NorCo Council Low-Balled on Archives Building

Since his election as Northampton County Executive in 2006, John Stoffa has wanted an archives building for the county's numerous records. It had a state-of-the-art facility, the envy of numerous other counties who periodically toured it. But it was torn down under former Executive Glenn Reibman to make way for a jail expansion. In April, Council waved its magic wand and granted Stoffa's wish, authorizing his purchase of a Forks Township building at 999 Conroy Place. But along the way, it appears that someone in his administration may have deceived Council, intentionally or unintentionally, concerning its actual cost. Let me tell you the story.

This purchase was long overdue. The County was paying $120,000 every year to store these records, in a floodplain, in Allentown. There was also a 48-hour delay for anyone who needed to view them. Originally, Stoffa decided to buy the Milides building, across the street from the courthouse, only to learn later that the parking was inadequate. After reviewing over thirty other sites, Stoffa finally decided on 999 Conroy Place with its 24 parking places, handicapped accessibility and close proximity to police and fire departments.

But nothing in life or government is free. Council had to sign off on a $750,000 purchase price from owner Edwin Stipe, who only paid $430,000 to buy the building in 2000. Stoffa warned Council that there would be substantial associated costs, too, including a whopping $600,000 for high-tech shelving.

It would also cost the County $90,000 to permanently retrieve the records from the Allentown facility.

Finally, there would be retrofit costs. This building would have to be modified with all kinds of humidity controls and specialized fire suppression to protect records, some of them nearly 300 years old, from the ravages of time.

Council member Ken Kraft, who eventually voted to make the purchase, wanted to know how much it would cost to retrofit the building. At the April Council meeting, he asked for a "firm" number. At this time , Director of Court Services Archie D'Isidore had two widely divergent engineering cost estimates in his pocket. One was for $700,000, and the other was for a little over half that amount, $356,000.

Instead of stating he really had no "firm" number, D'Isidore low-balled Council, just disclosing the $356,000 figure. "And that will pretty much include everything, including the HVAC, lighting, the whole nine yards," he assured Kraft and the rest of Council.

When bids for the retrofit came, the lowest one was $511,000, which is $155,000 more than Archie D'Isidore had led Council to believe.

Below are excerpts of some of the tense exchanges at Thursday night's Council meeting.

John Stoffa: "The initial estimate [of retrofit costs] was not accurate in terms of what it's going to take to get the building done, so up to $200,000 more is needed to complete that work."

Steve DeSalva, Director of Public Works: "There was oversight with the engineer. They missed some items."

"When the bids came in, we saw a $165,000 that was above the cost that was estimated."

"You could say that most of the costs were HVAC, but they were across the board proportionately."

"We know we got a good bid. We just had a bad engineer's estimate."

Herman Van Fleet, Project Architect, with thirty years experience: "You're getting good value for what you ended up with."

Ken Kraft: "Thirty years in the business and you didn't know an archives building needed special humidity control and special HVAC units and special fire suppression because it's all paper and it's not your typical office building?"

"Where did we miss this?"

Van Fleet then acknowledges that there was an original estimate of $700,000, which is higher than the $511,000. But amazingly, he was asked to lower his own estimate.

"We were asked to move forward with a very low ball estimate at $350,000."

Ken Kraft. "Who asked to go forward with a low ball estimate?"

Van Fleet: "We presented both."

Ken Kraft: "No. Who asked you to go forward with a low ball estimate because that estimate came to us, for us to approve this building when we decided to buy it, so who told you to do that?"

Van Fleet: "Both were presented and the lower one was decided to move forward."

Ken Kraft: "Presented to whom?"

Van Fleet: "We gave it back to, I didn't personally do it myself, but it was given back to the County."

Ken Kraft: "You know, we're responsible for spending people's money and to get the most for the money that we spend. You, being a qualified architect, I mean someone here should be responsible for it. Not us, for $200,000. Maybe the architect who didn't design. ... It's just an easy way to pass it off to somebody else. I'm a painter. I did an archives building for Lehigh University. I knew there were special suppression systems. I knew there was special HVAC. I'm just a painter, OK? You're an architect. 30 years."

Lamont McClure: "You originally submitted a bid that was in the neighborhood of $700,000?"

