They are smooth. You have to give Mission Viejo City staff credit for always pulling the wool over the taxpayers eyes. Forget about the expansion of the community center. That’s old news. No, I am talking about another MV recreation center project. Whenever we have a Capital Improvement Project, CIP, they typically low ball the proposal to avoid taxpayer criticism on the proposed expenditure. The Murray Center expansion surely confirmed that fact.
Another recreation center, Montanoso, is about to enter the same slippery slope of CIP expenditures.
Mission Viejo issues a quarterly magazine called “City Outlook.” In the Spring 2003 edition the front page headline reads “Montanoso Recreation Center to be Renovated.” As you read the front page it states that the “$1.4 million project has been approved.” It stated that “as additional information about this renovation project, the construction schedule, and plans to limit the disruption to our members will soon be available.”
At this time I can’t find the final cost of this project but I have spoken to someone who follows the recreation center projects in the city who believes the final cost was just at, or over, $2 million.
Fast forward to the June 30th Revised Budget, Mid-Cycle, review meeting in which the city is requesting $110,000 for design plus $675,000 to rehab the Montanoso Rec Center locker room. In discussing this CIP, Dennis Wilberg, City Manager said, and I quote: “The Montanoso locker room rehabilitation, umm, that frankly, was something we that should have done when the Montanoso rehabilitation was done, but that was a project that we kept, to a certain budget, and so this was part of a project that was done–so we are coming back and doing it after the fact.”
A nice admission by our city manager of withholding the “total” CIP cost from the public before we agree to the original renovation.
You can see and hear the budget review as item 5 on the June 30th council meeting on the city web site.
http://missionviejo.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=4&clip_id=193
Let me digress for a moment to comments by current Councilman Lance Mac Lean and Frank Ury who said we should not delay some of the proposed CIP’s in that the delay would entail inflation related increases. Lance pointed out that the cost of material and labor, over the past 12 months, increased by 8.8 percent while we are only getting four percent on our investments. Based on our current reserves, they are correct.
But where was that candid thought process by the city back in 2002 and 2003?
Why didn’t the staff give us the entire “wish list” of the renovation instead of putting off this work for a few years simply to make sure we approved the original CIP? This is another illustration of how to deceive the public in order to claim that you stayed under or near budget.
Sounds great. “Let’s limit the disruption to our members.” So now we will be inconvenienced a second time. And we write checks for another $800,000 that was never part of any earlier public hearings.
You really need to be careful when your city council meetings are televised live or rebroadcast later. Anyone with access to a TV set (or computer, anywhere in the world,) can tune in and watch you in action.
Email from our prior city manager:
Larry,
FYI. Back in 2002-2003 this project was not even on the CIP list of projects. At that time it wasn’t being considered for funding. We had done a preliminary estimate of the cost of the project and my memory tells me it was around $4 million. Believe me, the scope of the project as completed was NEVER contemplated back then. This project got out of hand with the current council.
Dan
Another email reply from Mission Viejo:
Thanks for the info, Larry, dismal as it is! Hopefully they can be stopped in their tracks (?!)
MV Email response:
In fairness to the rank and file in our city I should point out that those responsible are three upper managers including the city manager.
Larry:
As you might recall Montenoso was just recently rehabilitated. That was big bucks—. New equipment, new layout of building, and new landscaping. The street was even reworked for big bucks to make the neighborhood happy–all 13 homes on the street.
So when do these make work projects come from ?? You might look at who originates them. You might look at who let’s the contracts. You might look at who will kite the costs with 12 change orders.
It is time for a change. Start by getting rid of the city manager and the director of public works.
Hey, money is no problem. We have cell site leases to sell for pennies on the dollar.
All the city has to do is load up the parks with more cell sites to produce leases to help ATS get rich quick with its 10% cut for selling the leases.
The only losers are the homeowners surrounding the cell tower farms, I mean parks.
The kids can play in the streets where it will be safer for them !!
Don’t forget – change orders are profit centers for developers who keep our council members campaign coffers healthy. So don’t go rocking that boat.