Another CRC smoking gun: where's the accountability? And where's the Columbian?

By now, most everyone with the local political awareness of a  rock ape knows of Tiffany Couch's efforts to uncover the truths of the Columbia River Crossing Corruption.

David Madore has been steadfast and correct in his efforts to get to the bottom of this project... a project that has vaporized $150 million for a completely inadequate design that has yet to turn a shovel full of dirt... a project the Oregon Supreme Court has determined to be a sham, start to finish. Working on Madore's behalf, Couch has dug deep, and hit pay dirt.

Our local waste of wood pulp has completely abrogated their responsibility in this regard, generally because they don't want the public to know the truth; and specifically because they do not want the political chances of this rip off's rabid champions to be injured by any additional manure dumped on their buffet table of pro-CRCC/downtown mafia/CTran/CRUDEC/Chamber of Horrors economic incest.

In this regard, I'm changing to acronym "CRC" to the more accurate "CRCC," or Columbia River Crossing Corruption because the fact is, this project reeks with mismanagement, shady deals and efforts to exclude the public from having any meaningful input, an ongoing policy of violating the sunshine laws of this state through institutional disregard for the wants and desires of the people they would purport to serve.

The upshot of Tiffany's latest report is that a vast number of "accounting and contracting irregularities" have been exposed as a result of her examination; accounting and contracting irregularities that the Columbian, in their efforts to protect both the project and those politicians supporting this rip off, will continue to avoid discussing... precisely like this rag has failed to ever mention the Oregon Supreme Court's determination of the overt scammery of this entire, disturbing, process used by those ripping us off to stick it to us.

What follows is the entirety of the Executive Summary put together by Couch and ignored by the Columbian, lays bare the depths of the misfeasance/malfeasance and outright corruption and waste of millions of our dollars with millions more to go.

Will our Congresswoman do anything about this?

Of course not.  But one can always hope.

October 12, 2012

Washington State Legislative Oversight Committee
Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler
Concerned Citizens

Dear Elected Officials and Fellow Citizens:

Re: Columbia River Crossing – Contracts and Task Order Analysis

Thank you for the opportunity to communicate to you and your colleagues the results of my forensic accounting analysis of the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project.

The CRC project is a bi-state highway and transit project along the Interstate 5 corridor between Oregon and Washington that proposes to rebuild interchanges in both states, build a new bridge across the Columbia River, and extend light rail transit from Portland, Oregon into Vancouver, Washington.

While our work is funded by a private citizen, the results of these findings are not a private matter. Our client wishes for any findings to be shared with the citizens of Washington and Oregon, their elected officials, and other interested parties who need the information to make informed decisions.

Executive Summary

Acuity Group was hired in April 2011 to analyze documents and compile data in an attempt to provide clarity related to the expenditures of the Columbia River Crossing project. With adequate accounting reports, this task should have been relatively simple; but, simple accounting reports documenting expenditures (by vendor or by amount) have remained unavailable from the CRC project office. Instead, over the course of more than 18 months, Acuity Group has analyzed thousands of documents, attended dozens of meetings, and compiled data provided to us by the CRC project office and Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) in an attempt to answer the following questions:

 How much money has been spent on the CRC project?
 What companies have been paid?

In the 9 months since we issued our last report, additional questionable accounting and contracting irregularities have been uncovered on the CRC project office’s contract with their primary contractor, David Evans and Associates, Inc. (David Evans).

We first question accounting practices that do not provide for basic cost reporting on a project of this size and scope. According to the WSDOT Consultant Services Manual, contracts should be administered in accordance with Federal Regulation 49 CFR 18. Subsection 20 of that regulation (49 CFR 18.20(a)(1)) requires that “Fiscal control and accounting procedures of the State, as well as its subgrantees and cost-type contractors must be sufficient to permit preparation of reports as required....and, permit the tracing of funds to a level of expenditures
adequate to establish that such funds have not been used in violation of the restrictions and prohibitions of applicable statutes.”

We previously questioned contracting practices that allowed for consideration of only a single vendor for the $50 million original contract for the CRC project. Additional research related to Washington State contract and procurement standards has uncovered potential violations of the WSDOT Consultant Services Manual, a manual which identifies specific state and federal regulations which must be followed as well. Specifically, we question whether:

 The CRC project office sufficiently advertised for and made attempts to find sufficient competition from a wide area for the CRC project contract prior to awarding the contract to David Evans and Associates.