Van Fleet: "It was a estimate. Very preliminary."

McClure: "Which is ultimately what it ended up being after you went in there and started tearing things up, correct? About $700,000 now?"

Van Fleet: "No, it's - I believe the final bids are $511,000."

McClure:  "Right, but we need more money? Correct? Isn't that what we're talking about? What we're trying to get at here is how did this second bid come about? ... Did you realize that was never going to cover the cost of bidding out the archives building?"

Blogger's Note: There was no second bid. McClure is confused. An engineer presented the County with two cost estimates, and the lower one was presented to Council before any bids were sought. 

Van Fleet: "The second lower bid was very preliminary in nature and we through the design phase discovered that the actual cost was going to be more. We had a signed contract given to us in June. We requested in our bid to have four months of design period so we could get more cost estimates and so forth. We had one month. We actually staffed up and did our very best to get this thing done in one month. And we did. It went out to bids August 1."

DeSalva: "I think that a mistake was made. The estimate was wrong".

McClure: "So they made the mistake? The architect made the mistake? ... We're talking about the veracity of bids that are presented to us tied to projects that we approve. That's what I think Mr. Kraft was getting at, and that's what has me interested. The fact of the matter is they came in with a higher bid and someone asked them to whittle that down. Who asked them to whittle it down?"

Blogger's Note: McClure still seems to be confusing the low-ball estimate with the bids that were later received.

DeSalva: "I guess we wanted to get the lowest cost but still get what we needed."

McClure: "Who's we?"

DeSalva: "I would have said that. I would have said, 'Do what you gotta' do.' ... I think it would be a general theme. You don't want to pay for anything more than you need."

Kraft: "That's like saying you want to go to the lowest bidder for a heart transplant. I don't understand."

Bob Werner: "In November 2011 [when original cost estimate was prepared], you came up with a figure that was based on a guess, yes?"

Van Fleet: "Based on a guess."

Werner: "This is what has happened in the past, and I don't believe it should happen again. I think we have to be more diligent. Our due diligence here is negligible."

Scott Parsons knew what was going on. "Every time you put something out to bid, your bid is going to come in a lot higher. ... Very seldom do you see a bid come in lower than your estimate. You're low-balling the estimate to get us to do it. That's the mistake. Don't low-ball estimates. The project was probably going to be approved regardless of the amount."

John Stoffa: "It's not complicated. Borton Lawson [the engineer] made a mistake. They made a bad mistake."

Stoffa told Council that Barton Lawson is working gratis until the end of the project. He also got a little snippy with Ken Kraft when Kraft complained about payment to the engineer.

"I answered your question," interrupted Stoffa. "They will not get one cent more until this project is complete."

One question that was never answered, despite repeated requests, is the identity of the County official who wanted that low ball estimate. Whether it was just Archie D'Isidore or some collective is at this point unknown.

Borton Lawson may have made a "bad mistake," but so did Director of Court Services Archie D'Isidore. He clearly misled Council with a low-ball. That's deplorable from an administration whose legacy has been  its integrity.

D'Isidore, incidentally, is one of the County officials who recommended that Stoffa appoint an inexperienced Register of Wills over a 13-year veteran who was backed by the courts. He also recently conducted a two-year investigation into employees' email exchanges, and got two of them fired for gossiping via email and using naughty language. He even considered recommending himself for the Recorder of Deeds slot, so he'd be safe when Stoffa leaves office.

Who is looking at him?

Council, by a 8-1 vote with only Bruce Gilbert opposed, wants the Controller to find out what the hell is going on.

I think I know. There's a growing weakness in the Stoffa administration. He is not seeking re-election. He's lost strong cabinet members like John Conklin and Vic Mazziotti, with more on their way out and others looking. The attention to detail that existed even a year ago is no longer there.  I'd like to think that Stoffa's originals would have corrected D'Isidore when he mis-spoke in April.

Incidentally, only $1,053,000 was set aside for the archives building in the 2012 budget. I am unable to see any provision for the $600,000 shelving cost in either the 2012 or 2013 budget.. I might be wrong, bt the Exec never conducted a news conference concerning his looming 2013 Budget.