was voting no on many of the construction votes, contracts, etc. One day I was at a "police action" and Ed was there, so I asked him. What I heard was at times very troubling. It seems his biggest concern was "lowest responsible bid" makes all the sense in the world. "Lowest bid" is a reciepe for disaster.

One of the things Ed was fighting for was "lowest responsible bid" he was also fighting for hiring LOCAL qualified construction people for the jobs. This is very different from the PR job to sell it that had "high paying jobs for local people" as a bullet point in their campaign. This was one Lakewoodite fighting for Lakewood in safety, jobs and the schools keeping their promises to the people that gave them the money.

I agree, qualified is key, but that said...


.

Not sure why you are calling me out because I never said 'lowest bid.' Lowest bid isn't always the best bid. Maybe your lowest bid is someone you've never worked with and cant speak for the quality of their work. Or you think lowest bid means bare bones and they are going to change order the crap out of the project with every little thing.

So I am pretty sure we are on the same page. But to say you should hire Lakewoodites solely for Lakewood projects is short sighted at best. I would take someone more qualified over more local....every time.

Hi,
I am shocked that local jobs are considered turds by some. Give those jobs to people that live out-of-state and you help them pay their mortgages in Kentucky. Give them to people in Lakewood and they can pay their mortgages in Lakewood. I guess its a matter of who you want to help. Yea we get the tax dollars for the brief time they are working in our town but that is just a percent of what happens when the tax dollars and the income dollars are spent locally.

In the other thread where money is being made available to schools to create jobs, I wondered can our School Board come up with productive ideas to spend this money to advance our School System and create some jobs locally.

We were promised this when the school system asked for approval of the levies. It was window dressing as was the promise that the new schools would be green.

Well, now it matters, maybe more, that we do create jobs and if we are working to do that, why not go the extra effort of helping local people?

The media is constantly full of stories where a contract has been awarded based, in part, on some of the work being done by the minority de jour, but where the contractor just hires a token minority firm, while the work is actually done by his own workers. Meanwhile, the clueless people who monitor such programs and awards never seem to notice that they have been fooled. Even after some reporter exposes the scheme, those people keep on "enforcing" such programs, blind to their own failings. Of course, the taxpayers have to pay more for such projects, both to cover the cost of the clueless bureaucrats, and the extra layer of paper participation that the contractor builds into the bid.

I agree that a construction project will add a few local jobs, but they will be temporary and unskilled; a contractor will hire laborers locally, but for the skilled positions, he will bring in people who have the skills to operate the equipment. Incidentally, he will hire local laborers whether or not the contract requires it, because it makes business sense. The extra costs associated with documenting compliance with such a clause would be an extra cost, and would be reflected in a higher bid.

Mr. Farris, are you angling for a high paying job as, for example, a crane operator on the school construction project? I would guess that you have never operated a crane, but would be happy to sign on, knock down a few neighboring buildings, maim a few real workers, and work for six months doing a job that a skilled operator could do in a week. And I bet the taxpayers would be overjoyed to pay the higher costs associated with hiring local, rather than skilled, workers.

Sorry Will - I'm by no means clueless.

It's not hard to monitor projects as small as these and any construction company who has one iota of smarts is going to try doing that. Do you really think that everyone else is that stupid?

Sorry for you.

Maybe the kited by with the Rock Hall and tried with Tower City but that was a long time ago and will not fly now. The contractors have to be certified by the state -you know that right? When it's state or federal money? You know how the minority du jeur is picked - that is beyond insulting that you would even say that.

Hi,
No need to regress to personal attacks Mr. Brown. I don't know you and I'm sure there is a reason why you resort to such comments.

I do not want a construction job. I want elected officials that are open and do what they promise.