 The CRC project office sufficiently documented its potential “Organizational Conflict of Interest” with David Evans and Associates to ensure that the firm did not have an unfair competitive advantage over other qualified firms as a result of performing “pre-CRC” studies on the I-5 corridor.

 Increasing costs on the David Evans and Associates contract could be attributable to their own design errors (some of which have been documented publicly). We also question whether the CRC project office has quantified the financial impacts of these potential errors as called for in the WSDOT Consultant Services Manual. We further question whether any costs attributable to errors by David Evans and Associates, or their subcontractors, has been reimbursed to the State of Washington.

We also question budget and oversight practices that allow for a $50 million “Maximum Amount Payable” contract to inflate to $131,220,000 with little more than a series of 3 page standard language documents.

Lastly, we question the necessity of several multimillion dollar Task Orders, which appear to budget for duplicative work. And we further question the 103 Task Order Amendments (i.e. change orders) that have been approved by the CRC project office and the fact that we have not seen any Task Order Amendments that have been denied.

In summary, we report to you that the CRC project is still in the design phase and that:

1. Total Project Expenditures through September 2012 are $153,835,863

o The CRC project office has averaged monthly spending of $2.3 million per month between January and September 2012.

2. CRC Project office’s main contractor, David Evans and Associates:

o Has been paid $104,252,228 (67.77% of total expenditures to date)

o Was the only contractor to submit a Statement of Qualifications on the CRC project.

o Was also the contractor who performed numerous “pre-CRC” studies on the I-5 corridor between 1999 and 2004 (a potential conflict of interest).

3. Through June 2012, David Evans and Associates has been awarded $131.2 million on a Maximum Amount Payable” contract of $50 million.

4. The initial budgeted costs (i.e. Task Orders) for David Evans and Associates to “advance the Project through the Record of Decision” (i.e. original scope of work) were $61.7 million.

o Task Order Amendments increased the original scope of work by $13 million to $74.7 million.

5. Additional Task Orders and Amendments issued after the original scope of work added $51.1 million in additional cost.

o These additional Task Orders contain wording duplicative of work already budgeted for.

6. Total Task Orders, with Amendments, on the David Evans and Associates Contract are currently valued at $125.8 million.

 This represents $75.8 million in cost overruns over the original “Maximum Amount Payable” $50 million contract.

 Total Task Orders and Amendments on the David Evans and Associates contract, valued at $125.8 million, do not appear to reconcile to the David Evans and Associates master contract, currently valued at $131.2 million.

7. Task Orders potentially attributable to design errors have been noted. We question why the CRC project office is apparently expending more funds to rectify these issues rather than following procedures to potentially seek recourse from David Evans and Associates for these errors.

o We further question Task Orders costing millions of dollars for “meetings” and “strategy sessions”, for duplicative work, and which do not require David Evans and Associates to provide the CRC project office with any deliverables.

It is my professional opinion that the magnitude of these accounting and contracting irregularities is significant enough to warrant investigation by an agency of appropriate jurisdiction. Whether there is sufficiency to elevate these irregularities to a definition of fraud is not the subject of this report. Such definition could not be ascribed without further scrutiny and investigation. That responsibility from here forward falls to you – the elected officials who run these states – in your representation of your constituents, the citizens of Washington and Oregon.

Please note that these findings are limited in scope to the analysis of a single contract of the CRC project; there may be other instances or events, not referenced herein, which may also violate applicable procurement codes or statutes. These findings should not be considered a complete collection of suspect transactions and will be amended as additional forensic accounting is completed and/or additional documents are provided.

The report goes into excruciating detail, documenting each and every allegation of impropriety in such a way that a blind Beagle could see it in a minute.

Will our Congresswoman speak to this?

Will our daily newspaper write anything about this?

Don't hold your breath.

We've been screwed here, and those governing us at most levels are partially responsible.  Those who know about the scam aspect of this and are in a position to act, like, say, for example, Marc Boldt; who continue to ignore these issues should be held directly liable for their direct failure to protect the people who elected them and who they, allegedly, are here to serve.

Because this is the largest failure to oversee our money in any contract in the history of government in this area.  And those supporting this rip off are doing nothing... and the daily newspaper, which has long since selectively abrogated their responsibility in this matter continues to do nothing, like they fail to provide any information of judgment that injures their agenda or their candidates.

Despicable.