Jackson Jambalaya

Crickets.....

Well, he may not know how to run a city, but I still say that, of all the mayorITORIAL candidates, Tony's the one I'd most want up in the Jacuzzi with me. That preacherman just OOZES studliness.

I'm sure "Socrates" would have been been just as prompt with a change order that would reduce his take by 5M !!!!!

What's heavier, a ton of bricks or a ton of popcorn?

The City of Jackson contracts are well known to have a line item in the quantities for a measure to counter the effect of dirt washing away from a project, they call it a "SILK Fence" where the correct industry wide construction term is a "SILT Fence". No joke.

Hold the applause- the original bid was at $42 per ton and now they are paying $72 per ton...hahaha
PSI laughing all the way to the bank and the City thinks they are saving millions....they are actually over paying by $3 million ( $30/tnx100,000tns)- PSI is getting paid $3 million more for doing 33% of the planned work-

100,000 tons of 305,000 tons estimated = 32.8%

$8,153,000 paid of $13,768,250 estimated = 59.2%

Yep, looks like somebody got a good deal!

That’s called scale.

You reduce processed volume and set expenses eat up a larger portion of the overall project.

Or, to put in Rankin County terms, why is the same cereal from Walmart more expensive than Sams?

Bulk.

A good result, but this one cannot be handed to the administration of Jr. This 'problem' was front loaded so that the successful (recommended) bidder would be Tony's contributor/benefactor. In order to cover the extra costs required to be recommended (remember, Ms. Powell left after having testified that she had to redo bid evaluations to obtain the proper result) they estimated a great deal more sludge to be removed. After all, who was going to know how many truck loads were hauled away ---- except of course for the guy standing there checking off the delivery tickets. Doesn't take much to figure why Yarber tried so hard to get this contract given to his guy ---- an extra 200,000 tons that didn't need to be hauled. Good ole Louisiana (and Jackson) math; one for you, one for me, one for the guy over behind the tree.

Once it was awarded to the white/woman group, who didn't have to include any graft or corruption, they hauled what was there, got paid what they bid, and the city saved the money that otherwise would have gone to ?????

What a joke. The real story here isn't that the city saved money. It's that the contractor recieved a significant increase in price. I to lazy to go into details. But rest assured the city still is getting screwed.
FYI. My opinion is based on 25 years of experience in the commercial contracting.

Geez...here we go again.
There is a base cost for any project/contract. The time in man hours is where the increases or decreases primarily occur and in some added materials.
Let me try to simplify this for the simple minded. If I need to clean my house, those cleaning it will need at least one vacuum and one steam cleaner and transportation to get those items to my house. They will need people to use the equipment. Whether they spend 3 hours or 8 hours or two days depends on the size of my house and how dirty it is. It is possible they can reduce their costs by adding one more vacuum if that cost is less than the man hour cost would be. They will also need more cleaning liquids the larger my house is even if they don't need more machines.
Unless you geniuses know the base cost of the" machines" and how much "cleaning liquids" are associated with this contract or any other, you don't know how much savings there is. You only know the size of the " house" is different.
Economies of scale are not just about " bulk".

Is this truly a "savings"? Nope. Even after adjustment it is a net cost avoidance for this project. They'll spend the budgeted money elsewhere and, therefore, not a damn penny will be "saved".

But, beyond Kingfish, the rest of the gullible Jackson media is too stupid to understand the difference and too ready to parrot Lumumba's self-pronouncements of greatness.

Keep up the good job Mr. Mayor. Lumumba is destined for greater things and higher office. We are fortunate to have him at the helm in Jackson but I don't think we'll be able to keep him long. Kinda reminds me of Obama and his march towards destiny. Viva la Lumumba!

City saved $5 million? Great! Can that money be used for pothole patching in my neighborhood, and street resurfacing?

CDM Smith was the City's consulting engineer on the biosolids RFP. They're the ones who included the miscalculation in the RFP, and their fat fee was based on the value of the contract. The City Council needs to demand repayment from them. Oh, and BTW, CDM Smith was sponsored a big fundraiser in Houston which Tony failed to report until a year after he was elected, after somebody tipped off the press.

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2016/04/22/yarber-updated-holes-campaign-finance-report/83400156/

Section 3, Page 3-2 of the RFP Reads:

"The successful Proposer will be responsible for removing 100% of the dewatered biosolids. If, AT ANY POINT, the total quantity of dewatered biosolids IS FOUND to be GREATER OR LESS than the 305,000 WET TON estimation, the successful Proposer SHALL REMOVE the total actual quantities stored within the containment basins at the Savanna Street WWTP at the Proposer’s UNIT PRICE. The disposal shall be performed in accordance with Federal, State and Local regulations."

Somebody didn't read the RFP, they should have never been allowed to change their unit price. Terry Williamson was not looking out for best interest of the COJ while sitting at the table with Tony and K. Powell. Maybe TW should pay the money back since he wrote and approved the language in the RFP/Contract. Richard Partridge is laughing all the way to the bank!!!!!

Yes! There is SOME base cost involved but to more than double your unit cost is borderline criminal ($42 orig vs $91.97 requested) and to agree to a 171% increase ($72 final) should result in a legal investigation. Stamps says "I don't think there is fraud here" What pray tell does it take to consider the obvious.

Borderline criminal is to estimate the amount of biosolids at three times the actual amount. Not that hard to calculate, if one uses just a little bit of effort -- unless, of course, it is intentionally overestimated to go along with the insistance of granting the contract to local go-to guy (go-to for contracts, financing, body paint, whatever is needed).

Miller as PW Director is the one good action taken by this Mayor but you can't really give him credit for this (as CAL JR tried to do). The fact is that there were not 300,000 wet tons; the contract had a unit cost and there were only 100,000 units. The savings were that the previous Mayor didn't get his way in giving the contract to his choice contractor who would have been able to find 300,000 units to bill for resulting in a hidden boom for someone (or ones). When contract went to Patridge, there was no incentive to double count the trucks leaving the facility. All that was required was a good faith negotiation as to the contract terms with the substantial reduction in wet tons. Overall was a sh*ty situation, but the majority on the Council that stopped the graft in its tracks deserves the credit for this 'savings'.

In 2013 Socrates bragged on his website about his joint venture with CDM Smith on the original Savanna Street project. Back then he said they only stored 97,000 tons of sludge in the geotubes (information obviously known by CDM Smith - and confirmed now by Partridge). How the heck did that volume grow to 305,000 tons after the fact? And why? Inquiring minds want to know . . .

http://www.garretteci.com/projects/

Thank you, 7:56. The Mayor is slowly turning the aircraft carrier around, and I'm grateful to see it happening.

Great work Antar and Mr. Miller. Shocking how blatantly Socrates, Yarber, Houston Consultant were conspiring to literally rob Jackson of $7,000,000 to pocket themselves. How many such deals didn't get caught? Doesn't this really chap Jacksonians? How are these crooks allowed to get away?

Do all contracts with Jackson still have the mentor added into them?

5:03,11:26 and others are exactly correct-
Anyone that knows anything about contracts and change orders should recognize this change order should be rescinded...its paying the contractor $3 million dollars for nothing- Obviously, not only was the city asleep , they weren't even present for this negotiation-